Pivot files "BodyCuff" complaint
[Click to link to podcast on this topic (March 4)]
Internet postings attributed to VPD show modified restraint devices purchased to use on prisoners who are “pains in the butt.”
Vancouver, March 3, 2009 – Pivot Legal Society is calling upon the Vancouver Police Department to change their policy regarding the use of “modified restraint devices” on prisoners in the Vancouver jail.
The call comes after the Willow Kinloch decision in Victoria, where a jury awarded $60,000 to a teen who was placed in a restraining device for hours on end after being uncooperative with jail guards.
The current VPD policy allows officers to place prisoners who are “causing a disturbance” in restraint devices even though they have been placed into a jail cell and are no longer a threat to officer safety. Pivot has received three complaints from individuals who say they were painfully bound at both their hands and feet by jail guards, and left in their cells for long periods of time barely able to move.
“These devices were designed to temporarily help officers transport a violent offender into a jail cell, not to inflict pain on an uncooperative prisoner who is already in a jail cell,” says Douglas King, policing campaigner for the Pivot Legal Society. “Using this device as a form of corporal punishment on people is an abuse of police authority and needs to be banned.”
“I was put in that restraint device for at least 30 minutes, and the more I tried to move the more uncomfortable it would get,” said one of the complainants, Bobbi O’Shea, who was placed in a modified restraining device after trying to shield a male guard from watching her use the toilet in her jail cell. “I remember a girl from one of the nearby cells telling me that if I was quiet they would stop, but I thought to myself ‘How can I be quiet when I am in so much pain?’”
Pivot is also calling on the VPD to clarify whether online comments attributed to one if its officers are accurate. An order for 6-8 BodyCuffs was made “for clients who intend on being pains in the butt,” states a posting to “Blue Line Forums,” an online police forum, by a user identified as “vpd”. The VPD proposed changes to the policy to include the BodyCuff shortly after the date of the posting. The full text of the posting can be found here
Pivot is calling on the VPD to tighten up its policy on the use of restraint devices, and forbid the use of the ‘BodyCuff’ and ‘Hobble’ on prisoners in cells. It has filed a formal complaint with the Vancouver Police Board asking it to make a determination on the issue.
Full copy of complaint here
