A woman who was violently arrested and had her arm broken by Montreal police wants the department's ethics commissioner to review her case.
In 2014, Majiza Philip was charged with assaulting two police officers and obstruction of justice, but last month was acquitted of all charges against her.
To this day, the police ethics commission claims the officers did nothing wrong.
The matter began in 2014 when a friend of Philip’s was ejected from the Olympia concert venue for excessive drinking and subsequently ticketed by police for loitering.
Outside the club, Philip knocked on the rear window of the police car to inform her friend she had his jacket. She said she was then grabbed by a police officer who pulled her arms behind her back and used a baton to break her arm.
Philip said she was then handcuffed and taken to a police station for processing before being brought to St-Luc Hospital, where X-rays showed her left humerus was fractured.
Philip was acquitted in municipal court because the judge found there were multiple contradictions in the police officers' accounts of what happened.
The police ethics commissioner dismissed her case before the acquittal, saying the three officers involved did not commit any misconduct, and even cited the possibility that "weakened bones" may be to blame for her injury.
Philip wants the police ethics commissioner to reopen the case.
“If I don't follow this through, I’m letting down countless other people who have also been through this. I know that I have the grounds and I have the right as a human being to be treated fairly, and I really hope the commission thinks about reopening my case, because there are a lot of holes and things need to be decided,” she said.
If the police ethics commission doesn't re-open the file, the Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations is asking for an independent counsel to be appointed to evaluate the case.
