Aftermath News

“They called me a b-i-t-c-h,” Lucasz said, spelling out the word instead of saying it. “They kept on swearing at me like a criminal.”

The Ottawa Citizen | Apr 18, 2008

By Andrew Seymour

The parents of a 10-year-old boy who was handcuffed and placed in the back seat of a police cruiser for being too noisy intend to file a complaint against Ottawa police today, alleging that at least one officer went too far in the way he treated their son.

Thomasz and Santana Gurzynski say police drew their firearms before entering their Norberry Crescent apartment and scratched the back of their son, Lucasz, while forcing him to sit down for questioning without an adult present.

Mrs. Gurzynski, 35, believes it was an overreaction by police, who were responding to a neighbour’s complaint that the Grade 5 student and five friends were playing video games too loudly and play fighting with wooden sticks.

“They shouldn’t be that loud, but the punishment didn’t fit the crime,” said Mrs. Gurzynski, who was walking home from her mother’s nearby house with her husband when the police arrived and apprehended her son shortly after 5 p.m. on Sunday.

Lucasz said he and his friends had been playing video games and fighting with the wooden sticks for about 40 minutes when a male neighbour yelled at them to quiet down and threw an empty beer can at their balcony, breaking a window.

Frightened, Lucasz said he and his friends left the apartment. When he returned with a 12-year-old female friend between five and 10 minutes later, three police officers were waiting for him in the hallway.

After he unlocked the apartment for the police, two of the officers drew weapons and kicked the door open before returning the guns to their holsters.

Lucasz said one officer then grabbed him by the shoulder and sat him down on a chair, scratching his back. He said the officer spotted a knife in the kitchen and told Lucasz that, if he had been holding it when they came in, he would have been Tasered.

The officer also wanted to know the names of the other children who had been at the apartment.

“After they finished questioning me, they handcuffed me,” Lucasz said yesterday, adding the officers ignored his request to speak to an aunt who lives in the same building.

Throughout the questioning, Lucasz alleged, the officers used foul language.

“They called me a b-i-t-c-h,” Lucasz said, spelling out the word instead of saying it. “They kept on swearing at me like a criminal.”

Lucasz, who was placed in the back seat of a police cruiser, said he was in tears when his parents arrived at the apartment about 20 minutes later. He was later released into their custody.

“I thought I was never going to see my parents again because they said something about child services,” Lucasz said, adding he was still having nightmares about the incident.

While acknowledging they were called to a “disturbance” at that address on Sunday, police declined comment on the incident.

Const. J.P. Vincelette said officers would handcuff children if they felt they were a risk to themselves or the officers. Const. Vincelette said it was generally at an officer’s discretion when to draw a firearm, but they often do it when there is a potential that other weapons are involved.

The amendments build on previous reforms by the then Howard government which required Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to implement wiretapping provisions in VoIP services.

Private organisations will be handed “quasi-police” powers under separate government plans announced on Monday.

Attorney-General Robert McClelland said business owners will be handed powers to intercept employee e-mails without notice in a bid to prevent cyber-terrorism.

Consumer advocacy groups are outraged by the reforms and have questioned the motives of the government, labelling the move as a blatant invasion of privacy.

NSW Council of Civil Liberties president, Cameron Murphy, said the changes are unnecessary and will inadvertently subject hundreds of people to privacy violations.

“These laws will massively increase the number of interception points available for techniques such as wiretapping,” Murphy said.

“Everything from online chatting, to Skype (VoIP) and mobile phone calls will be open to interception.”

He believes the changes are being driven by law enforcement which is effectively offloading its work on the private industry.

The reforms also violate the privacy of other parties involved in a monitored communication channel, according to the Council, the Australian Privacy Foundation (APF) and the Electronic Frontiers Association (EFA).

The organisations told Computerworld that NSW law, which allows businesses to intercept employee e-mails with consent, is a breach of the TIA and the Privacy Act. The problem arises from ambiguity in the law which does not stipulate rules for dealing with third party information, and what constitutes consent.