Civil proceedings have been undertaken in the case of a 17-year-old girl who was sexually assaulted while she was handcuffed in the back seat of a police truck.
In September 2011, the only police officer on duty in Tasiujaq, Quebec, an Inuit community of roughly 300 inhabitants and three police officers, received a call to remove a heavily intoxicated young girl from a family party. According to court documents obtained by La Presse, the teen's hands were cuffed behind her back and she was put in the back seat of a police truck next to Joe Kritik, who had also been arrested for an alcohol-related disturbance that night. Kritik, 25, a repeat sex offender with four prior sexual assault convictions, was not cuffed.
The Kativik Regional Police Force (KRPF) officer, who had one month of policing experience and wasn't even allowed to carry a gun, then left the two alone in the locked truck while she gathered information on the arrest of the 17-year-old. When she returned, Kritik was laying on top of the girl, pants down.
Despite telling the constable that she had been vaginally penetrated, the victim did not receive a medical exam, a standard procedure in sexual assault cases. Nor were her parents contacted. Instead, CBC reported that the young girl was put in a jail cell where she spent the night. The officer was suspended the following day and she has since resigned from the police force. Joe Kritik eventually pleaded guilty to the sexual assault and was sentenced to 39 months in prison.
The victim, who cannot be named because she was a minor at the time of the incident, has now filed a civil lawsuit against the police officer, the KRPF as well as the Kativik Regional Government. She is asking for a total of $400,000 in damages, citing "an incredible lack of concern for the safety of the plaintiff" on the part of the arresting officer and "a serious lack of professionalism and gross negligence" on the part of the KRPF. The lawsuit even claims that the officer slammed the door of the victim's jail cell on her face and broke her tooth.
Read more: http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/kativik-woman-sexually-assaulted-while-cu...
http://xrepublic.tv/node/12277
No comments:
Post a Comment