An elderly Black couple are alleging that Durham Regional Police and staff at an Ajax, Ont., hospital, assaulted and abused them during a fall 2018 confrontation, and then tried to suppress video of the incident via threats of arrest and legal action.
Livingston Jeffers accompanied his wife, Pamelia, to the emergency room at Lakeridge Health Ajax Pickering Hospital on the evening of Oct. 30, 2018, because she was vomiting and suffering from insomnia.
But by the wee hours of the morning, both had been admitted to the hospital east of Toronto on mental health grounds, with a bloodied Livingston Jeffers also receiving treatment for cuts and abrasions after a struggle with two police officers that saw him receive a number of blows to the head.
“You see your grandfather arrested, in handcuffs, with trauma to the head, bruises, bleeding—unconscious with his head back on a chair,” said Trequan Jeffers, the couple’s 22-year-old grandson. “This needs to stop. It really needs to stop. My grandparents need justice. We need justice.”
At a socially distanced news conference Monday, the couple’s lawyers released two videos of the melee that occurred just outside the hospital entrance after staff, and then police, tried to stop the couple from leaving the facility.
One, shot on a cellphone by a witness, captures two police officers restraining and punching Jeffers, now 70, as he lay on the rain-soaked tarmac shouting “murder,” while his 69-year-old wife cries and resists the attempts of staff to bring her back inside. A nurse and a security guard are heard warning the witness that filming is illegal because it “violates patient confidentiality.”
WATCH | A video recorded by a witness shows part of the altercation:
Cell phone video captured by a witness shows part of the altercation between two Durham police officers and Livingston Jeffers. 0:33
Corey Rainford, the 22-year-old man who witnessed the beginning of the incident and shot the 33-second video, said that he was shocked by the level of force police used against Livingston Jeffers.
And he and his friend, Kaitlyn Wilson-McLean, told the same story about a hospital staffer and a Durham Police officer later approaching them inside the emergency room and forcing Rainford to delete the video while they watched.
“A police officer and one of the nurses pulled me off to the side, in the … entranceway and threatened that if I’m not going to delete the video in front of them, I’m going to be arrested and charged,” said Rainford.
Video shared
A “scared” Rainford complied, but had already introduced himself to Trequan Jeffers, who had arrived a few minutes earlier to check on his grandparents, and shared the video with him.
The second video, pieced together from several hospital security cameras, lasts for several minutes. It shows a nurse following the couple outside, where she is quickly joined by a security guard, a doctor and then the Durham officers who were parked at the nearby ambulance bay on an unrelated call.
The video of the confrontation is grainy and shot from a distance, making it impossible to see exactly how things turned physical. But the struggle between Jeffers and the police appears to go on for at least another minute after the cellphone video ends and all but one witness, a nurse, returns inside.
WATCH | Surveillance video from the hospital:
Surveillance video from Lakeridge Health Ajax and Pickering Hospital shows altercation between Livingston and Pamelia Jeffers, Durham police and hospital staff early on Oct. 31, 2018 5:34
According to a May 2020 report prepared by Ontario’s Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD), it was during this period that Jeffers put his hand on one of the officer’s guns and tried to remove it from its holster — an act that was witnessed by the nearby nurse.
One of the Durham officers was wearing an active body cam at the time, as part of a pilot project, and the audio apparently captures him warning his partner about the attempt to take his weapon. The second officer reacted by delivering what the report describes as “four elbow strikes” to Jeffers’s head, knocking him unconscious.
Constables cleared by investigator
The outside investigator, a former York Regional Police officer, cleared both Durham constables of allegations of arrest without cause and excess use of force, ruling that their actions were justified.
One of the constables sustained scratches to his face in the struggle, and Jeffers was arrested on charges of assault and trying to disarm an officer, but the matter was later dropped, in part because the officers failed to read Jeffers his rights.
The lawyers for the couple have asked for, but have yet to receive the body cam video. And the Durham Regional Police Service is refusing to release it to the media.
In a statement issued Monday, the force said it will not comment on the case because of ongoing civil litigation. The Jefferses filed suit last November seeking a total of $1.6 million from the police and hospital — and a newly filed request by the family for a review of the OIPRD decision.
In a statement to CBC News, Lakeridge Health said it will not speak about “individual patient experiences” because of privacy concerns, but that it “strives to provide excellent patient care to all members of our community.”
Faisal Kutty, who represents the Jefferses, said he has serious concerns about the investigative report, noting that neither Rainford, nor Wilson-McLean, were interviewed. (They were apparently contacted in March, but didn’t receive a response to their request to delay a face-to-face meeting over concerns about COVID-19.)
“We don’t think the review was properly done,” he said. “The investigator is actually doing the job of protecting the cops, not really looking for truth and justice. And so that’s why we are now trying to ask for a review.”
Livingston and Pamelia Jeffers are suing Durham Regional Police and Lakeridge Health Ajax Pickering Hospital after a violent altercation with two police officers outside the hospital in October 2018. (Submitted by Jeffers family)
The Jefferses themselves did not attend Monday’s news conference. Kutty said that they are still suffering from the psychological fallout of that evening, and were fearful that the police might show up.
At the news conference, Kutty’s co-counsel, Kalim Khan, drew parallels between his clients’ experience and the recent killing of George Floyd in Minnesota, and the violent arrest of Chief Adam Allan by Alberta RCMP in March
Kutty contends that the couple are also victims of systemic racism and implicit bias on the part of the police and the hospital, factors that saw them treated as threats rather than people in need of assistance.
Told they could go home for night
No one, Kutty said, disputes that a doctor told the Jefferses that it was all right for them to go home for the night and return the next day — unaware that one of his colleagues was about to start preparing the paperwork to have Pamelia Jeffers assessed on mental health grounds.
Livingston Jeffers had a previous run-in with police. In 2007, he was convicted for mischief and counselling murder with regards to a series of difficult-to-decipher posters that he put up around Scarborough after losing his condominium in a bank foreclosure. The verdict was later unanimously overturned by the Ontario Court of Appeal.
“What we need to know, what we need to decide as a society is — even if somebody is mentally ill, is this how you treat them?” Kutty said. “You take them down violently, when according to the witness, they were leaving?”
He said the Jefferses, in addition to the compensation, are seeking an apology from the police and hospital and a promise of change. They also want to see mandatory training on de-escalating disputes and confrontations.
“When somebody is allegedly suffering from mental health issues, they owe [them] an additional, extra duty of care to treat them with compassion,” said Kutty.
MONCTON, N.B. – New Brunswick RCMP say two youths have been arrested after an emergency alert was issued Monday evening about someone carrying a gun in the province’s southeast.
Caledonia Region Mounties say they were first called out to Main Street in the community of Salisbury around 7 p.m. on reports of a shooting.
A 48-year-old man was found at the scene suffering from gunshot wounds and he was rushed to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Police say in the interest of public safety, they issued an Alert Ready message at 8:15 p.m. for someone driving a silver Ford F-150 pickup truck and reportedly carrying a firearm with dangerous intent in the Salisbury and Moncton area.
Two youths were arrested without incident later in the evening in Salisbury, and the alert was cancelled just after midnight Tuesday.
Police are still looking for the silver pickup truck, covered in mud, with possible Nova Scotia licence plate HDC 958. They now confirm the truck was stolen from Central Blissville.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
MISSISSAUGA, Ont. – Golf Canada has set an impressive stretch goal of having 30 professional golfers at the highest levels of the sport by 2032.
The World Junior Girls Golf Championship is a huge part of that target.
Credit Valley Golf and Country Club will host the international tournament from Sept. 30 to Oct. 5, with 24 teams representing 23 nations — Canada gets two squads — competing. Lindsay McGrath, a 17-year-old golfer from Oakville, Ont., said she’s excited to be representing Canada and continue to develop her game.
“I’m really grateful to be here,” said McGrath on Monday after a news conference in Credit Valley’s clubhouse in Mississauga, Ont. “It’s just such an awesome feeling being here and representing our country, wearing all the logos and being on Team Canada.
“I’ve always wanted to play in this tournament, so it’s really special to me.”
McGrath will be joined by Nobelle Park of Oakville, Ont., and Eileen Park of Red Deer, Alta., on Team Canada 2. All three earned their places through a qualifying tournament last month.
“I love my teammates so much,” said McGrath. “I know Nobelle and Eileen very well. I’m just so excited to be with them. We have such a great relationship.”
Shauna Liu of Maple, Ont., Calgary’s Aphrodite Deng and Clairey Lin make up Team Canada 2. Liu earned her exemption following her win at the 2024 Canadian Junior Girls Championship while Deng earned her exemption as being the low eligible Canadian on the world amateur golf ranking as of Aug. 7.
Deng was No. 175 at the time, she has since improved to No. 171 and is Canada’s lowest-ranked player.
“I think it’s a really great opportunity,” said Liu. “We don’t really get that many opportunities to play with people from across the world, so it’s really great to meet new people and play with them.
“It’s great to see maybe how they play and take parts from their game that we might also implement our own games.”
Golf Canada founded the World Junior Girls Golf Championship in 2014 to fill a void in women’s international competition and help grow its own homegrown talent. The hosts won for the first time last year when Vancouver’s Anna Huang, Toronto’s Vanessa Borovilos and Vancouver’s Vanessa Zhang won team gold and Huang earned individual silver.
Medallists who have gone on to win on the LPGA Tour include Brooke Henderson of Smiths Falls, Ont., who was fourth in the individual competition at the inaugural tournament. She was on Canada’s bronze-medal team in 2014 with Selena Costabile of Thornhill, Ont., and Calgary’s Jaclyn Lee.
Other notable competitors who went on to become LPGA Tour winners include Angel Yin and Megan Khang of the United States, as well as Yuka Saso of the Philippines, Sweden’s Linn Grant and Atthaya Thitikul of Thailand.
“It’s not if, it’s when they’re going to be on the LPGA Tour,” said Garrett Ball, Golf Canada’s chief operating officer, of how Canada’s golfers in the World Junior Girls Championship can be part of the organization’s goal to have 30 pros in the LPGA and PGA Tours by 2032.
“Events like this, like the She Plays Golf festival that we launched two years ago, and then the CPKC Women’s Open exemptions that we utilize to bring in our national team athletes and get the experience has been important in that pathway.”
The individual winner of the World Junior Girls Golf Championship will earn a berth in next year’s CPKC Women’s Open at nearby Mississaugua Golf and Country Club.
Both clubs, as well as former RBC Canadian Open host site Glen Abbey Golf Club, were devastated by heavy rains through June and July as the Greater Toronto Area had its wettest summer in recorded history.
Jason Hanna, the chief operating officer of Credit Valley Golf and Country Club, said that he has seen the Credit River flood so badly that it affected the course’s playability a handful of times over his nearly two decades with the club.
Staff and members alike came together to clean up the course after the flooding was over, with hundreds of people coming together to make the club playable again.
“You had to show up, bring your own rake, bring your own shovel, bring your own gloves, and then we’d take them down to the golf course, assign them to areas where they would work, and then we would do a big barbecue down at the halfway house,” said Hanna. “We got guys, like, 80 years old, putting in eight-hour days down there, working away.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
NEW YORK (AP) — Fenway Park has the Ted Williams seat. And now Citi Field has the Grimace seat.
The kid-friendly McDonald’s character made another appearance at the ballpark Monday, when the New York Mets unveiled a commemorative purple seat in section 302 to honor “his special connection to Mets fans.”
Wearing his pear-shaped purple costume and a baseball glove on backwards, Grimace threw out a funny-looking first pitch — as best he could with those furry fingers and short arms — before New York beat the Miami Marlins at Citi Field on June 12.
That victory began a seven-game winning streak, and Grimace the Mets’ good-luck charm soon went viral, taking on a life of its own online.
New York is 53-31 since June 12, the best record in the majors during that span. The Mets were tied with rival Atlanta for the last National League playoff spot as they opened their final homestand of the season Monday night against Washington.
The new Grimace seat in the second deck in right field — located in row 6, seat 12 to signify 6/12 on the calendar — was brought into the Shannon Forde press conference room Monday afternoon. The character posed next to the chair and with fans who strolled into the room.
The seat is available for purchase for each of the Mets’ remaining home games.
“It’s been great to see how our fanbase created the Grimace phenomenon following his first pitch in June and in the months since,” Mets senior vice president of partnerships Brenden Mallette said in a news release. “As we explored how to further capture the magic of this moment and celebrate our new celebrity fan, installing a commemorative seat ahead of fan appreciation weekend felt like the perfect way to give something back to the fans in a fun and unique way.”
Up in Boston, the famous Ted Williams seat is painted bright red among rows of green chairs deep in the right-field stands at Fenway Park to mark where a reported 502-foot homer hit by the Hall of Fame slugger landed in June 1946.
So, does this catapult Grimace into Splendid Splinter territory?
“I don’t know if we put him on the same level,” Mets executive vice president and chief marketing officer Andy Goldberg said with a grin.
“It’s just been a fun year, and at the same time, we’ve been playing great ball. Ever since the end of May, we have been crushing it,” he explained. “So I think that added to the mystique.”
