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.
Montreal Alouettes wide receiver Tyson Philpot has announced he will be out for the rest of the CFL season.
The Delta, B.C., native posted the news on his Instagram page Thursday.
“To Be Continued. Shoutout my team, the fans of the CFL and the whole city of Montreal! I can’t wait to be back healthy and write this next chapter in 2025,” the statement read.
Philpot, 24, injured his foot in a 33-23 win over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Aug. 10 and was placed on the six-game injured list the next week.
The six-foot-one, 195-pound receiver had 58 receptions, 779 yards and five touchdowns in nine games for the league-leading Alouettes in his third season.
Philpot scored the game-winning touchdown in Montreal’s Grey Cup win last season to punctuate a six-reception, 63-yard performance.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa sustained a concussion for the third time in his NFL career, leaving his team’s game Thursday night against Buffalo after running into defensive back Damar Hamlin and hitting the back of his head against the turf.
Tagovailoa remained down for about two minutes before getting to his feet and walking to the sideline after the play in the third quarter. He made his way to the tunnel not long afterward, looking into the stands before smiling and departing toward the locker room.
The Dolphins needed almost no time before announcing it was a concussion. The team said he had two during the 2022 season, and Tagovailoa was diagnosed with another concussion when he was a college player at Alabama.
Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said Tagovailoa would get “proper procedural evaluation” and “appropriate care” on Friday.
“The furthest thing from my mind is, ‘What is the timeline?’ We just need to evaluate and just worry about my teammate, like the rest of the guys are,” McDaniel said. “We’ll get more information tomorrow and take it day by day from here.”
Some players saw Tagovailoa in the locker room after the game and said they were encouraged. Tagovailoa spoke with some players and then went home after the game, McDaniel said.
“I have a lot of love for Tua, built a great relationship with him,” said quarterback Skylar Thompson, who replaced Tagovailoa after the injury. “You care about the person more than the player and everybody in the organization would say the same thing. Just really praying for Tua and hopefully everything will come out all right.”
Tagovailoa signed a four-year, $212 million extension before this season — a deal that makes him one of the highest-paid players in the NFL — and was the NFL’s leading passer in Week 1 this season. Tagovailoa left with the Dolphins trailing 31-10, and that was the final score.
“If you know Tua outside of football, you can’t help but feel for him,” Bills quarterback Josh Allen said on Amazon following the game. “He’s a great football player but he’s an even greater human being. He’s one of the best humans on the planet. I’ve got a lot of love for him and I’m just praying for him and his family, hoping everything’s OK. But it’s tough, man. This game of football that we play, it’s got its highs and it’s got its lows — and this is one of the lows.”
Tagovailoa’s college years and first three NFL seasons were marred by injury, though he positioned himself for a big pay bump with an injury-free and productive 2023 as he led the Dolphins into the playoffs. He threw for 29 touchdowns and a league-best 4,624 yards last year.
When, or if, he can come back this season is anyone’s guess. Tagovailoa said in April 2023 that the concussions he had in the 2022 season left him contemplating his playing future. “I think I considered it for a time,” he said then, when asked if he considered stepping away from the game to protect himself.
McDaniel said it’s not his place to say if Tagovailoa should return to football. “He’ll be evaluated and we’ll have conversations and progress as appropriate,” McDaniel said.
Tagovailoa was hurt Thursday on a fourth-down keeper with about 4:30 left in the third. He went straight ahead into Hamlin and did not slide, leading with his right shoulder instead.
Hamlin was the player who suffered a cardiac arrest after making a tackle during a Monday night game in January 2023 at Cincinnati, causing the NFL to suspend a pivotal game that quickly lost significance in the aftermath of a scary scene that unfolded in front of a national television audience.
Tagovailoa wound up on his back, both his hands in the air and Bills players immediately pointed at him as if to suggest there was an injury. Dolphins center Aaron Brewer quickly did the same, waving to the sideline.
Tagovailoa appeared to be making a fist with his right hand as he lay on the ground. It was movement consistent with something that is referred to as the “fencing response,” which can be common after a traumatic brain injury.
Tagovailoa eventually got to his feet. McDaniel grabbed the side of his quarterback’s head and gave him a kiss on the cheek as Tagovailoa departed. Thompson came into the game to take Tagovailoa’s spot.
“I love Tua on and off the football field,” Bills edge Von Miller said. “I’m a huge fan of him. I can empathize and sympathize with him because I’ve been there. I wish him the best.”
Tagovailoa’s history with concussions — and how he has since worked to avoid them — is a huge part of the story of his career, and now comes to the forefront once again.
He had at least two concussions during the 2022 season. He was hurt in a Week 3 game against Buffalo and cleared concussion protocol, though he appeared disoriented on that play but returned to the game.
The NFL later changed its concussion protocol to mandate that if a player shows possible concussion symptoms — including a lack of balance or stability — he must sit out the rest of the game.
Less than a week later, in a Thursday night game at Cincinnati, Tagovailoa was concussed on a scary hit that briefly knocked him unconscious and led to him being taken off the field on a stretcher.
His second known concussion of that season came in a December game against Green Bay, and he didn’t play for the rest of the 2022 season. After that, Tagovailoa began studying ways where he may be able to fall more safely and protect himself against further injury — including studying jiu-jitsu.
“I’m not worried about anything that’s out of my hands,” McDaniel said. “I’m just worried about the human being.”
NEW YORK (AP) — When her husband turns on the television to hear news about the upcoming presidential election, that’s often a signal for Lori Johnson Malveaux to leave the room.
It can get to be too much. Often, she’ll go to a TV in another room to watch a movie on the Hallmark Channel or BET. She craves something comforting and entertaining. And in that, she has company.
While about half of Americans say they are following political news “extremely” or “very” closely, about 6 in 10 say they need to limit how much information they consume about the government and politics to avoid feeling overloaded or fatigued, according to a new survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and USAFacts.
Make no mistake: Malveaux plans to vote. She always does. “I just get to the point where I don’t want to hear the rhetoric,” she said.
The 54-year-old Democrat said she’s most bothered when she hears people on the news telling her that something she saw with her own eyes — like the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol — didn’t really happen.
“I feel like I’m being gaslit. That’s the way to put it,” she said.
Sometimes it feels like ‘a bombardment’
Caleb Pack, 23, a Republican from Ardmore, Oklahoma, who works in IT, tries to keep informed through the news feeds on his phone, which is stocked with a variety of sources, including CNN, Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press.
Yet sometimes, Pack says, it seems like a bombardment.
“It’s good to know what’s going on, but both sides are pulling a little bit extreme,” he said. “It just feels like it’s a conversation piece everywhere, and it’s hard to escape it.”
Media fatigue isn’t a new phenomenon. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in late 2019 found roughly two in three Americans felt worn out by the amount of news there is, about the same as in a poll taken in early 2018. During the 2016 presidential campaign, about 6 in 10 people felt overloaded by campaign news.
But it can be particularly acute with news related to politics. The AP-NORC/USAFacts poll found that half of Americans feel a need to limit their consumption of information related to crime or overseas conflicts, while only about 4 in 10 are limiting news about the economy and jobs.
It’s easy to understand, with television outlets like CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC full of political talk and a wide array of political news online, sometimes complicated by disinformation.
“There’s a glut of information,” said Richard Coffin, director of research and advocacy for USAFacts, “and people are having a hard time figuring out what is true or not.”
Women are more likely to feel they need to limit media
In the AP-NORC poll, about 6 in 10 men said they follow news about elections and politics at least “very” closely, compared to about half of women. For all types of news, not just politics, women are more likely than men to report the need to limit their media consumption, the survey found.
White adults are also more likely than Black or Hispanic adults to say they need to limit media consumption on politics, the poll found.
Kaleb Aravzo, 19, a Democrat, gets a baseline of news by listening to National Public Radio in the morning at home in Logan, Utah. Too much politics, particularly when he’s on social media sites like TikTok and Instagram, can trigger anxiety and depression.
“If it pops up on my page when I’m on social media,” he said, “I’ll just scroll past it.”
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Sanders reported from Washington. David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder.
The AP poll of 1,019 adults was conducted July 29-August 8, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.
