Suing: These three people are among seven friends suing Toronto police for $1.4million for ‘recklessly disregarding’ of their civil rights during the G20 protests. (Daily Mail)
A group G20 protesters is suing Toronto police. They say they were targeted for having hairy legs.
The Daily Mail reported:
A group of women is suing the Toronto police, saying they were profiled and arrested for having hairy legs during the G20 summit in 2010.
The women are part of a $1.4 million lawsuit filed by seven friends, men and women, who were locked up during the protests against the gathering of world leaders.
The lawyer for the friends, who had traveled to Toronto from their hometown to take part in the demonstrations, said police use of ‘hairy legs’ as a cause for detention was illegal under Canadian law.
Alicia Ridge, a plaintiff in the case, told CTV News that when police arrested her, she was first crudely ‘searched’ by a male officer.
‘It was a fairly pathetic rendition of a search, in that it was just a quick run of a hand up the leg followed by a swift a** grab. And there were lots of sexualized comments that went along with it,’ she said.
Her lawyer, Davin Charney, alleges the officer then told the women ‘shave your legs, you dykes!’
A police review board investigation found that an officer wrote down in his notebook: ‘all of the subjects appear to be protestors. Backpacks, clothing and all of the females have hairy legs.’
