A First Nations woman was knocked unconscious at an RCMP detachment in Thompson, Man., and despite the act being caught on video, no formal investigation was launched and the woman says she was bullied into withdrawing her complaint against the officers involved.
The video, which CBC News obtained through a court application, has one former police watchdog calling for a full probe, and has prompted a lawsuit alleging she was discriminated against because she is Indigenous. Garson is a member of Tataskweyak Cree Nation.
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Genesta Garson was 19 years old when she was picked up by two community safety officers on Jan. 6, 2018 outside of the Northern Inn in Thompson, a city of about 13,000 in northern Manitoba, on the suspicion of being drunk
She was supposed to spend the night sleeping it off on a cold cement bed in a holding cell.
Instead, she left in an ambulance after a safety officer punched her in the chin, knocking her unconscious.
Watch the video below
"I was knocked out. They dragged me into the cells. My body was shaken up from being hit hard in the head."
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Garson admits to having had a few beers that night, but says she was detained after slipping on the ice.
She was taken to the local RCMP detachment and forced to strip down to one layer of clothes, and to remove her bra, for safety reasons. She was wearing several layers because of the frigid weather.
Surveillance video shows three officers around her as she removes each layer. Two are male community safety officers, quasi bylaw officers employed by the city. The third is a female RCMP officer.
The video shows Garson about to take off her belt and then hesitating. When one of the safety officers moves toward her, she moves away.
"I felt very uncomfortable when they asked me to take off my bra," Garson said.
She takes off her belt and throws it toward him and the female RCMP officer.
"I tried giving my thin, soft belt to the male officer so fast, he thought I was trying to hit him," she said.
At that moment, he strikes Garson in the face and her head hits the wall. She falls to the ground, smacking her head against the concrete floor.
'Lost for words'
As Garson lay on the ground, not moving, the female RCMP officer quickly removed a layer of pants.
The two male officers then take her by the hands and drag Garson on her back and into a jail cell.
She is left on her back in the cell — and is seen writhing in pain — for about 15 minutes, when paramedics arrive and take her away on a stretcher to hospital
"I am lost for words on this case. I really am, I'm lost for words," said her lawyer, Rohit Gupta, as he watched the video.
"That is a person that's clearly in pain, who came into this detachment standing on their own two feet and left in a stretcher."
Hospital records from that night say she "struck officer with her belt, so got punched in the face."
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They also note she had a cut on her lip, bruising on her chin and had lost consciousness for 10 seconds. Bruising had appeared at the side of her head, where she struck the wall after being punched.


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