Indigenous mother says Winnipeg police officers physically and verbally attacked her at her home

Posted on June 14, 2024 by Peggy

WARNING: This story contains strong language and allegations of violence.

A Sayisi Dene woman was left feeling shaken and sore after she alleges Winnipeg police officers verbally and physically attacked her during an early morning confrontation in her home.

“I was in shock. I couldn’t believe it,” said Charity Tom, who lives with three of her four children in Winnipeg’s North End.

Tom said she was sleeping downstairs on May 21 when she heard a loud knock on her front door around 4 a.m.

When she answered the door, six police officers were standing in her yard and told her they had received a complaint from multiple people that there was a young, unsupervised child outside, she said.

Tom, who’s youngest child is eight years old, told police the child wasn’t hers and shut the door — an interaction that was captured on Tom’s home security camera.

WATCH | Police enter home of Winnipeg mother:

Winnipeg mother wants apology after confrontation with police

54 minutes ago

2:28

Charity Tom says she was attacked physically and verbally by members of the Winnipeg Police Service in her home last month. A police spokesperson says the officers were looking into the well-being of a child who was reported being seen outside Tom’s home in the early morning hours.

Video footage shared with CBC News shows Tom answering the door again, which led to four officers entering her home.

“You got the wrong address. This isn’t the place,” Tom said she told officers.

She alleges one officer grabbed her throat and pushed her down a few steps on a staircase near the door while a second officer twisted her arm, which made her fall down on a step.

In the video, an officer can be heard saying, “Do you want to get arrested or not?”

Tom can be heard saying that she isn’t doing anything wrong and that she is trying to stand up when an officer says, “So then stop acting like a c–t. Stop f—ing flexing or I’m going to bring you to the drunk tank.”

Tom told CBC she doesn’t drink.

Officers checking on child’s well-being, police spokesperson says

Winnipeg police spokesperson Const. Claude Chancy said the incident is under review.

In an email to CBC, Chancy said officers were completing a well-being check on a child, who was possibly two years old, that was observed sitting alone outside at night.

When the officers arrived, they were met with an “unco-operative adult female” who initially refused entry to the home.

Chancy said the child, who was later determined to be under 10 years of age, confirmed with officers that he had been outside in the yard of the home.

Tom said her 15-year-old son and 18-year-old daughter were sleeping upstairs and her eight-year-old son was sleeping downstairs when police arrived and disputes that any of her children were outside.

She said the officers searched her home and asked her teenage children whether there was a two-year-old in the house and they each replied, “No, there isn’t.”

A woman sits on a couch in her living room. — Charity Tom said she wants an apology from Winnipeg police and is considering making a complaint to the Law Enforcement Review Agency regarding the incident. (CBC)

She thinks the police got the wrong address, that it could have been a prank call, or that a neighbour’s child became interested in the children’s slide, picnic table and other toys in her grassy yard.

“I don’t know if there was really a kid out there because I was sleeping,” she said, although she worries what could have happened if her three-year-old granddaughter had stayed overnight.

“That’s a scary thought,” she said, wondering if the police would have taken her into Child and Family Services thinking that was the child in question.

“We’re supposed to be protected by the cops, not threatened by them.”

Tom, who said she’s experienced abusive relationships in the past and has been sober for years, sat on the floor crying once the police left. One of her children noticed she had a large rip near the left-sided sleeve of her black and white striped shirt.

She said her back felt sore three days after the confrontation and that she’s seeking counselling services with her children because of what happened.

“I am hoping something can be done to further this because there’s so many racial profiling and things that happen with [Indigenous people] that are behind closed doors. If I didn’t have that camera then no one would believe me and it would have just been left in the air.”

Tom has a meeting Monday with the police service’s Professional Standards Unit, which handles internal investigations when there are complaints about police.

She wants an apology from Winnipeg police and is considering making a complaint to the Law Enforcement Review Agency or LERA.

“They have no rights treating me like this.”