On the day Brady Patterson was arrested—Aug. 18, 2021, one of 24 demonstrators protesting Halifax’s forced removal of temporary shelters—she spent more than five hours in Halifax Regional Police custody before she was granted the right to speak with a lawyer. That delay was among several concerns Patterson’s defense lawyer, Asaf Rashid, raised in provincial court on Friday. The others: That she was subjected to excessive force by HRP officers, that those officers failed to tell Patterson the reasons for her arrest until an hour later and that she was kept in a holding cell for hours without access to her epilepsy medication.
Patterson, 30, of Halifax, faces charges of mischief, resisting arrest and two counts of assaulting a peace officer. (The court dismissed a third count of assaulting a peace officer on Friday, upon mutual agreement between the Crown and Patterson’s defense.) She’s among three protestors undergoing criminal trials stemming from clashes between police and housing rights advocates on that August day. (Charges against the remaining protestors arrested were either dropped or withdrawn in the months following the arrests.)
In front of judge Kelly Serbu on Friday, Patterson took the witness stand to detail her arrest at the HRP’s hands in her own words—one she describes as “senseless.” She attests that the HRP assaulted her, leading to more physical pain than she’d experienced in her life and leaving her with chronic numbness in her wrist. She says the incident left her with “high anxiety.”
HRP officers, meanwhile, have testified that Patterson damaged a city vehicle, intentionally “headbutted” one officer and tried to bite another—claims that Patterson disputes.
Shelter crackdown struck a citywide nerve
Police arrested Patterson in the midst of a late summer crackdown on tents and Tyvek shelters in several parks across Halifax. Those teardowns, handled by HRM staff and HRP officers, spanned from Horseshoe Park near the Armdale Rotary, to the Peace and Friendship Park on Barrington Street, to the Halifax Common beside the Emera Oval.
At the time, according to the Affordable Housing Association of Nova Scotia, roughly 400 Haligonians were unhoused. (As of July 4, 2023, that figure has more than doubled to 932.) Tents and Tyvek shelters dotted parks across the peninsula. It became a political lightning rod: Either it represented the province’s gross failure to address an affordable housing crisis, as some argued, or a public safety concern that needed a swift response. Mayor Mike Savage said the shelters were inadequate living spaces, and that there was sufficient shelter space available—a claim others disputed. The HRM further reported that it had received 413 complaint calls about encampments in 2021.
In a statement, the HRP said its actions on Aug. 18, 2021 to assist in tearing down encampments were taken “in the interest of public safety and safety of the occupants of these dwellings.” Instead, the tent teardowns sparked violent police clashes with protestors, ended in mass arrests and brought tempers in a city facing a severe housing crisis to a boil.
Patterson’s rights to speak with lawyer violated, defense claims
By the afternoon of Aug. 18, 2021, over 200 people had gathered in protest of the HRP’s teardowns at the old Halifax Memorial Library on Spring Garden Road, where the last remaining shelter stood. Patterson was among the crowd. During the protest, she climbed atop an HRM-branded truck and shouted at officers and regional staff:
“Is that what you wanted to do? You just wanted to come and take houses away from people? They have nothing. You’ve given them nothing.”
Police testify that they moved to arrest Patterson out of fears that she was inciting the crowd against them. On Thursday, May 25, 2023, officers testified in front of judge Serbu that Patterson headbutted an HRP officer and split his lip. They further claim that she tried to bite an officer’s arms and legs as they arrested her. Patterson denies those claims.
Rashid, Patterson’s lawyer, counters that an officer’s knee was on Patterson’s neck while police restrained her on the ground—a claim the HRP disagrees with. Rashid further argues that, because of the noise of the crowd, his client couldn’t hear any officers telling her that she was under arrest.
Rashid asserts that HRP officers violated several of his client’s Charter rights that day: Her right to not be subjected to excessive force by police, her right to know the reason for her arrest and her right to speak with legal counsel without delay. (As a rule, Canada’s court system has interpreted “without delay” quite literally, in order to “protect against the risk of self-incrimination.”) During cross-examination in May, Rashid questioned police constable Amy Edwards, who was working in the HRP’s booking division on the day of the August shelter evictions, as to whether there was “any discussion about concerns over delays,” given his client was made to wait hours before she could speak with a lawyer. This, despite Patterson testifying she requested to speak with her lawyer from the moment she arrived at the HRP precinct.
Edwards told judge Serbu that Aug. 18, 2021 was a “very untypical situation” at the HRP headquarters, given the amount of protestors arrested at the old Halifax Memorial Library.
“I’ve never seen that many police cars and prisoners waiting to be brought in,” she said. “There was never a case where we were going to deny lawyer calls; it was always going to be when it was safe and practical to do so.”
Earlier in May, Rashid asked Edwards’ colleague, HRP constable William Campbell, why his client hadn’t been offered a chance to speak with a lawyer while she was in the squad car with him, awaiting booking.
“I don’t facilitate lawyer calls like that,” Campbell said. He added that standard HRP practice is to have detainees speak with a lawyer once they’ve cleared booking, where there’s a dedicated secure room with a phone inside. “It’s not common practice to connect someone to a lawyer by phone in the back of a police car.”
Rashid prodded about whether the HRP could grant more than one detainee the chance to speak with legal counsel at the same time.
“Not safely, no. And not privately,” Edwards said.
She testified that “five or six” HRP officers were managing the booking department that afternoon. Edwards claimed they “didn’t have the ability” to move detainees to different locations of the building in order to make calls sooner. She didn’t elaborate on why that was the case.
Crown cross-examination questions witness testimony
In Patterson’s last hearing before July 7, the courtroom heard eyewitness testimony that conflicted with HRP officers’ reports of Patterson “stomping” on the hood and windshield of a contracting truck—part of the reason that staff-sergeant Monier Chediac, who led the HRP’s public safety unit on Aug. 18, offered in court as to why he moved to arrest Patterson that day. Defense witness Robert Chatterton, who said he’d been at the Spring Garden Road protest in support of Halifax’s unhoused community, told the courtroom that he’d arrived at the old Halifax Memorial Library “around 11am” and was “two feet to one metre” away from the truck when Patterson had climbed on it. He testified that police “charged” Patterson—who he professed not to know personally—and “grabbed their ankle and threw them to the ground.” He further testified that he didn’t recall Patterson causing any damage to the truck.
“To my knowledge, nothing happened to the truck,” Chatterton said. “The windshield was fine. No cracks, no damage.”
That claim was supported by another eyewitness, Kelsey-Anne Bishop, who told the court she was “15 to 20 feet” away from Patterson when she was addressing HRP officers from atop the contracting truck, and saw the truck “from multiple angles” after Patterson stepped down from the vehicle.
“At that time, there were still no marks or damage to the windshield or the hood of the truck,” Bishop told judge Serbu.
If the first day of testimony centred on police recountings of Aug. 18, 2021, the bulk of the second day’s proceedings were decidedly the opposite. Chatterton described HRP officers’ behaviour as “aggressive” during encounters with protestors. He testified that he was pepper-sprayed and recalled police with “batons out.” He alleges “six to eight” police officers “pounced on” Patterson, and “kind of pinned them to the ground.” (Bishop recalled “between two and four” officers atop Patterson. She further testified that she witnessed dirt in Patterson’s mouth, and that her glasses and one shoe were missing.)
Crown attorney Michael Coady wondered before the court if Chatterton’s testimony was influenced by his personal beliefs. Coady asked Chatterton if he recalled, at any point, Patterson’s forehead connecting with an officer’s mouth. He didn’t. (In front of the court, Coady presented a video that appeared to show it did.) He asked Chatterton if it was fair to say that Patterson was screaming while atop the truck’s hood. Chatterton said he recalled Patterson “speaking loudly,” but doesn’t remember screaming. Coady asked Chatterton if it was fair to say he was supportive of the protestors that day. Chatterton agreed.
“I’m going to suggest to you that your evidence today is tailored to paint an unfavourable picture of police,” Coady said to Chatterton. On that, Chatterton disagreed.
“I mean, there are personal beliefs that I do have, but I also witnessed things that did happen,” he told the courtroom.
“Is it possible,” Coady asked, “that your opinions in favour of the protest… have affected your memory?”
“I mean, I don’t think so,” Chatterton replied. “I think that my memory is just how I remembered it.”
‘All I wanted to do was express my opinion’
In the Spring Garden Road courthouse on Friday, a stone’s throw from where police arrested Patterson in 2021, she told judge Serbu that she went to the library that day to “voice my opinion” about the HRM and HRP’s tent teardowns. She claims she “had no interest” in causing damage to any property, attesting that the truck she stood atop was unharmed, and instead went to “implore [those dismantling tents] to leave the houseless folks alone.”
“They were taking the one thing that houseless folks had away from them,” Patterson told the courtroom. “I was heartbroken.”
She disputes the HRP’s testimony that she headbutted staff-sergeant Chediac, instead telling the courtroom that she was simultaneously pushed and pulled toward him by HRP officers.
“I just whipped forward,” she said. “I tucked my head in, because I knew I was going down and didn’t want to hit my head… then my head hit something. I was disoriented. I tried to get a sense of what was going on, but by the time I had any recollection of what was happening, I was already down on the ground, and I had numerous officers on top of me.”
“By the time I had any recollection of what was happening, I was already down on the ground, and I had numerous officers on top of me.”
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Patterson testifies that officers repeatedly kneeled on her neck, back and legs during her arrest. She says her face was pushed into the ground to the point that she still had dirt in her nose and ears a day later. She also told the courtroom that officers had aggravated her wrist—she says a medical condition, De Quervain’s tenosynovitis, meant that her wrist was already affected by tendon pain.
Patterson claims police didn’t tell her why they arrested her until “maybe an hour” after she was handcuffed. During cross-examination, Coady questioned whether Patterson might have overestimated that length of time. Patterson replied that she was being true to her memory.
Patterson further claims that upon arriving at the HRP’s headquarters, she told officers that she needed medication for seizures she’d been experiencing. She told the courtroom she had been diagnosed with epilepsy years earlier, and was due for her second dose of medication that day—which she’d left at home. Patterson testified that officers told her they would get her access to epilepsy medication, but didn’t. Instead, she was taken to a solitary cell. She says she ended up having a seizure in that cell.
The court heard that Patterson was attended to by a paramedic before she was led into police headquarters. Coady wondered why Patterson asked the officers for help with her medication, but didn’t ask the paramedic. She says that she didn’t feel comfortable asking him, because she felt he’d dismissed her wrist injuries as a manifestation of anxiety.
“I just felt this wasn’t the person to talk to,” Patterson told the court.
Patterson told judge Serbu that her interactions with police officers on Aug. 18, 2021 left her with mental anguish in addition to the physical pain. She told the courtroom that she experienced nightmares for weeks after the incident. She says she had trouble sleeping, and that it affected her ability to work.
“I became quite depressed,” she told the court. “I had high anxiety. Honestly, I still have high anxiety.”
Police watchdog calls for independent review
Calls for an inquiry into the HRP’s conduct on Aug. 18, 2021 have persisted for nearly two years. In September 2021, the East Coast Prison Justice Society launched an online petition calling for a “full and independent investigation” into the actions of HRP officers on the day of the shelter evictions. The petition claims the HRP’s actions on that day “reflect longstanding and systemic issues with policing in HRM, including the Municipality’s reliance on police to address complex social needs; excessive force by police; and the militarization of the police.” It garnered more than 4,500 signatures.
On May 3, 2023, Halifax’s Board of Police Commissioners—regional councillors Becky Kent, Lindell Smith and Lisa Blackburn, along with Gavin Giles, Anthony Thomas, Yemi Akindoju and Harry Critchley—announced that the board had hired Toronto law firm Cooper, Sandler, Shime & Schwartzentruber LLP to conduct an “independent civilian review” of the police board’s oversight and policy responsibilities stemming from the HRP’s response to the protests two summers ago.
“Concerns have been expressed,” the police watchdog’s statement reads, “about the role and involvement of Halifax Regional Police in the eviction of unhoused and/or underhoused individuals and in its handling of the related protests.”
Speaking with reporters after the Board of Police Commissioners’ May 3 meeting, board chair Kent said it’s the commission’s hope that an independent review would “repair trust” in the HRP and its governance.
Crown and defense to submit closing arguments; decision looms
After Friday’s testimony, both Rashid and Coady will submit their written arguments to judge Serbu. A verdict date has been set for Aug. 4, 2023.
The last two protestors facing criminal charges will appear in court on Aug. 15-16 and Sept. 15, 2023, respectively. The provincial court’s decision on an earlier trial is expected by Aug. 18—two years to the day after the shelter evictions.
—With files from Victoria Walton, Lyndsay Armstrong and Isabel Buckmaster.
