THE CELL INCIDENT story

Two Police Officers show up, arrest, and bring him via aircraft to a major Canadian city, where he spends one night in a holding cell awaiting court for official charges.

Feelings are hard to repress, since there is no way for him to have closure until the circumstances of these allegations are settled. The authorities don’t seem to be concerned about how this situation has affected his health. He tries to push away feelings of terror, since this is his first face-to-face experience with the law.

He is uncomfortable in his own sweat.

“You will not be treated here as well as we treated you,” one of his two accompanying officers said as they walked him to the overnight holding area. Then the older officer says to the uniform on duty, “Let him call a Legal Aid Lawyer for his court appearance tomorrow, okay?”

After they leave, he is not allowed to and three further requests are denied. Also he is not allowed a blanket, pillow, towel, anything to read (nor his Bible), no toilet paper, and subjected to verbal abuse. Then the uniformed officer takes him into the cell area, reaches down and pulls the knot from his track pants about an inch from his stomach and says, “You are not supposed to have this belt cord.”

But he had waited until the two other officers’ left before informing the prisoner. From behind his back the officer then pulls out a bowie knife, about a 6-7 inch blade, holds it up to his prisoner’s face, blade down for about ten seconds. The prisoner never felt such fear in his life and thought he was about to die.

A police friend told him later if he had resisted in any way, he could have been hurt very badly and an investigative report would have disclosed it was the prisoner who owned the knife. There were no witnesses to offset this possibility.

The officer in uniform then said, “Now watch this,” and he swung his knife down across the prisoner’s stomach cutting off the knot and his sweeping motion went straight down across the groin area ending past the prisoners’ knees. “Now get into that ******* cell!” the policeman shouted.

The prisoner was shaking so badly he could barely stand. He knew the angry policeman was aware he was recovering from a stroke condition, but obviously officer didn’t seem to care at this point. Confirmation of his condition was in the pills, which had been turned in. They were for heart, blood pressure, anxiety and depression.

Later in his six by nine foot cell, the prisoner could feel his Blood Pressure and mental health condition to be suffering from stress. He struggled in his mind with what had just occurred. Now he was lying on his tile bed, holding his head and moaning, and the officer on watch didn’t come to see what the matter was for what seemed like a very long time.

The prisoner had no true concept of time since his watch had been taken along with all his personal effects.

A camera about five feet away outside his cell focused directly, on him recording every move. There was no rush to see if any problem existed. The prisoner was claustrophobic, sensing the enclosure was collapsing inwards. He thought he was going to die.

When the officer finally came by to inquire about his health, the prisoner was feeling a little better. He meekly asked for toilet paper to use the vestibule in the cell. And a handful of torn sheets was brought and thrust as a snowball at him through the cell bars. “Here!” the officer sneered.

In a way it was comical how the prisoner had to piece them together like a jigsaw puzzle. Yes a bit of a smile escaped his face, after the shock of it. He dared to mention he had no supper and feeling hungry since it felt like about 9 pm (three hours since admission and not having had anything to eat since about noon). Thankfully the officer finally brought a teen burger, small fries and small coke.

This request seemed to further aggravate the policeman, since he began another tirade of verbal abuse. That’s how he spoke to the prisoner about anything, shouting and cursing him in every short conversation.

When the prisoner asked, “Any soap to wash my hands before I eat?” the officer refused. He laughed when told the prisoner’s hands were full of insect mash, after killing numerous ants crawling over his tiled cell bed. No, the officer wouldn’t give a rag or anything to kill the rest running all over the cell.

The prisoner asked, “How am I going to sleep?”

“I wouldn’t know,” the policeman answered. “I don’t spend any time in there myself.”
And the prisoner didn’t see him again until two new officers came to take him to court the next morning. When asked if he could phone a Legal Aid lawyer right away, they answered, “The man on duty was supposed to let you do that when you were first booked in.”
Which he didn’t?

The prisoner was asked to strip and turn in a circle twice, probably to verify he hadn’t been beaten. After dressing, one huge officer grabbed the prisoner’s shoulders from behind, hurting his back as both arms were pulled together. Then handcuffs snapped on for the trip to court.

A pulled shoulder muscle caused the prisoner aggravation and pain for about three months, after his bail release from court. He had to go to the hospital because of it and needed pills, seven costing $7 each. Less expensive medication was needed for several more weeks.

It was the first time the man had ever been arrested or handcuffed in his life. The cuffs were not placed across the wrist area but across his wrist bones and squeezed tightly. The policeman even grunted from the exertion.

“That hurts,” the prisoner said, but it didn’t seem to bother the policeman.

In the back seat of the Police car, it was impossible to sit up and the prisoner was sure he was deliberately left lying on his side around fifteen minutes. He tried to stop crying from the pain as he noticed another prisoner placed in the car beside him was handcuffed with his hands more comfortably in front.

When the gorilla-sized officer saw the prisoner crying in pain he let him out and adjusted the handcuffs less tightly. Bones on both wrists had grooves in them from the tightly placed cuffs, and the prisoner was subjected to verbal abuse because the policeman thought he was a bother.

After the prisoner was released on bail that afternoon he wrote down every detail and presented his statement to his lawyer who said to forget it. An officer friend said the same and because of the nature of the allegations, was lucky not have been beaten up in the holding cell area.

It’s incredible this type of abuse and intimidation goes on these days in Canadian institutions, the former prisoner thought. Especially since no court appearance had yet taken place to deal with unsavory allegations. Later, the man spoke to three lawyer friends, including a sitting court judge about the incident. They all said, “Forget it move on. You have no witnesses and all you will do is spend lots of money and receive unnecessary aggravation, something you can’t afford with your ill health.”

Now the man has nightmares, cold sweats, BP up and down frequently whenever he remembers the incident. Sometimes he is able to push away the memory. But JUST the thought of that quick, downward thrust of bowie knife still gives him chilled feelings. Then the right side of his head aches badly, where the leaking aneurysm originally caused his stroke.

Now he must stop writing. His BP is starting to rise and his face is flushed---and he tries to remember if this really happened.

* * *

© Richard L. Provencher 2005

Co-authors Richard and Esther Provencher invite you to view their newest novel SOMEONE’S SON written during Richard’s recovery from a stroke, which gob-smacked him in 1999. It is a Young Adult novel dealing with a family crisis. http://www.synergebooks.com/ebook_someonesson.html