Cops Siege East Mall, Leave Youth w/ Permanent Brain Damage

Basics Editorial
Basics Issue #9 (May 2008)

Late in the night of April 22nd, 2008, a team of heavily armed and masked officers from the Emergency Task Force (ETF) and the Guns and Gangs Task Force broke into a Somali family’s home late at night in the East Mall area of Etobicoke.

The cops were supposedly looking for a firearm on an anonymous tip, but no guns or any other contraband were found. No charges were laid, other than a fail to comply with a curfew.

The cops ransacked the house, terrorizing the mother and viciously beating both her sons, leaving the 23-year-old son so severely beaten that he was hospitalized and has sustained permanent brain damage. The Special Investigations Unit (SIU) is now investigating. However, when ex-cops investigate cops, we know what happens: nothing. The only option is for the community to organize in response to police brutality. We must organize ourselves to break the siege on our communities! ∗