Housing advocate says officer put knee on her neck

Police say photo showing officer pinning a protester down was a ‘shoulder pin.’ SIU investigating amid allegations of arrest injuries

“Don’t let them say it was a shoulder pin,” said Rowa Mohamed, the affordable housing advocate photographed under the knee of a police officer during a protest at J.C. Beemer Park last Wednesday. “It never is.”

The officer’s knee was on her neck, she said. She told him she couldn’t breathe, she said.

Police did call it a “shoulder pin.” The officer was “attempting to gain control and execute an arrest in a dynamic situation,” police said last week when asked about the scene captured by Spectator photographer Cathie Coward.

Hamilton police have defended their response, saying the protest was “not peaceful” and protesters breached the police perimeter.

But Monday afternoon, police said they can no longer speak to the matter, as the Special Investigations Unit is now investigating. Police say they notified the SIU, which investigates police incidents in Ontario involving injuries, after they were made aware of “allegations regarding injuries caused during the arrests of those involved in the protest at J.C. Beemer Park.” On Monday, Mohamed spoke about the knee incident for the first

One (protester) said he’d been punched in the face, another said they suffered a concussion, another — who was on crutches — said she suffered an ankle injury.

time at a news conference organized by the Hamilton Encampment Support Network (HESN), a group that works with unsheltered Hamiltonians. A tweet by Mohamed saying she’d soon address the incident, accompanied by the photo of her and the officer, went viral over the weekend, garnering more than 34,000 likes by Monday.

Flanked by a group of about 15 people, and watched by 20 on Ferguson Avenue North near the Tim Hortons, advocates criticized the city for kicking homeless people out of encampments and police for “violently” arresting people protesting the Wednesday evictions. They listed the injuries they said they suffered during confrontations with police at the park Wednesday and outside the central police station, where they congregated Friday.

One said he’d been punched in the face, another said they suffered a concussion, another — who was on crutches — said she suffered an ankle injury.

Speaking to the police knee incident, Mohamed’s partner, Jordan Grace, said police “could have f---ing killed her.” In the United States, the highprofile death of George Floyd, a Black man, drew outrage after a video circulated of a white officer with his knee on Floyd’s neck.

The advocates called for police to be defunded.

Police have said they were at J.C. Beemer on Wednesday to assist bylaw officers and protect those at the scene, through which an explosive fire tore early that morning, making the area unsafe.

Officers responded when the activists breached the perimeter that was surrounded by yellow-tape, police said.

“At one point, they linked arms and started to march through that line and we attempted to hold them back,” Insp. Frank Miscione told The Spectator last week. “The protocol isn’t to grab someone necessarily, but to effectively hold that line. Whatever that takes, whatever is required with the minimal forces necessary to do that, that’s what we’ll do.”

When protesters crossed the police line, that was considered obstruction, police said. Five people — all protesters — have been charged with assault and/ or obstruction of justice in connection with events that day.

All have been released.

In an email statement Monday, HESN questioned how police could characterize their response as using “minimal forces.”

The advocates say they were trying to support the people who live in encampments.

What happened outside the Hamilton central police station Friday is still unclear, but a group of about 15 advocates were arrested after they set up a tent outside the main entrance. Advocates say police told them to take it down and that they were in the midst of doing so when they were arrested. Video of the arrests shows police tackling three people. Two of the three were later charged in connection with the Wednesday events and the third was with assaulting an offi-charged cer outside the police station.

In a statement posted online late Saturday by Hamilton police, Chief Frank Bergen called Wednesday’s events “chaotic” and “not a peaceful protest.”

“We fundamentally agree that community support and demonstrations must not be criminalized,” Bergen said. “There is a fine balance in the need to allow for community activism, while also maintaining demonstrations that meet the threshold for peaceful, lawful and safe assembly.”

A GoFundMe account set up to raise funds for the legal fees of the six people arrested last week raised more than $13,000 by Monday afternoon.