Officer banned from dealing with public
Posted Nov 18, 2010 09:18:15 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The officer at the centre of an investigation into the case of an Ottawa woman being unlawfully strip searched has been banned from dealing with the public.
The move comes after a judge threw out a pair of charges laid against 27-year-old Stacy Bonds.
She was arrested for public intoxication and assault but the judge didn’t feel the evidence was enough and ruled she was illegally stripped down in front of three male officers, then left naked in her cell for hours.
Aside from that September 2008 incident, Bonds had never been in trouble with the law, and denies the allegations against her.
Camera footage actually caught Sgt. Steven Desjourdy cutting off Bonds’ shirt and bra with a pair of scissors.
He will be kept on desk duty until an internal police investigation is complete. Accoprding to the Citizen, that inquiry was personally launched by Police Cheif Vern White.
That may not be enough for Bonds who tells the sun she doesn’t think the officers should keep their jobs. She believes at the very least, they need to be suspended without pay and ordered to undergo sensitivity training.
Sgt. Desjourdy has been under investigation in the past. Just days before this incident, he had pled guilty to kicking and tasering a woman in custody. As a result he was demoted for 3 months.
The president of the Ottawa Police Association is asking for people not to jump to conclusions saying we should wait for the results of the investigation.
But the chairman of the Ottawa Police Services Board believes this could damage the force’s reputation.
Sgt. Desjourdy and the other officers involved aren’t commenting because they say the matter is under investigation.
