Nunavut court: video shows police beating naked man inside jail cell

A video introduced as evidence in a sentencing hearing for Eetooloo Ejetsiak of Iqaluit shows him left with a pool of blood around his head after three police officers tried to restrain him this past Jan. 2. Ejetsiak, who has more than 100 convictions on his criminal record, still to be sentenced on charges laid last year and has yet to be tried on new charges laid early last month. (FILE PHOTO)

Video footage played in an Iqaluit courtroom Feb. 12 shows a possible act of police brutality: three RCMP officers appear to be punching a naked man until he’s left bleeding on the floor of an Iqaluit RCMP holding cell.

The black-and-white fixed-camera footage, taken in prison cell number five at the Iqaluit detachment on the evening of Jan. 2, 2015, focuses on Eetooloo Ejetsiak, 44, who faces 13 charges stemming from incidents alleged to have occurred last summer.

“It appears that Mr. Ejetsiak was treated very badly,” Justice Bonnie Tulloch said after the video was shown in open court.

Ejetsiak appeared before Tulloch Feb. 12 at the Nunavut Court of Justice for a continuation of a judge-alone trial on those charges — the most serious of which include assaults, uttering threats to kill or injure somebody, and assaulting a peace officer.

The court docket for Feb. 12 also listed nearly 20 new charges laid against Ejetsiak in early January.

These include 13 more threats to kill or injure someone and two counts of assault with a weapon — but those charges have not yet reached trial stage.

Those new charges led to Ejetsiak’s recent arrest on Jan. 2 — and the jail cell video footage.

Crown prosecutor Zachary Horricks asked Tulloch to consider the unknown context of the video.

“Obviously the police officers have a very specific reason and there is background context to all this,” Horricks said.

“I would have to call the officers to the stand to explain all of the information they have, why they acted in the fashion they did. And it’s still the Crown view that they acted in an appropriate fashion.”

“I agree that would be absolutely essential for my review of the video,” Tulloch replied.

“There could be all sorts of reasons… it’s very important to have the context.”

The video footage, without audio but with a time and date stamp, shows Ejetsiak thrown into the prison cell in a horizontal position at exactly 8 p.m. on Jan. 2.

He skids across the floor, his head stopping just short of the concrete benches lining two of the cell’s walls opposite the door.

Ejetsiak stands up, his pants around his ankles.

Between 8 p.m. and 8:04 p.m. Ejetsiak walks in a circular route around the prison cell.

He stands at the cell door, looking out the small window for a few seconds, walks to the benches on the opposite wall, then circles back to the door.

Between these circles he takes his pants off, puts them back on, and kicks the stainless steel toilet-sink unit four or five times.

At 8:04, Ejetsiak removes his long-sleeve shirt, puts it around his neck and sits on the bench opposite the cell door.

Seconds later, three uniformed RCMP members enter the cell, led by an officer pointing what looks like a taser gun directly at Ejetsiak.

The officer with the device approaches Ejetsiak, with the taser levelled at the prisoner’s chest.

The other two officers follow the lead officer: they take the shirt off Ejetsiak’s neck, and remove the rest of his clothes.

When Ejetsiak is naked, still sitting on the bench, the officers start backing up towards the cell door while facing Ejetsiak.

The prisoner stands up and slowly approaches them. An officer closest to Ejetsiak pushes the prisoner in the chest. Ejetsiak then appears to try to kick at that officer, but the kick misses.

At this point all three officers jump onto Ejetsiak, throwing punches.

Ejetsiak crumples to the floor, disappearing from the camera’s view behind the bent-over backs of the officers.

The video footage doesn’t reveal if the officer with the taser fired a charge into Ejetsiak.

When the officers back up from Ejetsiak, now lying on his knees in the fetal position on the cell floor, what appears to be a puddle of blood can be seen directly beneath Ejetsiak’s face.

The officers leave the prison cell at 8:05 p.m.

The video continues until 8:15 p.m. but Ejetsiak remains on his knees, with only slight movements of his hands and head.

Ejetsiak’s lawyer, Joseph Murdoch-Flowers, submitted the video as part of his sentencing submissions after the trial wrapped up around 5 p.m. Feb. 12.

Tulloch found Ejetsiak guilty on one count of uttering a death threat, but found a lack of evidence — and inconsistencies in witness testimonies — in ruling Ejetsiak not guilty on the assault charges.

Ejetsiak also pleaded guilty to three breaches of an undertaking, one charge of creating a public disturbance, one count of resisting arrest and possessing 28 grams of marijuana.

In his submissions, Murdoch-Flowers argued that Ejetsiak deserves particular consideration under Gladue principles.

Gladue principles flow from a 1999 Supreme Court of Canada decision, and must be used in sentencing Aboriginal offenders.

Gladue pre-sentencing reports take into account Aboriginal peoples’ historic and social hardships, such as effects of poverty and suicide.

“In my client’s own words, his life has been hell,” Murdoch-Flowers said.

The defence lawyer pointed out that his client, who has over 100 convictions on his criminal record, was beaten up regularly by his parents and siblings as a child.

Before he was a teenager he was kicked out of his home, Murdoch-Flowers said, becoming addicted to sniffing solvents.

And in 1986 when he was 16, Ejetsiak’s mother was brutally murdered in a high-profile case that was turned into a television movie.

Since then Ejetsiak has been checked into the hospital for suicidal tendencies and attempts 17 times, Murdoch-Flowers said, reading his client’s medical records.

“My client is a man who has broken relationships with his family, with his acquaintances and even with the social supports that exist here in Iqaluit,” Murdoch-Flowers said.

The defence lawyer argued that, in line with Gladue principles, a treatment facility out of territory would be more productive for Ejetsiak than additional time at the Baffin Correctional Centre.

Murdoch-Flowers said he submitted the video to support his argument of enhanced credit for the 54 days his client has already spent in custody, and in hope of getting a reduced sentence for his client.

Tulloch ended court Feb. 12 around 5:30 p.m., shortly after the video was shown, adjourning the matter before Murdoch-Flowers finished his submissions.

This matter will return to court Feb. 18.

Ejetsiak, with a closely-shaved head and glasses sitting on his forehead, interrupted Tulloch as she scheduled the continuation of the submissions for Feb. 18.

“I want to be sentenced today, right off the bat, right now,” he said.

“I don’t want to sit in BCC for another bloody two weeks or three weeks.”

“Unfortunately Mr. Ejetsiak, we’re missing some information,” Tulloch replied.

“There’s some information that might assist you, might really help you in terms of how much time you spend in BCC… I want to do a good job of finding a sentence that might make a difference in your life.”