Brutalized Sexual Assault Survivor’s Lawsuit Fund
Donation protected
Personal statement by Ms. Ariana Markle
My name is Ariana Markle and I am a sexual assault and a police brutality survivor. I was one of the 54 participants in The Globe and Mail Unfounded series that revealed troubling police practices across the country. I was in contact with the journalist Robyn Doolittle for the newspaper’s coverage of how police handle sexual assault allegations over the course of a year prior to the publication of the series.
Now I am seeking your support to push forward a precedent-setting constitutional challenge and civil action that will hold multiple state actors accountable for their contempt and hostility toward survivors of gender-based and sexual violence, while also making much-needed safety improvements and recommendations in the public interest— both now and in the future.
My experience with the Canadian justice system began when I made a distress call to emergency services in the direct aftermath of being sexually assaulted in October of 2015. Paramedics and EMS were dispatched to the scene and I was transported by way of ambulance to the hospital to undergo an intrusive, painful, and traumatic battery of tests as part of the Sexual Assault Evidence Kit (SAEK). After being in the emergency department at the hospital for about 8 hours, I was brought into the police station to do my victim impact statement.
It should be noted here that institutionalized forms of racism, sexism, and classism shape the care that victims receive during the evidence collection process. Insufficient training and inadequate forensic protocols weighed heavily on me in this instance, as despite a discharge diagnosis of "sexual assault" by the nurse practitioner, my experience with the all-male police task force proved that Canadian rape laws reflect patriarchal attitudes that systemically discriminate against women and other vulnerable complainants.
Todd Seadon was the primary investigator and he made me feel very uncomfortable during the statement process. When I broke down crying when I got to the narrative surrounding my lived experience of sexual assault, I was pressed on by Todd to describe in explicit detail the mechanics of the rape. I said I was pinned down violently and forcibly penetrated as I screamed for help and struggled under the weight of impact, whereby I felt I was being annihilated into oblivion. My descriptions did not appeal enough to Todd's pornographic imagination; as such, I implored for a women investigator due to the traumatic nature of reliving the events.
Here you may find a description written by my previous legal representative describing the video statement done by police:
‘The male officer again asks Ms. Markle to describe the sexual assault. A tearful Ms. Markle stated that he “penetrated” her and “forced himself” on her after pushing her on the bed and then she began yelling for help. It’s clear from her video statement that although the officer is attempting to have her describe the sexual assault in greater detail, Ms. Markle has great difficulty with this. She tells the officer that she was on her back and that he forced himself on her, that it was against her will and that he penetrated her. Visibly uncomfortable, Ms. Markle then told the officer when he asked for additional information about the incident that going through the details was not something that she wanted to do at the time. In response, the officer stated that her complaint about what happened was “generic.”
Ms. Markle stated that to press her further about what happened would be “cruel.” Most reasonable people reviewing Ms. Markle’s video statement would agree. The appropriate thing for the officer to have done in this circumstance would have been to ask her to come back when she felt more comfortable. Instead, he pressed on with the interview, telling her that he needed specifics. Finally, Ms. Markle responded that Mr. Baigi grabbed her and forced his penis in her vagina and when she said stop, he wouldn’t. When she started yelling, he continued. She then started crying and calling for help, yelling for someone to call the police.
Although Ms. Markle has a difficult time describing the incident that happened to her, she continues to be pressed by the male officer, stating that she is not giving him enough detail. Frustrated, Ms. Markle breaks down and, using a prop in the room, physically demonstrates what happened to her while crying. I would invite the Crown to watch this portion of the video. It is incredibly distressing to watch a male officer press a sexual assault complainant to the point where the person breaks down.’
Who designed the Sexual Assault Evidence Kit (SAEK) and why?
The first provincial SAEK was literally assembled by the hands of Rape Crisis Centre volunteers and staff. Ideally, investigative processes are coupled with therapeutic components. There is a cataloguing of horrors and for the forensic nurses, the court of law is the ultimate point of arrival. There is often a statement of a victim's acts of resistance and an account of her lack of consent. While all these criteria were present in my specific case, I was too distressed to complete my interview with Todd. I requested a female investigator be assigned to my case, as there were no females available to speak with me upon my arrival at the station that day.
The fact I had to wait for a female investigator for a week necessitated a partition in the case that culminated in Todd's lack of discretion and absolute power being used to effectively condone rape, suppress and silence any dissent, as well as minimize if not all together dismiss my complaint and corrupt the case trajectory due to the lack of oversight in the system. Not only was my safety disregarded and ignored when I had made two other reports previously about the same person to document the trajectory of sexual violence, I was victim blamed and persecuted for coming forward as a witness and a survivor of rape. The SAEK field does not include "Police and Legal System" for officers to use this information to harass and punish the survivor of sexual assault. The focus should be on the actions of the perpetrator and securing the safety of the woman that has come forward.
What does it mean when feminists talk about "institutional rape"?
What I was not anticipating was a third assault, nothing short of institutional rape: I was contacted multiple times in January and February of 2016 by Tristan Morris and Todd Seadon who accused me of being uncooperative for not following up with the female investigator, using this as an opportunity to validate the story of my rapist who was found fleeing my place of residence and take a decisively masculinist and a pro-rape approach to the investigation. Rather than instituting protective measures such as a restraining order to prevent further harassment from the man that sexually assaulted me and ensuring that I had adequate access to medical care, therapeutic referrals, and counselling services from a rape advocacy organization I was punished instead and imprisoned because my rapist had a scratch on his arm. I too had scratches documented in my Rape Kit, but this information was not correctly translated into action on the part of the police officers.
Five months after the initial interaction with police, I was arrested on International Women's Day in connection to the medical distress call I made to the paramedics and EMS in the direct aftermath of being raped. This was an absolute abuse of power that resulted in an engineered brutal attack on my person. When I was released from jail three days later, I encountered numerous challenges that resulted in a National emergency and an evacuation of Vari Hall at York University. My story was featured in the news and there was an International outpouring of support for my cause when a SWAT team was called on me because I had been travelling around campus with a suitcase. You can read about the National news story here: https://www.facebook.com/GoldAtlantis/posts/10102612597735571?.
How and why are you a victim of police brutality?
The roots of political policing are deeply entrenched in the desire of kings and queens to maintain power in the face of shifting allegiances and interests of nobles and foreign powers. States may portray their police forces as value-neutral protectors of public safety; however, in reality, police have always been political and states disrupt political activity (including anti-rape activism) through monitoring, surveillance, repression and sometimes even political killings. After I had missed a court appearance in connection to the proceedings detailed in this interview with the York University student newspaper The Excalibur: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqhrrEfU2Oc, a bench warrant was issued for my arrest and I was brutalized by police for no other reason that being a rape victim-survivor.
Despite the fact I had missed the court appearance to seek medical treatment with a reasonable excuse and a handwritten letter certified by a Doctor, I was now the subject of disdain and hatred by the police for speaking out publicly on various platforms such as Medium: https://medium.com/@GoldAtlantis/york-u-evacuated-after-abandoned-suitcase-found-at-vari-hall-c79332e4ad22. It is quite clear to see that the continued existence of these banal practices are a major threat to any effort to change the basic role of police in our communities or to put them under democratic control to prevent them from re-producing the deep structural injustices of the past.
Prior to the 1970s, there were no protocols or formalized training in law enforcement organizations or hospitals dedicated to rape response. These entrenched patriarchal modes of thought result in ongoing legal practices of distrusting and dismissing women reporting rape. In my case, it resulted in political repression and police brutality. My person was seized following a failure to attend court in May of 2017 and I was maliciously and sadistically beaten by U of T campus and Toronto police during an assist-arrest and transfer to York Regional Police custody. I suffered a Basal Skull Fracture with signs and symptoms such as periorbital hemorrhaging, battle's sign, hematoma, and lacerations to my neck.
How will the funds for this campaign be used to champion women's rights?
While charges in connection to the prosecution of me have been dropped, I have initiated a civil lawsuit, Markle v. University of Toronto Special Constable Service et al, for excessive force, assault and battery. As a known sexual assault complainant, they should have been aware that my Rape Trauma Syndrome could morph into more complex forms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in the aftermath of serious breaches of public office and the intentional infliction of grievous physical and psycho-social harm to my person. The Statement of Claim filed on June 13th, 2019 indicates I was physically assaulted a total of six times by U of T campus and Toronto police officers on May 11th, 2017.
I was merely 110lbs at the time of the police brutality incident and thought I would break my neck or die when the police officers were viciously smashing my head into the wall of the search room, violently tugging on the string of my hoodie causing asphyxiation, and slamming me to the ground in a prone position while my chest was being compressed at the onset of the assaults. After I lost consciousness, I was left to languish in a holding cell without access to emergency services or basic medical provisions. You can read the public statement I made in connection to the assault and battery that occurred on May 11th, 2017 here: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10103402154617251&set=a.10100346107849471&type=3&theater.
I was left with PTSD, concussion symptoms arising from the Traumatic Brain Injury, insomnia, nightmares, flashbacks and sleep disturbances that developed into complex sleep apnea and the need for a breathing machine, as well as a deep-seated fear of the police due to the complete lack of government oversight. As a witness of a double-homicide mass shooting in June of 2016 where I narrowly escaped being shot myself, I am often riddled with a profound sense of insecurity. Who are we to turn to for assistance in the face of extreme forms of gender-based violence? Who protects us and what does community safety mean for those of us that have been violated and brutalized by police officers?
As part of my attempt to grapple with these philosophical questions, I have launched a civil action to seek accountability from a system that fails women such as myself and routinely dismisses rape cases as unfounded. The unfounded series recently revealed that the police categorize 1 in 5 sexual assault claims as baseless. Not only are women not being constitutionally protected under the law when they experience gendered violence, but they are also becoming targets of physically abusive governmental conduct. Police should be held to a high standard of conduct that befits a country founded on principles of fundamental democracy, justice, and freedom. Assault and battery of sexual assault complainants by police is not an acceptable form of jurisprudence.
The funds I am requesting in this campaign will go towards fully retaining the civil lawyer that has helped me produce documents to commence this proceeding. We will also need to do a number of procedural motions, hire expert witnesses, organize a press conference, and make administrative requests through tort law to get footage of my time at the station, since the police have participated in Spoliation of Evidence. In other words, the police have destroyed some of the of evidence. In this instance it is plain to see that the police can be a threat to democracy and the forces of civil society. That is why the institution of policing must be held to account when they intentionally inflict egregious harm upon vulnerable populations.
It is my hope that this civil proceeding sets a precedent and leads to many safety improvements for sexual assault survivors that transcends private interest to embrace the public realm with many recommended policy solutions to protect similarly situated individuals from harm― both now and in the future. All funds will go directly into trust toward the administrative and procedural costs associated with this lawsuit initiated against U of T campus police and related entities, including the Chief of Police Mark Saunders. This lawsuit will cost upwards of $30,000 to push forward in the Superior Court of Justice.
My name is Ariana Markle and I am a sexual assault and a police brutality survivor. I was one of the 54 participants in The Globe and Mail Unfounded series that revealed troubling police practices across the country. I was in contact with the journalist Robyn Doolittle for the newspaper’s coverage of how police handle sexual assault allegations over the course of a year prior to the publication of the series.
Now I am seeking your support to push forward a precedent-setting constitutional challenge and civil action that will hold multiple state actors accountable for their contempt and hostility toward survivors of gender-based and sexual violence, while also making much-needed safety improvements and recommendations in the public interest— both now and in the future.
My experience with the Canadian justice system began when I made a distress call to emergency services in the direct aftermath of being sexually assaulted in October of 2015. Paramedics and EMS were dispatched to the scene and I was transported by way of ambulance to the hospital to undergo an intrusive, painful, and traumatic battery of tests as part of the Sexual Assault Evidence Kit (SAEK). After being in the emergency department at the hospital for about 8 hours, I was brought into the police station to do my victim impact statement.
It should be noted here that institutionalized forms of racism, sexism, and classism shape the care that victims receive during the evidence collection process. Insufficient training and inadequate forensic protocols weighed heavily on me in this instance, as despite a discharge diagnosis of "sexual assault" by the nurse practitioner, my experience with the all-male police task force proved that Canadian rape laws reflect patriarchal attitudes that systemically discriminate against women and other vulnerable complainants.Todd Seadon was the primary investigator and he made me feel very uncomfortable during the statement process. When I broke down crying when I got to the narrative surrounding my lived experience of sexual assault, I was pressed on by Todd to describe in explicit detail the mechanics of the rape. I said I was pinned down violently and forcibly penetrated as I screamed for help and struggled under the weight of impact, whereby I felt I was being annihilated into oblivion. My descriptions did not appeal enough to Todd's pornographic imagination; as such, I implored for a women investigator due to the traumatic nature of reliving the events.Here you may find a description written by my previous legal representative describing the video statement done by police:
‘The male officer again asks Ms. Markle to describe the sexual assault. A tearful Ms. Markle stated that he “penetrated” her and “forced himself” on her after pushing her on the bed and then she began yelling for help. It’s clear from her video statement that although the officer is attempting to have her describe the sexual assault in greater detail, Ms. Markle has great difficulty with this. She tells the officer that she was on her back and that he forced himself on her, that it was against her will and that he penetrated her. Visibly uncomfortable, Ms. Markle then told the officer when he asked for additional information about the incident that going through the details was not something that she wanted to do at the time. In response, the officer stated that her complaint about what happened was “generic.”
Ms. Markle stated that to press her further about what happened would be “cruel.” Most reasonable people reviewing Ms. Markle’s video statement would agree. The appropriate thing for the officer to have done in this circumstance would have been to ask her to come back when she felt more comfortable. Instead, he pressed on with the interview, telling her that he needed specifics. Finally, Ms. Markle responded that Mr. Baigi grabbed her and forced his penis in her vagina and when she said stop, he wouldn’t. When she started yelling, he continued. She then started crying and calling for help, yelling for someone to call the police.
Although Ms. Markle has a difficult time describing the incident that happened to her, she continues to be pressed by the male officer, stating that she is not giving him enough detail. Frustrated, Ms. Markle breaks down and, using a prop in the room, physically demonstrates what happened to her while crying. I would invite the Crown to watch this portion of the video. It is incredibly distressing to watch a male officer press a sexual assault complainant to the point where the person breaks down.’
Who designed the Sexual Assault Evidence Kit (SAEK) and why?The first provincial SAEK was literally assembled by the hands of Rape Crisis Centre volunteers and staff. Ideally, investigative processes are coupled with therapeutic components. There is a cataloguing of horrors and for the forensic nurses, the court of law is the ultimate point of arrival. There is often a statement of a victim's acts of resistance and an account of her lack of consent. While all these criteria were present in my specific case, I was too distressed to complete my interview with Todd. I requested a female investigator be assigned to my case, as there were no females available to speak with me upon my arrival at the station that day.
The fact I had to wait for a female investigator for a week necessitated a partition in the case that culminated in Todd's lack of discretion and absolute power being used to effectively condone rape, suppress and silence any dissent, as well as minimize if not all together dismiss my complaint and corrupt the case trajectory due to the lack of oversight in the system. Not only was my safety disregarded and ignored when I had made two other reports previously about the same person to document the trajectory of sexual violence, I was victim blamed and persecuted for coming forward as a witness and a survivor of rape. The SAEK field does not include "Police and Legal System" for officers to use this information to harass and punish the survivor of sexual assault. The focus should be on the actions of the perpetrator and securing the safety of the woman that has come forward.
What does it mean when feminists talk about "institutional rape"?
What I was not anticipating was a third assault, nothing short of institutional rape: I was contacted multiple times in January and February of 2016 by Tristan Morris and Todd Seadon who accused me of being uncooperative for not following up with the female investigator, using this as an opportunity to validate the story of my rapist who was found fleeing my place of residence and take a decisively masculinist and a pro-rape approach to the investigation. Rather than instituting protective measures such as a restraining order to prevent further harassment from the man that sexually assaulted me and ensuring that I had adequate access to medical care, therapeutic referrals, and counselling services from a rape advocacy organization I was punished instead and imprisoned because my rapist had a scratch on his arm. I too had scratches documented in my Rape Kit, but this information was not correctly translated into action on the part of the police officers.
Five months after the initial interaction with police, I was arrested on International Women's Day in connection to the medical distress call I made to the paramedics and EMS in the direct aftermath of being raped. This was an absolute abuse of power that resulted in an engineered brutal attack on my person. When I was released from jail three days later, I encountered numerous challenges that resulted in a National emergency and an evacuation of Vari Hall at York University. My story was featured in the news and there was an International outpouring of support for my cause when a SWAT team was called on me because I had been travelling around campus with a suitcase. You can read about the National news story here: https://www.facebook.com/GoldAtlantis/posts/10102612597735571?. How and why are you a victim of police brutality?
The roots of political policing are deeply entrenched in the desire of kings and queens to maintain power in the face of shifting allegiances and interests of nobles and foreign powers. States may portray their police forces as value-neutral protectors of public safety; however, in reality, police have always been political and states disrupt political activity (including anti-rape activism) through monitoring, surveillance, repression and sometimes even political killings. After I had missed a court appearance in connection to the proceedings detailed in this interview with the York University student newspaper The Excalibur: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqhrrEfU2Oc, a bench warrant was issued for my arrest and I was brutalized by police for no other reason that being a rape victim-survivor.
Despite the fact I had missed the court appearance to seek medical treatment with a reasonable excuse and a handwritten letter certified by a Doctor, I was now the subject of disdain and hatred by the police for speaking out publicly on various platforms such as Medium: https://medium.com/@GoldAtlantis/york-u-evacuated-after-abandoned-suitcase-found-at-vari-hall-c79332e4ad22. It is quite clear to see that the continued existence of these banal practices are a major threat to any effort to change the basic role of police in our communities or to put them under democratic control to prevent them from re-producing the deep structural injustices of the past. Prior to the 1970s, there were no protocols or formalized training in law enforcement organizations or hospitals dedicated to rape response. These entrenched patriarchal modes of thought result in ongoing legal practices of distrusting and dismissing women reporting rape. In my case, it resulted in political repression and police brutality. My person was seized following a failure to attend court in May of 2017 and I was maliciously and sadistically beaten by U of T campus and Toronto police during an assist-arrest and transfer to York Regional Police custody. I suffered a Basal Skull Fracture with signs and symptoms such as periorbital hemorrhaging, battle's sign, hematoma, and lacerations to my neck.
How will the funds for this campaign be used to champion women's rights? While charges in connection to the prosecution of me have been dropped, I have initiated a civil lawsuit, Markle v. University of Toronto Special Constable Service et al, for excessive force, assault and battery. As a known sexual assault complainant, they should have been aware that my Rape Trauma Syndrome could morph into more complex forms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in the aftermath of serious breaches of public office and the intentional infliction of grievous physical and psycho-social harm to my person. The Statement of Claim filed on June 13th, 2019 indicates I was physically assaulted a total of six times by U of T campus and Toronto police officers on May 11th, 2017.
I was merely 110lbs at the time of the police brutality incident and thought I would break my neck or die when the police officers were viciously smashing my head into the wall of the search room, violently tugging on the string of my hoodie causing asphyxiation, and slamming me to the ground in a prone position while my chest was being compressed at the onset of the assaults. After I lost consciousness, I was left to languish in a holding cell without access to emergency services or basic medical provisions. You can read the public statement I made in connection to the assault and battery that occurred on May 11th, 2017 here: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10103402154617251&set=a.10100346107849471&type=3&theater.I was left with PTSD, concussion symptoms arising from the Traumatic Brain Injury, insomnia, nightmares, flashbacks and sleep disturbances that developed into complex sleep apnea and the need for a breathing machine, as well as a deep-seated fear of the police due to the complete lack of government oversight. As a witness of a double-homicide mass shooting in June of 2016 where I narrowly escaped being shot myself, I am often riddled with a profound sense of insecurity. Who are we to turn to for assistance in the face of extreme forms of gender-based violence? Who protects us and what does community safety mean for those of us that have been violated and brutalized by police officers?
As part of my attempt to grapple with these philosophical questions, I have launched a civil action to seek accountability from a system that fails women such as myself and routinely dismisses rape cases as unfounded. The unfounded series recently revealed that the police categorize 1 in 5 sexual assault claims as baseless. Not only are women not being constitutionally protected under the law when they experience gendered violence, but they are also becoming targets of physically abusive governmental conduct. Police should be held to a high standard of conduct that befits a country founded on principles of fundamental democracy, justice, and freedom. Assault and battery of sexual assault complainants by police is not an acceptable form of jurisprudence.The funds I am requesting in this campaign will go towards fully retaining the civil lawyer that has helped me produce documents to commence this proceeding. We will also need to do a number of procedural motions, hire expert witnesses, organize a press conference, and make administrative requests through tort law to get footage of my time at the station, since the police have participated in Spoliation of Evidence. In other words, the police have destroyed some of the of evidence. In this instance it is plain to see that the police can be a threat to democracy and the forces of civil society. That is why the institution of policing must be held to account when they intentionally inflict egregious harm upon vulnerable populations.
It is my hope that this civil proceeding sets a precedent and leads to many safety improvements for sexual assault survivors that transcends private interest to embrace the public realm with many recommended policy solutions to protect similarly situated individuals from harm― both now and in the future. All funds will go directly into trust toward the administrative and procedural costs associated with this lawsuit initiated against U of T campus police and related entities, including the Chief of Police Mark Saunders. This lawsuit will cost upwards of $30,000 to push forward in the Superior Court of Justice.
Fundraising team (2)
Ariana Markle
Organizer
Toronto, ON
Vinnie Wong
Team member