CANADA PROVINCE OF QUEBEC DISTRICT OF MONTREAL No: COURT OF QUEBEC

CAITLIN NELSON, student, domiciled and residing at 2209 Wilson, in the City of Montreal, District of Montreal, Province of Quebec, H4A 2T4 Plaintiff v.

CITY OF MONTREAL, having a place of business at 775 Gosford, 3rd Floor, in the City of Montreal, District of Montreal, H2Y 3B9

-and-

ALEXANDRE VIAU, police officer, having a place of business at 775 Gosford, in the City of Montreal, District of Montreal, H2Y 3B9

INTRODUCTORY MOTION IN DAMAGES

PLAINTIFF DECLARES: THE PARTIES 1. Plaintiff is student attending Concordia University; 2. Plaintiff is an Anglophone originally from Alberta living permanently in Montreal since the spring of 2012;

3. Plaintiff is also a photographer for Independent Media; 4. Plaintiff is a political activist, demonstrator and one of the administrator of the facebook group called Liste du SPVM; 5. Liste du SPVM is a facebook group which advises citizens on how to make complaints against police officers; 6. Plaintiff does not have a criminal report and has never engaged in any violent behavior; 7. Defendant Alexandre Viau is a police officer employed by the City and is involved in many of the incidents involving Plaintiff, it is not alleged that he is the sole perpetrator but that his presence was very frequent; 8. The City of Montreal is the employer and is jointly and severally responsible for the employees actions; 9. Plaintiff reserves the rights to add other police officers participating in the events mentioned below; THE FACTS 10. Since May 2012, Plaintiff has been repeatedly and systematically ticketed, removed from events, arrested and detained for her political activism by the Montreal police; 11. As soon as Plaintiff participates in any political or large social event, Plaintiff is systematically singled out, targeted and sanctioned; 12. The Plaintiff has experienced the following sanctions for her political activism; A. On May 13th, 2012, Plaintiff was charged by a horse belonging to the riot police and slightly injured; B. On May 19th, 2012, during a protest, Plaintiff was violently searched by the police;

C. Towards the end of May 2012, Plaintiff asked a police officer how to leave a protest which was turning into a confrontation

and the officer forced Plaintiff back into the crowd and shortly after the riot police used tear gas; D. In June 2012, Plaintiff was ticketed and detained on numerous occasions, during those events Plaintiff expressed that she did not speak French but Defendants refused to speak to her in English; E. On July 30th, 2012, Plaintiff was searched and detained for a short period of time; F. Since July 30th, 2012, police officers started referring to Plaintiff as Katie; G. In the afternoon of August 8th, 2012, Plaintiff was approached by police and advised her frightened friend to give her identification and that she did have to talk to the officer; this is when Defendant Viau, ticked Plaintiff, questioned Plaintiff on her political affiliations and told her to go back to Alberta; H. In the evening on August 8th, 2012 , Plaintiff was followed while walking on the street by police officers, they began cat-calling her Miss Alberta ; Eventually Plaintiff received a ticket for spitting; it is to be noted Plaintiff was spitting because she had been tear- gassed earlier that day; I. On August 14th, 2012, Defendant Viau ticketed Plaintiff for not using the side walk during a protest; J. On August 17th, 2012, Plaintiff was violently arrested for expressing a political opinion, the officer used pain compliance methods despite that Plaintiff was not resisting Plaintiff stated she did not speak French and the officers refused to inform her of the motives of her arrest in English; K. On August 18th, 2012, Defendant Viau ticketed Plaintiff for not using the side walk during a protest; L. On August 23rd, 2012, during a nightly protest, Defendant Viau shouted at Plaintiff to go home because she was not from

here, other officers started making kissing sounds at Plaintiff, Plaintiff mentioned this was sexism, Plaintiff was later fined; M. On August 29th, 2012, Plaintiff received four jay-walking tickets from police officer Sylvain Brosseau, while her friend walking with her only received one; N. On August 31th, 2012, while attending a large protest, Plaintiff was pushed violently on a fence and she injured her wrist; O. In the summer of 2012, Plaintiff was quietly having a coffee in the park with friends, when she was approached by the police, the officers violently hand-cuffed, arrested put Plaintiff at the back of a police car and drove her around for 40 minutes before the officers decided let her go by throwing her things out of the car; P. On September 1st, 2012, Defendant Viau fined Plaintiff for swearing in a park an event that had apparently taken place the day before, Plaintiff was also fined because the ash of the cigarette she was smoking fell to the ground; Q. On September 4th, 2012, Plaintiff was fined detained; and briefly

R. On September 5th 2012, Plaintiff was arrested and searched; during the search, the officers looked at Plaintiffs text messages, her facebook, her emails, her twitter, her notes; during that time Defendant threatened that handcuffed would be used if she did not sit down on the ground, while detained officers commented on her beautiful eyes and made other comments on her looks; Plaintiff was detained for 20 minutes;

S. Towards the end of September 2012, Police officers mocked Plaintiff for filming a protest; T. On October 22nd, 2012, Police officers started cat-calling Plaintiff commenting on how she was dressed; Plaintiff was arrested, an officer twisted her arm violently commenting oh

you like it like that, Plaintiff was paraded and presented to other officers as Katie, the officer made comments about Plaintiff that she could not understand but by the reaction of others, Plaintiff knew the comments were inappropriate; Later, Plaintiff was officially arrested, physically searched in front of male officers, Plaintiff was detained all night, for many hours she was denied contact with her lawyer; while Plaintiff was sleeping in the holding cell, officers amused themselves by waking Plaintiff by cat-calling her; While Plaintiff was in custody, police officers used her phone to call her contacts;

U. On October 26th, 2012, Plaintiff was verbally attacked and detained for 35 minutes for walking with a friend whom was holding a black flag; V. On November 9th, 2012, Plaintiff was ticketed for shouting; W. On November 14th, 2012, Plaintiff was ticketed and called a Bitch and other words she does not understand by various police officers; X. On February 9th, 2013, while participating in a protest, officers implied to other protesters that she had snitched on them during her October 22th, 2012 arrest; Y. On February 26th, 2013, Plaintiff was followed by police officers and told to go back to Alberta; Z. On March 15th, 2013, Plaintiff was followed and harassed throughout of the city by the same officers; AA. On March 19th, 2013, while being kettled, the police mocked her by pointing at her and chanting Katie; BB. On March 22nd, 2013, Plaintiff was verbally abused for posting pictures on the liste du spvm facebook page; the police continued following her shouting Katie;

CC. Later on March 22nd, 2013, during a protest Plaintiff was arrested, searched and questioned about her facebook page and why she had filmed police officers; DD. On April 5th, 2013, police officer asked Plaintiffs roommate personal and inappropriate questions about their type relationship; EE. On April 21th, 2013, Plaintiff was ticketed and arrested by Defendant Viau; Defendant Viau put Plaintiff at the back of a police car and ordered other officers to driver her around; Plaintiff was released 35 minutes later; FF.On May 1st, 2013, after the police had kettled protesters and were in the process of loading them on the bus, when it came to Plaintiffs turn to board the bus, the officers told her she would be the last one to leave; Plaintiff waited outside in the sun for hours, she was denied water, Plaintiff began to feel unwell and asked to see a medic but the officers refused; later a female officer lifted Plaintiff shirt during a search exposing her upper body in front of male officers, While Plaintiff was exposed the males officers laughed loudly, As a result of being denied water, Plaintiff was treated by an ambulance technician for dehydration; GG. In June 2013, Plaintiff was walking by a police car and the officers kept calling her name Katie remember me Katie, later that day, the same officers kept screaming ca va Katie, ca va?; HH. Plaintiff attended the Grand Prix 2013 celebration on Crescent, she was followed by the police for a significant distance, Plaintiff feared for her safety and tried to leave, Plaintiff was later arrested for no apparent reason;

13. The list of tickets, fines and other documents is attached en liasse, the documents are filed as Exhibit P-1;

14. The high frequency and the systematic nature of these events make it statistically impossible for the source of these sanctions to be anything but political profiling or a personal vendetta; 15. Despite that some of the events occurred more than six months ago, the fact that the profiling and vendetta continue makes this a single fault in which no part is prescribed; in any event the last six months cannot be prescribed; 16. Moreover, the extend of the profiling became apparent gradually and the events of March 22nd, 2013 made it particularly clear;

THE FAULT: 17. Plaintiff has been systematically harassed, targeted and sanctioned by Defendants because of her political activism; while Defendant is clearly the most responsible many unidentified police officers took part in these activities;

THE DAMAGES: 18. Plaintiff is entitled to $24 000 in damages; 19. Plaintiff suffered important moral damages, has felt great stress, anguish and insecurity;

20. Plaintiff considers herself unjustly targeted for her political belief and to some extend gender; 21. Given the importance of the damages suffered by Plaintiff, Plaintiff is entitled to $20,000.00;

22. Moreover, Plaintiff is entitled to $4,000.00 in punitive damages given that Defendants intentionally violated Plaintiff fundamental rights; ACTION

23. Defendant Viaus action are clearly actionable;

24. Moreover, the City of Montreal is the employer and is jointly and severally responsible for all of the employees actions and for the delicts committed by the police;

PROCEDURE 25. A mise en demeure was sent to each of the Defendants on August 15th, 2013, and is filed under Exhibit P-2; WHEREFORE MAY IT PLEASE THIS HONORABLE COUR TO: ALLOW this action; ORDER Defendants jointly and severally to pay the Plaintiff the amount of $24, 000.00, with interest at the legal rate, plus the additional indemnity provided by law, to accrue from August 20th, 2013; THE WHOLE, with costs.

Montreal, this 22nd day of August 2013

GREY CASGRAIN, s.e.n.c. Attorneys for Plaintiff