We were introduced to Audrey Smith by Phillip Mascoll, the Toronto Star reporter who had broken the story of the poor, uneducated Jamaican woman who was wrongly strip-searched on the streets of Toronto.
In 1996, Audrey's relatives pooled their resources and brought Audrey to Toronto for a vacation. This holiday was a welcome respite from hr difficult, poverty-stricken existence in Jamaica. However, this generous gift became a degrading nightmare when she was approached on the street late one evening by two Toronto Police Officers, who accused her of drug trafficking. She was told to hand over the drugs in her possession, and when she replied that she had no drugs, the officers called a female officer to the scene, where Audrey was strip-searched, in the parking lot of a TD Bank. This scene is reenacted in the video.
We interview Audrey when she returned to Toronto to testify to the Police Commission Board. We then returned home with her to her home in Jamaica, which is located on a former garbage dumpsite. She and her neighbors had slowly cleaned the dump away while squatting on this property and had had services like the single line of running water and electricity brought in.
It is here that we truly got to know Audrey Smith; a mother of four with a husband confined to a wheelchair, she works for about $20.00 Canadian per week. She is a proud, God-fearing woman who stands out among her neighbors as an advocate for her family and her community.
This is a far cry from the picture that was painted of Audrey by the police, who accused her of being a drug dealer and a prostitute.
Over the course of following Audrey's story, I was surprised to meet others who had had similar encounters with the police; Audrey's experience was not so unusual, and the police's tactic of discrediting her seemed par for the course.
It also became apparent that strip-searches are being used as a deterrent when dealing with drug dealers, prostitutes and street people. However, this tactic is often used on innocent victims. It could happen to anyone at anytime.