Police chief addresses 'dead name' complaint in arrest of trans activist
CBC
London's police chief has weighed in for a second time about last week's controversial arrest of a London transgender activist.
In a statement released Thursday night, Chief Steve Williams confirmed that Clara Sorrenti was the victim of a "swatting" incident.
That's when someone calls police with false information with the intention of sending police to a person's work or residence to arrest them.
Sorrenti has said police came to her house last Friday, arrested her at gunpoint and detained her for 11 hours.
Williams said on that morning, police received a 911 call about a person threatening to shoot people at city hall.
His statement confirms that threatening emails sent to city officials did not originate with Sorrenti.
The chief also says officers did not force their way into her home —a tactic that is sometimes called a "dynamic entry" — but insists police knocked on the door.
Williams says Sorrenti was cooperative but was arrested for uttering threats based on information police had at that time.
Williams confirms that it was the force's Emergency Response Unit that carried out the arrest, and that officers were armed.
However, the chief said that response was necessary, given the nature of the threat.
Williams also addresses the criticism that police used the name and gender assigned to Sorrenti at birth during her arrest. Sorrenti has told CBC News she's not used the name and gender assigned to her at birth for more than a decade.
Williams said, however, that a bag of her belongings was labelled with her former name, sometimes called a dead name.
But he says police did not call her by her former name while she was in the holding cells.
Williams said he's reached out to Sorrenti to discuss the incident and made her aware of how she can file a complaint, if she wants to.
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