The last time 18-year-old Kamara Ashton was seen by his family was the
night of November 3rd, 2006, when he left his home to attend a
Mississauga night-club Zone-One. With no word from Kamara over the
weekend, the family contacted police at 12 Division on Monday,
November 6th. The police informed older sister Nikishua Ashton that
Kamara had been picked up over the weekend. According to Nikishua,
the police withheld information as to why he had been brought into
police custody on the basis of his right to confidentiality. Though,
at this point, the family had not succeeded in establishing contact
with Kamara.
After Kamara Ashton failed to show up to an unrelated court appearance
scheduled for Tuesday, November 7th, the family began to worry,
contacting again the Metro police on Thursday, November 9th to find
out exactly where Kamara was being held. This time Nikishua was told
that that Kamara in fact had not been arrested, but only brought in
for questioning.
The family was passed along from one police division to the next in
their futile attempt to find Kamara, being told that there were no
records of him having been held in any Toronto jails since November
3rd. On Monday, November 13th, Nikishua called Kamara?s lawyer, who
also hadn?t heard from him and confirmed that Kamara had indeed missed
his November 7th court appearance.
At this point, Nikishua proceeded to file a missing person?s report at
12 Division on Wednesday, November 15th. According to Nikishua, the
officers she encountered behaved suspiciously, such as when the female
officer who helped her search for her brother in their database
covered up the computer monitor to prevent Nikishua from seeing what
it read. And later, a male officer came out to speak to her to let
her know that a missing person?s report did not need to be filed
because her brother was not missing; rather, said the officer, he was
likely in hiding because of something he had done. The officer would
not tell Nikishua or any other members of the Ashton family what
Kamara had done or why he?d have any reason to be hiding.
Nikishua finally had success in filing a missing person?s report with
Police Headquarters on Thursday, November 16th. A week later,
November 23rd, the family received a call from the police at 1:00am
that Kamara had been found: his body was found in the Humber River
Creek, in the Weston Rd. and Albion Rd. area on the evening of Monday,
November 20th, by a man walking his dog on a path alongside the creek.
The details of this timeline came from a report prepared by Nikishua
Ashton last week when the Ashton family approached the civil rights
organization Black Action Defense Committee (BADC) to help publicize
the death of their son. The report was read aloud today at a press
conference held by BADC at the Jamaican Canadian Association, given by
BADC director and long-time civil rights activist Dudley Laws,
alongside progressive attorneys Colin Browne of the African-Canadian
Legal Clinic, and Selwyn Pieters.
After Nikishua Ashton?s statement was read by another one of the three
Ashton sisters on the panel, Laws revealed that the Special
Investigations Unit (SIU) had been contacted so as to investigate
whether the police played a role in the death of Kamara Ashton.
Pieters called for a full Coroner?s Inquest into the death of Kamara
Ashton.
To add to the suspicions raised by the multiplying, contradictory
stories of the Metro Toronto police, what furthers the suspicions
along is the fact that the family has been twice declined access to
identify Kamara. Furthermore, according to Laws and Pieters, although
an autopsy has been done, neither the family nor BADC has been
informed of the results. Citing the fact that no one from the Ashton
family has identified the body, a brother of Kamara frustratingly said
after the press conference, ?all we know for sure is that our brother
is missing because we haven?t seen his body?.
After battling questions by journalists from Global, CTV, and City TV
who were trying to accuse the panellists of trying to prematurely
finger the police as the culprits, Laws and Pieters underlined their
position that they were not accusing anyone, but raising questions
about the suspicious behaviours of the police. Whatever the case, at
the very least, if the written statement Nikishua Ashton is accurate,
the actions of the police reveal a systemic level of incompetence and
multiple cases of outright malfeasance for not co-operating with the
Ashton family in finding Kamara.
Laws and Pieters underscored the fact that many disconcerting
questions remain to be answered, and repeated their call for a
Coroner?s Inquest into the cause death of Kamara Ashton.
Though heavily-attended by the mainstream press, the story received no
coverage on the day of the press conference.
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