Denied Access to a Lawyer
Denied Access to a Lawyer
Trucker Luis says police told him it was too late in the evening to receive legal counsel.
Part 1: I Came Together with the People
Trucker Luis says he learned in Ottawa that "I don't scare. I don't scare. That is the power I have from God." A devout Roman Catholic, his faith provides strength and courage.
More than two years later, he describes the entire experience as overwhelmingly positive. "Everything is in my heart. I make lots of friends. Everywhere I go, people is friendly. You can't believe that. That's why they call this a movement of God. Because we treat each other like a brother and sister. We treat each other like a family."
He disagrees with the view that individual Freedom Convoy organizers can or should be held legally responsible for the extended protest. "Nobody told me, 'Come on, Luis, come on.' From my heart, I go, right? It's from God, not from [organizer Tamara Lich]. So many people, they confused. It's not Tamara, it's God's movement."
During the weeks he was protesting Luis wasn't able to attend church, but he prayed in his truck daily and slept in the bunk every night. Whenever he went for a walk, or left to take a shower, friends of different ages, religions, and ethnicities babysat his rig. Peter, a retired trucker in his late seventies, was in the cab when Luis got arrested.
It was Friday, the first day of the violent police crackdown. Luis was part of the crowd near the Chateau Laurier hotel. The cops were methodically advancing, physically pushing (aka assaulting) peaceful protesters who were urgently pleading with them not to behave like totalitarian thugs. The officers behind those in the front row were shouting, "Move! Move!"
As he stood there, Luis raised his right hand a little above his head and a little forward. Then he prayed. Aloud. In Spanish. The police stopped advancing. He was told to lower his hand.
When he did so, the police pushed forward. Raising his hand once more, he resumed praying. Again, the police line stopped. Again, he was ordered to lower his hand. The third time, he says, "the police stop, they looking at me. The police lady say, 'Put your hand down,' I do not pay attention. I keep praying. I stay a little bit, maybe another half minute, one minute. And then she came, 'Put your hand down.' I said No."
It was then that someone pushed him from behind into the police line. His phone, which he'd been holding in his other hand, fell into the snow. He remembers hearing horses whinny as they were ridden recklessly through the crowd nearby, knocking two people to the ground.
Everything seemed to happen at once, "I remember a fat police was on the horse," he says. "When they took me, I saw the lady on the floor."
Luis' arms were zip-tied behind his back. "It was plastic, you can't move," he says. "I think they took me three o'clock, three-thirty in the afternoon. Until ten o'clock, eleven o'clock in the night."
He believes he was cuffed for at least four hours. After a while, he had to hold up his wrists to relieve the strain on his shoulders. After spending hours in a paddy wagon, he was finally brought into a building. The charge against him was mischief.
It's unclear what happened at the police processing depot that evening. A senior officer instructed someone else to remove the zip-tie. Luis says he was pressured to sign a document, but refused, since the truckers had been advised not to sign anything before speaking to a lawyer.
"No, no, you can't talk to the lawyer right now," they told him. It was too late, well after office hours, they said.
They asked about his truck. Where was it? Who was looking after it? They showed him a map, "This is a Red Zone. You can't go there. If you get caught, you have to go in jail for three months."
The senior officer was insistent. "Luis, I have too many people. Come sign and you go out." Just sign.
Luis shrugs. "And then I think again. Maybe I better sign. My idea is to go back in my truck. OK, I see the paper, I sign."
An officer escorted him outdoors, into the -28C darkness, and pointed to an intersection nearby. "You find your way. Call a taxi or call your boss, I don't know, it's not my responsibility."
Trying to get his bearings, Luis checked his phone. Google maps didn't seem to be working. "This was a supply building, or building for storage, something like that," he recalls,
Big building. There's a little house over there, but Jesus. I have to walk somewhere else. I walk, it was very cold. I saw lights far away, maybe three kilometers. I have to go there. No Google map, I don't know why.
I walk one kilometer. Finally, I see the Google map, check where I was. Maybe 1.5 kilometers more. I keep walking, walking. The police told me, if you go back there, three months in jail. What can I do? My truck is there. I have to go there to take out my truck.
I keep calling Peter, but no answer. Every stop sign, four police on each corner. You can go out, but nobody can come in. And then, you see how this is God's miracle? I was looking at the police laughing, talking to each other. And a lady opened her door, come out from where she live.
I said, 'this is my opportunity.' When I saw the lady come, I got close to her. The police was looking at me, right? They think I was her husband or friend.
Luis says he never spoke to the woman he briefly accompanied that evening. "When the lady went to the parking lot, I went with her. But as soon as she opened the door, I went straight."
continues Tuesday