BACKGROUND
Joanna Berry is a Canadian immigration and refugee lawyer in Ontario, Canada. On October 2, two Niagara Police Officers, one of them a sergeant detective, paid her a visit to her home. They told her they were there on behalf of the Ottawa Police Department because of her “personal social media.” They begin to tell her that “10 lawyers who are of the Jewish faith” have filed a complaint with the police about her social media. As you can tell from the video, Joanna Berry, is outraged by the visit and clearly distraught. I reached out to the Niagara Regional Police for comment but they did not respond to my inquiry. I spoke with Joanna Berry also and she gave OTL Media permission to publish the video. She told us that she wants Canadians to see it and for the video to be a warning.
“This is very Orwellian”
On The Line Media is run by Samira Mohyeddin, a multi-award-winning journalist, documentary maker, and producer at CBC Radio One’s The Current.
Except it wasn’t just a notification that there’s been a complaint. It was “no more unwanted messages, please.”
Aside from that it could be somewhat reasonable if there really is sufficient evidence to suggest that a criminal complaint is warranted. That seems unlikely, but I suppose we should keep an open mind. In the absence of someone digging up some really damning stuff from social media it looks a whole lot more like a lawyerly — and presumably therefore less illegal — attempt at something like “swatting”, albeit a less violent version. The police should know better than to let themselves be used like that, but a lifetime of experience leads me to suspect that maybe they do not.