EXCLUSIVE: Lawyer sues Sault police over alleged 'stalking' by officers

An Indigenous criminal defence lawyer who rose to fame last year when her bid to run under the Ontario Liberal Party banner was dashed, is suing Sault Ste. Marie Police Service over allegations that she’s being "stalked, harassed and intimidated" by police officers who have been following her around the city and monitoring her movements.

Naomi Sayers — who had a previous complaint involving alleged intimidation by a member of Sault Ste. Marie Police Service thrown out by an independent police watchdog last year — claims that she doesn't feel safe in her own home after being followed and surveilled by officers for months.   

Sayers is seeking more than $200,000 in damages, according to a statement of claim that's been filed in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. She has also filed a notice of motion with the courts requesting that police officers refrain from driving in front of her home. 

None of the allegations against Sault Ste. Marie Police Service and the other defendants named in Sayers’ statement of claim have been proven in court. 

The lawyer says she began making detailed notes regarding police cruisers frequently buzzing around her, either while out jogging or at her home, beginning in mid-December of last year; she alleges there were more than 50 sightings of Sault Ste. Marie Police Service vehicles between December 2022 and January 2023, and says she has digital evidence to back up her claims.  

“Sayers pleads that officers are communicating to each other about Sayers and are invading her privacy, breaching confidence, abusing their power, and conspiring to injure Sayers to the point of humiliation or alternatively, intentionally inflict harm upon Sayers,” the statement of claim said. 

If you are concerned about my safety, you can call the city police and ask to speak to the staff Sgt

You can ask the staff Sgt why would two cruisers be sitting on a street for 20-30 minutes then going back to park just a meters down. pic.twitter.com/i1w2aCChTt

— Naomi Sayers, Ozaawaagiizis'okwe 💕 (@kwetoday) February 28, 2023

Speaking with SooToday late last week, Sayers can only offer theories as to why she believes she’s being stalked by officers. She said at first she attributed it to retaliation over the complaint she had filed against Sault Ste. Marie Police Service last year alleging an officer had backed her into a corner at police headquarters and intimidated her. The complaint has since been dismissed by an independent police watchdog. 

According to the statement of claim, the alleged stalking behaviour has been ramping up in recent months. Sayers claims this activity is linked to a “jilted” and “embarrassed” police officer whom Sayers says she broke off a sexual relationship with late last year after the constable was unclear about his relationship status.  

In the statement of claim, Sayers said she felt the police activity around her increased after ending all communication with the constable. 

“I had a relationship — I don’t want to use that term because it wasn’t a relationship — with one officer, and I ended it,” she told SooToday.

Sayers also alleges in the 19-page statement of claim that Sault Ste. Marie Police Service "colluded with its own investigators and senior command to engage in a negligent investigation and abuse its own complaint process by failing to assign an external investigator."

Sault Ste. Marie Police Service attempted to have Greater Sudbury Police Service look into Sayers’ complaint as a third-party investigator earlier this year, but Sayers rejected that offer due to her own suspicions that the two law enforcement agencies, given their geographic proximity to one another, may not give her complaint a fair shake. 

Sayers has since escalated her complaint to the Office of the Independent Police Review Director and Special Investigations Unit — both of them independent police watchdogs in Ontario — but so far, neither has stepped in to investigate her claims. 

The Police Services Board, the Attorney General of Ontario and the Sault police officer she says she engaged in sexual activity are among those named as defendants in the lawsuit — in addition to the City of Sault Ste. Marie.  

“The city has an obligation to maintain its roads, free from obstructions — and if the city police are just driving around impeding my flow, to me that is not living up to their duty on the Municipal Act,” said Sayers. “The other prong of that is city councillors who could be or would be aware, in exercising their role or relationship with city police, were not exercising it in accordance with policy, and they could be liable.”

In an email to SooToday Monday, City of Sault Ste. Marie spokesperson Tessa Vecchio said the municipality is not in a position to comment as the matter is in litigation and being handled by external legal counsel.  

Legal counsel for Sault Ste. Marie Police Service has suggested that Sayers discontinue her claim against the city, according to an email obtained by SooToday. 

"In my review of your claim I do not understand why the Corporation of the City of Sault Ste Marie is a named defendant," Orlando Rosa said in an email to Sayers Tuesday.   

In addition to the damages being sought in the lawsuit, Sayers is also looking for a third-party investigator to be assigned in order to handle her police complaint. 

“I will not hand over my evidence to anybody but an independent and impartial investigator, because I’d be worried it would get lost,” she said. 

Sayers began taking to social media earlier this year, posting photos of police vehicles she encounters while out jogging along city streets and tagging Sault Ste. Marie Police Service in a number of those social media posts. 

She claims the latest Dynamic Patrol Initiative launched by Sault police is nothing more than a public relations campaign being done in an effort to “suggest that they are downtown for a valid purpose to counter Sayers’ complaint and to bolster Sault Police’s response to her complaint for an improper purpose,” according to the statement of claim.   

“I didn’t want it to get to this point,” said Sayers in reference to the lawsuit. “I’ve tried everything that I could.”

Sayers — a former sex worker who advocates for sex workers’ rights — made headlines across Ontario last year when her bid to run as a candidate in the Sault Ste. Marie riding under the Liberal Party banner during the provincial election was rejected by the party due largely to her social media presence.

SooToday has reached out to Sault Ste. Marie Police Service for comment.