Woman charged after clogging Kingston Police toilet
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A 25-year-old woman, identified in court as having mental health issues, has been placed on probation after pleading guilty to mischief by overflowing a toilet and interfering with the operation of a block of holding cells at Kingston Police headquarters.
Natasha Hall was given enhanced credit on four days of pretrial custody, sentenced to time served and probation for 12 months, during which time she's required to participate in any assessments, counselling and rehabilitative programs directed by her probation supervisor.
Hall told Justice Allan Letourneau she didn't have a problem with probation per se. But she didn't want to be assigned counselling or programs and suggested to the judge that she has her own methods of coping.
Requiring her to follow any plan imposed by a probation officer, she told Justice Letourneau, will just make more problems for her.
Assistant Crown attorney Natalie Thompson told the judge that Hall was taken into custody July 14, after citizens called Kingston Police at 7:43 a.m. to report that a woman was ripping flowers out of beds on Johnson Street, near King Street.
She said officers located Hall, "playing" in one of the flower beds and learned that she'd also ripped up plantings in other areas of the downtown.
Kingston Police, in a release following Hall's arrest, described finding her "inside a large vine," barefoot and covered in dirt and connected her to the destruction of some of the plantings on Market Square and at an unspecified cathedral in the area. She ran west on Johnson Street at the approach of police, but was apprehended after a brief chase.
Thompson said Hall appeared to officers to be high and suffering from "severe mental health issues," and Hall confirmed to Justice Letourneau that she was under the influence of drugs that morning. She was affronted, however, when Thompson told the judge that Kingston Police had dealt with her on four previous occasions recently when she was in a similar state.
Hall complained to the judge that police "constantly think I'm high. Because I'm a drug addict doesn't mean I'm high," she told him.
She insisted there have been times when her behaviour has attracted the attention of police and neither drugs nor mental illness have been the root cause. Hall suggested to Justice Letourneau those episodes were provoked by distress at losing a child and her housing.
According to police, officers have dealt with 26 occurrences and calls for service involving Hall since 2011 without any charges being laid until now.
She was picked up on July 8, for example, after uniform patrol officers were dispatched to Division Street and Dalton Avenue to investigate calls about a woman dancing in a parking lot and flashing a 9-1-1 sign at passing motorists.
Hall had attempted to get into a vehicle with strangers before police arrived and then climbed into a U-Haul truck stopped at nearby gas pumps and refused to get out for the driver.
Officers arrested her for breach of the peace, for her own safety, detained her for a time in a holding cell at police headquarters and released her without a charge or any conditions.
She was picked up again the very next day, however, after complaints were received about a woman who had reportedly been screaming for almost 30 minutes on Montreal Street.
Hall was found a block away, according to police, near Bagot Street. She was barefoot, appeared to be very intoxicated and kept screaming and swearing even after the arrival of officers.
Consequently, she was again taken into custody, held in a cell until she appeared recovered, and was again released without charges.
Police claim that was the initial plan when she was arrested April 14 as well.
But, Thompson told Justice Letourneau, this time Hall did something she hadn't done before -- plugging the toilet in her cell. At 10:05 that Thursday morning, a little more than two hours after Hall's arrest, the staff sergeant on duty was informed she'd flooded part of the cells area.
Defence lawyer Mary Jane Kingston, who assisted Hall with her plea, told the judge that Hall's on disability and recently lost her apartment.
syanagisawa@postmedia.com
