The family of an Akwesasne woman allegedly assaulted by border guards last weekend say they're outraged and plan on launching a lawsuit in the coming weeks.
Frank Horn says his sister, Kahentinetha, suffered a heart attack June 14 after guards at the Cornwall border crossing allegedly dragged her from her car and put her in handcuffs so tight she lost feeling in her hands.
"It (the lawsuit) is going to be done, because this was a completely unprovoked attack," said Horn, who practices criminal law in Cornwall and Akwesasne.
"You just can't turn your eye away from it. This was beyond a little slap on the hand."
Border agents stopped the car at 2:30 p. m. to arrest Janet Davis, a passenger wanted on an outstanding warrant.
While there are different accounts of what happened next, Horn said he arrived about half an hour later to find his sister "breathing very, very heavily."
Paramedics took her to the Cornwall Community Hospital, said Horn. After a visit to the University of Ottawa Heart Institute, she was released from hospital Wednesday, he said.
Horn said the shock may have caused permanent damage to her heart.
"She's 68 years old. She's not a young woman. And she's being treated like this by those officers," said Horn.
"I thought it was totally, completely outrageous what was going on."
The lawsuit will be filed after the familiy consults with an attorney familiar with civil law, Horn said.
John Boots, 67, lives near the customs office and showed up on the scene after getting a call from Davis' mother.
He said he saw Kahentinetha Horn being taken out of the customs office on a stretcher.
Boots said she later told him that border officials had "swarmed" her and were screaming at her inside the office.
Boots said the encounter was the latest in a string of intimidating acts by local border guards against Mohawk women.
"They want the right to carry these pistols," said Boots, referring to the federal government's ongoing plan to train and arm Canada's border guards.
"If they create sufficient incidents then the powers that be will say, 'Yes, you can have these pistols.'"
Border guards have the right to forcibly remove anyone unwilling to get out of their vehicle once they've been flagged for inspection, said Canada Border Services Agency spokesman Chris Kealey.
Davis was "unco-operative," Kealey said, and guards did use force to remove her.
Kealey was adamant that no one was beaten or injured. He said he couldn't address Kahentinetha Horn's allegations because there was "nothing on the public record related to her."
"To discuss what her situation was otherwise would be a breach of confidentiality and privacy within the Customs Act," he said.
The CBSA is now conducting an internal review into what happened last Saturday -- standard procedure whenever an officer uses force, Kealey said. He expected the review would be completed in the next few days.
Davis, 43, was wanted on three Customs Act charges from 2003. She had also been charged twice for failing to appear in court -- once in 2004 and again in 2006.
Her next court appearance is July 14, and Boots -- a local native rights activist -- promised protests at either the city's courthouse or the border crossing.
Human rights activists from Montreal would likely be joining in, he added.
"It's a bad situation," said Boots. "There's a lot of anger (in Akwesasne)."
Saturday's encounter is not the first time tempers have flared at the border crossing, which traverses Mohawk territory.
In November 2005, guards walked off the job after what their union described as a confrontation with Akwesasne residents over a random vehicle search.