A border officer with Mohawk Security told a Canadian Human Rights Tribunal Thursday that he saw a CBSA agent in a rage during a vehicle search of a 23-year-old pregnant woman from Akwesasne in 2005.
Security officer Richard Jacobs said he was shocked as he watched the surveillance camera feed to find a usually well-mannered Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) officer had turned into "a different person".
"He was just out of it. He was going after her," Jacobs told the tribunal. "There was a lot of anger."
Jacobs identified the infuriated CBSA agent as Kevin Sills, who has yet to address the tribunal.
Sills' former CBSA co-worker, Helene Oakes, who previously testified at the tribunal, also described Sills as quiet and mild-mannered.
"It may have just been the atmosphere," Oakes said over the phone Thursday. "The other officers may have got him worked up."
There was no sound with the video feed, but Jacobs said Sills and other CBSA agents were pointing their fingers and yelling very close to the face of Fallan Davis, who claims she was the target of racial profiling by the agency that day on Nov. 18, 2005.
Under questioning by Davis' aide, Kakwerais, Jacobs said he believes relations between natives and CBSA at the Cornwall Island port "soured" within the last nine years, after a number of respected veteran customs agents retired, and a new batch of agents emerged.
New agents, he said, meant new approaches.
Jacobs is contracted under CBSA, and has been at the local port with Mohawk Security for nearly 25 years. Known as Oka Dick (he's from the town of Oka), the burly figure told the tribunal that he didn't recognize Davis on the monitor, despite living in Akwesasne himself.
Jacobs said he watched the scene unfold from inside the Mohawk Security office. He was able to zoom in on the commercial compound through one of 12 cameras that monitored the customs facility at that time.
He said he could tell Davis was crying, yet "standing her ground".
Davis' black SUV had been X-rayed, Jacobs said, a search method he'd seen about 10 times before. But what he found unusual was that some four or five customs agents were hand-searching the vehicle instead of the usual two.
"We thought they had found something big," Jacobs said, referring to contraband, though nothing of that nature was ever discovered.
Jacobs confirmed the customs facility's surveillance cameras recorded 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
If a video recording of the incident exists, it has yet to be released by CBSA and presented to the tribunal.
The Davis camp, as well as the tribunal chairperson, has called repeatedly for the recording to be introduced.
CBSA lawyer Sean Gaudet has hinted to the tribunal that the visual recording will be explained once the time comes for him to present his case.
The day before the incident, Jacobs said he learned that the CBSA had planned to target SUVs for inspection.
Jacobs also told the tribunal that his personal locker had been broken into after the customs port moved to the foot of the Seaway International Bridge in the spring.
He claims clothing, notebooks, and other personal items were stored there.
Jacobs testimony, though, was cut short Thursday as the tribunal adjourned due to unforeseen circumstances for the second time in just nine sessions.
Key representatives at the tribunal sat in a closed-door meeting for the better part of the afternoon.
No explanation was given for the adjournment, but the tribunal is currently scheduled to resume today with the hearings wrapping in mid-March 2010.