“Last night I was attacked by a white woman who was upset that I wasn’t wearing a bra. I used IG live to document her actions against me,” Anishinaabe Twitter user Laura Gagnon wrote in a caption sharing the since-viral video. “I’ve never experienced a white mob chasing me and it’s the scariest thing that’s ever happened to me in my life. Please be safe out there.” Ottawa police confirmed to The Independent that a 37-year-old woman has since been formally charged with assault and mischief after receiving a report of an incident that happened on Wednesday around 6:40 p.m. in a park in the capital of Canada. Officers at the scene confirmed that a woman had been assaulted. The suspect, who has not been identified, was released after being charged on a promise to appear in court. In the nearly two-minute viral video posted last week, viewers can see an enraged woman running full tilt at Ms. Gagnon while yelling at her indiscriminately. The victim, who is filming the attack, can be heard asking the alleged assailant why he is targeting an Indigenous woman and “shaming” her for apparently not wearing a bra on uncontested Algonquin territory, referring to First Nations people’s land in Canada. they never ceded or legally signed over their lands to the government. “I’m trying to document her. He assaulted me and I want her information because I would like to file a police report,” the woman says off-screen after appearing to be assaulted by the assailant. In the background, another bystander can be heard screaming, “stop filming,” before the cellphone can be seen knocked out of the victim’s hands. In the background more voices can be heard from a growing crowd. Twitter user Laura Gagnon shared a viral video that appears to show her being attacked in a public park in Ottawa by a woman who was apparently upset that the victim was not wearing a bra. (Twitter/@LauraGee77) “I’m trying to get away from her,” the victim is heard shouting back to the crowd, off-screen. The suspect is then seen on a bike approaching the woman again, before the video on the screen cuts to face down on what appears to be grass. The next moment, the woman has reached her car and is in the parking lot trying to leave the park, but fails as she gets up and shows the same biker planted on the hood of her car, preventing her from leaving. “Guys, I’m under attack right now,” Ms. Gagnon can be heard telling her camera behind the wheel of her car, before yelling at someone in the crowd who appears to want her phone that it’s “my personal property. .” Ms Gagnon had lived in the nation’s capital for the past 11 years and told the Independent that until that night she felt safe walking through her city, no matter where she was or what she was wearing. “I know people are feeling upset post-Covid, but we need to better understand that kindness and acceptance of bodies, clothes, or any clothing should be a given, especially in 2022,” Ms. Gagnon said in an email. statement to the Independent about the attack in the park. “As an Indigenous woman, I am acutely aware of colonial violence, the hyper-sexualization of our bodies, and the stereotyping we face every day,” she added. “I want people to be educated about the autonomy of the body and the sovereignty we have over our bodies.” Ms. Gagnon says she “will continue to hold my head high, inspire and uplift others despite my haunting experience. I know that my spirit and support from the good thoughts, prayers and love of others has taught me that negativity can be met with love. We need these lessons to carry on for future generations.” The Ottawa Police Service said it is continuing to investigate the incident that broke out in a public place Wednesday night, describing it as a “verbal dispute that escalated into a physical altercation.” A cyclist leaned on a woman’s car after she was allegedly attacked in an Ottawa park for not wearing a bra, video shows (Twitter/@LauraGee77) The department has also reportedly forwarded the case to the Ottawa Police Service’s Hate and Bias Crime Unit, but has not yet laid hate-related charges against the suspect, the department confirmed to the Ottawa Citizen. Hate crimes in Canada have increased in recent years, with the onset of the pandemic sparking an unprecedented increase in racially and ethnically motivated crimes, Statistics Canada said. Canadian police reported 2,669 hate crimes in 2020, the most since the federal agency began collecting comparable data in 2009. In the first year of the pandemic, police-reported hate crimes increased by 37 percent compared to the previous year, and between 2019 and 2020, the number of police-reported crimes motivated by hate for a race or ethnicity increased by 80 percent, from 884 to 1,594.
