“Songall Says He Is Badly Hurt, Doctor Says ‘Bruised a Little’,” Border Cities Star. July 25, 1931. Page 05. —- Demands from two organizations have been made on the Sandwich East Township Council that a public and not private, hearing be held into the part that Chief of Police Cachoy played in the recent eviction of Karl Songall from his home at 1516 Alexi Road, The Star is informed today.
Letters have been filed by the Remington Park and the Sandwich East Citizens’ associations with Wilfred Gravel, township clerk, urging that the council abandon its plan to hold the probe in camera, and to thresh out the charges against the police chief before the ratepayers of the municipality.
Cachoy admits striking Songall with his baton, but both he and officers of the sheriff’s department content that force was necessary to subdue the householder when he became violent after the officers had started to take the furniture out of his home a week ago Friday. The eviction order was obtained by Harry Parent, of 50 Alexander avenue, owner of the house after Songall became several months behind in his purchase payments.
The letters asking for a public enquiry were given to the township clerk by Fred Gould and George Wright, vice-president and secretary, respectively, of the Remington Park body and Patrik Kearns a member of the executive. That move was made, they said, ‘to make sure that the letters reached their destination.’
Thomas Dingwall is president of the Sandwich East association, while George Lesperance heads the Remington Park citizens.
It was also intimated today that a ‘police committee’ of one of the organizations is now securing information on the township police administration and that more serious charges than those involved in the Songall case may be laid. The Attorney-General’s Department it is stated may be asked to launch a judicial probe.
Mr. Songall, who has since quit his home and is now renting a house at 1544 Alexis Road, claimed this morning that he is unable to work on account of injuries inflicted during his arrest by Chief Cachoy and County Constable ibb. He wants to cut hay for feed for his cow, he stated, but finds he is not equal to the task.
He is suffering from pains in his chest, Songall declared, displaying where a physician had taped his body.
He alleges that after he fell down while Chief Cachoy was trying to handcuff him, Gibb ‘jumped’ on him and knelt on his chest with considerable force while the police bracelets were snapped around his wrists.
Queried by The Star today, Dr. E. R. Miller, of 815 Tecumseh Road East, who attended the man, said that Songall is ‘bruised up a little bit,’ and that his hurts are minor.
Songall claims that the house owner, Parent, ordered this week to accept $15 a month rent on the purchase price after refusing two payments of $25 and $30, a few months ago. He turned down the officer, the evicted suburbanite explained, because he had already arranged to rent another house.
Photo Caption: WITNESS AT POLICE PROBE KARL SONGALL of 1544 Alexis Road, pictured above, will be the star witness at the Sandwich East Township Council prove into charges that the man was clubbed and badly mistreated by police a week ago when he was being evicted from a suburban home on a court order, for arrears in purchase payments. Chief Cachoy, of Sandwich East, and County Constable Gibb are the officers involved. Songall has his chest taped in the place where he claims that Gibb knelt on him.
[AL: Resistance to police brutality, whether in the form of beating an evicted tenant as here or ‘third degree’ violence against suspected criminals was widespread during the Canadian Great Depression, and that resistance came not just from the usual suspects of left-wing agitators and parties but from local community associations, elected government councilors, and churches. Of course, certain people were seen as more deserving of protection from arbitrary police violence, and Songall’s case was undoubtedly sympathetic because he was an ethnic white man evicted out of a rent-to-own house and was a middle-aged worker with long community ties.]