A review conducted by the London Police Service (LPS) found its officers “acted appropriately based on the information available to them at the time,” during a swatting incident in August that led to the arrest of Clara Sorrenti, a transgender activist and popular Twitch streamer commonly known as Keffals.
Swatting refers to a false report made to police that intends to lure a large number of officers to a particular location, often with the intention of targeting specific individuals.
In early August, an individual impersonating Sorrenti, who was living in London, Ont., at the time, wrote a number of emails to city councillors in which they falsely threatened to shoot a number of people at City Hall. This led to Sorrenti being arrested at gunpoint at her former home in London. She was later released from police custody unconditionally.
The following week, Chief Steve Williams issued a statement about the incident where he apologized to Sorrenti for LPS’ use of her deadname — a term referring to the harmful use of the birth name of a person who has changed their name as part of their gender transition — for the label of a bag which held Sorrenti’s property while she was in custody.
Sorrenti had alleged she was deadnamed in other instances during her arrest, but Williams denied the accusation in the statement.
The internal review will be presented to the London Police Services Board — LPS’ civilian oversight group — on Thursday and the document can be read in full in the agenda for the meeting.
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The review, written by Williams, notes “the actions of the responding officers were based on their duty to protect the public, and themselves, given the genuine belief that an individual was in possession of a firearm and had threatened to shoot people.”
“I acknowledge that an armed police response can be a traumatic experience; however, the safety of our officers and members of the public cannot be compromised when responding to occurrences of this nature,” Williams wrote.
“I am thankful this matter concluded without physical injury to anyone. I fully support the officers’ response based on the information they had at the time.”
In light of the swatting, Williams said a system is now being utilized by LPS to “flag locations or persons who have been the subject of a previous swatting.”
The information fuelling that system is stored in a national database and made available to any officer in the country who looks up a person on a police database, Williams added.
In the review, Williams repeated his denial that Sorrenti was deadnamed by officers, citing “audio and video recordings capturing the period in custody.”
Williams confirmed again that the property bag which stored Sorrenti’s belongings during her arrest was labelled with her deadname, “which was generated from our internal records management system.”
Williams says that system stores an individual’s information based on their initial interaction with police. This information will then be retained and used again in police reports and other data surrounding any subsequent interactions involving that individual.
This process is used for administrative efficiency, but due to how it impacted Sorrenti, Williams says LPS “have completed a comprehensive review and improved related processes.”
The improved processes include one that informs officers on what to do when interacting with someone who has legally changed their name, along with how to reflect this change in police record systems. This looks to make up for the fact that police are not automatically notified when someone changes their name, nor are citizens required to inform police, Williams said.
Several other changes “have been implemented or are in the process of being implemented,” including “ongoing collaboration with LGBTQ2+ community members to ensure we are responsive to the needs of the LGBTQ2+ community.”
Williams adds that all training “as it relates to interactions with transgendered individuals” has been reviewed.
As for the initial false report that led to Sorrenti’s arrest, the review states “to date, no charges have been laid against the person(s) responsible for the swatting call.”
— with files from Global News’ Ahmar Khan, Amy Simon and Matthew Trevithick