An apparent incident involving a SWAT team led to the arrest of Canadian transgender twitch streamer Keffals in London, Ontario last week. Now she is drawing attention to her abuse in police custody for a crime she did not commit.
“On August 5th I was woken up with an assault rifle pointed at me and arrested for a crime I did not commit,” Clara Sorrenti or Keffals tweeted. “I need your help.”
An email from someone pretending to be Sorrenti was sent to every member of the City Council in London, claiming that she had an illegal gun and would attack her family and “go to town hall and shoot every cisgender person.” ‘ she saw, the content creator explained.
Sorrenti posted a video on her YouTube channel on Tuesday with the caption “My life is in danger. I need your help” posted. In the video, she explained that the police responded to the email by taking the SWAT team to her property. Police confiscated their computers and harassed them in a transphobic manner, she said. The email “was an apparent attempt to get the police to humiliate me,” she said.
When she was arrested, the police called her by her surname and she was even booked under her surname, Sorrenti says. She adds that she was mistreated, misgendered and given dead names throughout the process.
Sorrenti took to Twitter, announcing her intention to relocate immediately and urging her fans and the general public to make donations to her GoFundMe page.
She tweeted: “Because publishing what happened will encourage more people to impersonate me and try to get the police to terrorize me I need to move immediately. Any money I get after my losses have been settled and the move made will be put into a legal fund.”
In her video, she explains that she was in Toronto a week earlier where someone attempted to send authorities to her location to scare her, but local police immediately related the incident to a SWAT attempt.
However, this was not the case in London.
“During the arrest, the policeman addressed me by my dead name,” she says. “The fact that a fake email resulted in London Police booking me under my dead name shows the prejudice that many police officers have towards transgender people.”
Sorrenti says after police questioned her and found this had happened to her before she was released without charge. However, the police are holding onto evidence such as her phone and other devices she needs to access her digital life. In addition, Sorrenti’s fiancé’s doctorate materials were confiscated on electronic devices.
Sorrenti says the incident “completely destroyed” the lives of her and her fiancé, with computers and cell phones being taken away by police. The process of having these items examined by digital forensic scientists could take “months,” according to her attorney.
“SWATting is a crime. Identity theft is a crime,” she says. “And because it was a crime motivated by hatred of transgender people, it was a hate crime committed against me.
Instead of helping me,” she says, “they bullied me because I was a victim of a hate crime.”
At the time of publication, Her GoFundMe campaign had raised more than $60,000.
On Wednesday, local police responded to Sorrenti’s arrest and allegations.
“It has come to my attention that Ms Sorrenti was referred to by a false name and gender during her time in London police custody. We recognize the distress this has caused Ms Sorrenti and we will review the incident to understand how this may have happened. At this time, we are still in the process of gathering the information needed for this review,” Police Commissioner Steve Williams said in a statement.
He added: “The London Police Service is committed to policing without prejudice and treats all individuals with respect and dignity. We work closely with LGBT2QSIA community partners in London to ensure we are responsive to community needs and address any concerns you may have. We recognize that despite our best efforts, we sometimes fall short, and in such situations we learn, we educate, and we do better. We are in contact with Ms Sorrenti and will share our findings with her once our review is complete.”