KAMLOOPS, B.C. - A black inmate is suing the province of British Columbia, alleging he was targeted by the Ku Klux Klan behind bars and endured “torture” at the hands of a sheriff and a guard.
Oneil Parchment, 56, said in court documents that officials at the Kamloops Regional Correctional Centre didn’t do enough to protect him from violence and racism.
The convicted drug dealer from Nanaimo laid out a number of allegations in his statement of claim, beginning with an alleged assault in 2009 at the Vancouver Island Regional Correctional Centre.
None of the allegations have been proven in court.
Parchment claimed in the document that he was attacked in the Vancouver Island facility by two men and that the beating was arranged by a jailhouse faction of the KKK.
Parchment alleged jail staff then “unlawfully removed” his documents related to a potential human rights complaint stemming from the assault.
He alleged that he was denied access to health care while at the Kamloops jail.
Parchment said that on Oct. 10, 2010, a sheriff and a corrections officer “tortured” and “violently assaulted” him while en route from a jail in the Lower Mainland to an institution in Prince George.
He claimed in the document that he had more issues at the Kamloops facility this summer, alleging that on July 22, he was placed in a cell that was covered in white-supremacist graffiti.
Parchment said in the statement of claim that he asked jail staff to document the graffiti by taking photographs, but his request was denied. He said staff also refused to paint over the graffiti.
The same day, Parchment claimed, he was stripped naked and placed in a segregation cell before being transported to a Prince George jail, only to be back in segregation while naked in Kamloops, less than a week later.
Parchment claimed in the document that between July 22 and July 31, he was denied access by Kamloops officials to prisoner-complaint procedures.
Parchment is seeking unspecified financial damages for the alleged assaults and denial of access to health care, as well as for mental anguish and stress he said he endured after allegedly being forced to stay in a cell covered in racist graffiti, and for future care and therapy.
Stuart Bertrand, a spokesman for the Justice Ministry, said the province has not yet been served with Parchment's claim.
"Once the province has received Mr. Parchment’s claim, government lawyers will review and file a response," he said in a statement.
