Canadians are known worldwide for being fairly polite and peaceful. Unfortunately being polite backfired for one British Colombian man.
Desiderio Fortunato of Coquitlam BC was asked by a U.S. border guard to turn off his vehicles engine, but when he asked the guard to be polite and say please he got a face full of pepper spray!
“I just said please,” Fortunato explained Thursday. “He said ‘get out of the car or I spray you’ and … I thought he was just trying to scare me off or something and I was pepper sprayed from a foot or two away.”
After being sprayed, Fortunato says that five or six border guards jumped on him, handcuffed him and questioned him for three hours. This all happened last Monday.
“I felt like I was attacked by a bunch of wolves. They jumped on me, they threw me to the ground and they kneeled on me.”
Fortunato, 54, was born in Portugal, but became a Canadian citizen almost 30 years ago.
During questioning from U.S. officials, he said, the first thing they wanted to know was where he was born. Once they knew he was of Portuguese origin their whole demeanor changed.
“Their shields dropped slightly down. It was like you know: OK he’s a Westerner, OK he’s not a Muslim, OK he’s a Christian, he’s one of us. That’s what I read (from them).”
Fortunato noted that the motto of U.S. Customs and Border Protection is to “serve the American public with vigilance, integrity and professionalism.”
“What is that, that’s what they pledge. I’m just asking for a please, and I get pepper spray in the face, and of course their argument is you must comply with anything an officer says.”
U.S. Customs spokesman Mike Milne said the officer made a lawful order that travelers must obey but the use of force is under review.
Fortunato said he spoke with the same guard later and the man seemed contrite.
He crosses the border two or three times a week to visit his second home in Blaine, Wash., and said he plans to go back.
But first he’ll need to send U.S. Customs an RCMP criminal record check and proof that he lives where he said he did.
He has no criminal record and said he isn’t worried about going back.
Fortunato, who travels the world competing in and teaching jazz dance, said he often deals with customs agents. “I just become more cynical,” he said.
