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Kristyn Wong-Tam NDP MPP Kristyn Wong-Tam attends Question Period at the Ontario Legislature in Toronto, Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Chris Young <\/p>\nAn investigation is underway after an 80-year-old man was maimed in a gruesome assault in the Toronto South Detention Centre. Jon Woodward reports. <\/p>\n
An 80-year-old arrested for causing a disturbance at his Toronto Community Housing Complex last month was disfigured in a gruesome attack at a Toronto jail, prompting critics to call for better mental health care in the province\u2019s correctional facilities.<\/p>\n
Luther Pippy was known to shout insults and sleep in the stairways of the supportive housing for seniors facility in northern Etobicoke, neighbours said, and while he may have needed intervention, he didn\u2019t deserve an attack like that.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s terrible,\u201d said Gordon McNaughton, who lived in the same building. \u201cHe would get obnoxious. He swears at people and stuff, you know, but it doesn\u2019t last. He just blurts it out, and that\u2019s it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Court documents show Pippy was arrested in 2025 and charged with uttering threats against a neighbour. He was also charged on Feb. 6 with having a 30-inch-long, two-by-two piece of wood for a dangerous purpose in a public place and with damaging TCHC property.<\/p>\n
Pippy was placed in a cell in the special needs wing at the Toronto South Detention Centre with a 50-year-old cellmate named Douglats Destruzions-Dumesnils, who had his own history of causing disturbances.<\/p>\n
On April 12, a charge document says Destruzions-Dumesnils did \u201cmaim, disfigure, and\/or endanger the life of the said Luther Pippy and thereby commit an aggravated assault.\u201d<\/p>\n
One source says Pippy was blinded in the attack and he\u2019s recovering in a hospital.<\/p>\n
Pippy\u2019s charges were dropped.<\/p>\n
Destruzions-Dumesnils had a bail hearing at the Ontario Court of Justice in Toronto on Tuesday. It didn\u2019t last long, as the accused didn\u2019t seem to be able to say his own name. For now, he\u2019ll stay in a secure facility at a psychiatric hospital.<\/p>\n
Province needs to do better: MPP<\/p>\n
Ontario NDP justice critic Kristyn Wong-Tam said the province\u2019s prisons need to do a better job making sure there are protections for the severely mentally ill.<\/p>\n
Kristyn Wong-Tam NDP MPP Kristyn Wong-Tam attends Question Period at the Ontario Legislature in Toronto, Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Chris Young <\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, this is extremely disturbing,\u201d Wong-Tam said.<\/p>\n
She pointed to the case of Soleiman Faqiri, who died while in the throes of a mental health crisis at the Central East Correctional Centre in 2016.<\/p>\n
Surveillance video played at the coroner\u2019s inquest into Faqiri\u2019s death shows guards rushing to his cell to restrain him before he died.<\/p>\n