DRUG NEST FREEFALL

Woman Tumbles Seven Storeys As Cops Sweep Out Squatters

A WOMAN who tumbled from a seventh-floor window was apparently trying
to flee a police sweep of a rundown Toronto highrise that's been
overrun with drug addicts and squatters. Of the roughly 350 units at
1011 Lansdowne Ave., up to 100 have no tenants -- but are frequently
occupied by derelicts looking for a free place to stay, said Alain
Naud, one of the building's four cleaners.

At times, Naud said, it seems "there are more people doing that than
there are tenants."

The squatters break into the apartments of rent-paying tenants, leave
the grounds littered with condoms and trash, and urinate and defecate
in stairwells, elevators and the laundry room, Naud said.

"They're like animals," said Naud, who lives on site. "They go to the
washroom anywhere but the toilet."

Cops Patrolling

Several months ago, management went to Toronto Police, who began
patrolling the 22-storey highrise north of Dupont St. up to four times
a night, looking for trespassers.

They're given a list of the vacant units, which building workers keep
unlocked so officers don't have to break down the doors, Naud said.

Four 14 Division cops were on one of those sweeps when they arrived at
unit 703 late Sunday night.

The officers were arresting a man in the apartment when a 26-year-old
woman fell out the window, said Rose Bliss of the province's Special
Investigation Unit, which has taken over the probe.

The woman, who one neighbour said goes by the street name "Precious,"
landed on thick ice in a concrete courtyard.

She's in critical condition at St. Michael's Hospital with multiple
fractures, Bliss said.

Among her numerous shattered bones is a broken neck, one source
said.

The man, who'd been handcuffed, escaped as cops raced to the woman's
aid, but he was quickly arrested.

SIU Investigating

The SIU is looking into the circumstances that led up to the woman's
plunge, Bliss said. One officer has been designated a subject officer
and three as witness officers.

The man and woman had been squatting in the unit -- which has been
vacant for months -- for at least a week, said a neighbour.

"She looked strung out," said the neighbour, 36, who wouldn't give his
name, adding any time he saw her she looked like someone who used drugs.

He last saw her in the seventh-floor hallway around dinnertime Sunday
as he walked his girlfriend to the elevator.

"She was pacing back and forth," he said.

"She was swinging her arms all over the place," added his girlfriend,
Carmen, 23. "She looked pissed off."

About five hours later the man heard a struggle in the apartment, he
said, and moments after that he saw emergency crews treating the
woman, who was lying crumpled on the ground.

Naud, the building's cleaner, said the cops have had success with the
sweeps, often arresting dozens of squatters at a time.

"It's like a TV show," he said. "There's a whole line of them" led out
of the building in handcuffs.