How we can all stand up against carding | Desmond Cole

2015/05/28 Leave a comment

Desmond Cole, the author of the Toronto Life article on his experiences with discrimination, on the role that all of us can play:

As the realities of police carding become more known in Toronto, the public is increasingly rejecting the practice. Sixty per cent of respondents to a recent Forum poll disapprove of carding, the Toronto police practice of stopping civilians who are not suspected of any crime, and documenting their personal identification. Black voters, who admittedly made up a small sample size in the survey, rejected carding to the tune of 81 per cent. Given that innocent black people are disproportionately the targets of carding, this is no surprise.

Since I wrote a Toronto Life feature on discrimination, in which I documented the many times I have been needlessly stopped or carded by Toronto police, I’ve received hundreds of messages from people asking what they can do to counter this shady practice. I propose a simple but revolutionary intervention that nearly anyone can take up: if you see a black person being stopped in public by Toronto police, simply approach that person and ask, “Are you OK?”

In my experience, this suggestion evokes a curious amount of anxiety in people, particularly white people, the vast majority of whom are never arbitrarily stopped by police. They wonder if they might be putting themselves in danger by intervening in a police interaction.

To this I can only reply that in 2013, black Torontonians were up to 17 times more likely than white residents to be carded by police in certain neighbourhoods, particularly those with a majority of white residents. Those who are not targeted in this way might consider how scary it is for those who live it every day.

How we can all stand up against carding | Toronto Star.

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Toronto police Chief Mark Saunders’s secret carding report

2015/05/27 1 Comment

Unfortunately, The Star’s analysis appears more methodically sound than the internal police report:

The police analysis did not — as the Star has done in four analyses since 2010 — single out people with black and brown skin who had been carded, and compare those figures to the baseline populations for those groups in Toronto.

The police carding database divides people into four skin colours: white, black, brown and “other.” The police lumped all non-white groups together in determining there was no bias. The Star has used neighbourhood-level census data and police carding data to show that blacks in Toronto are more likely than whites to be carded in each of the city’s 70-plus patrol zones. To a lesser extent, the same was true for people with “brown” skin.

The Saunders report included a recommendation that the service react to “deliberate misinterpretation” of carding data by the Star and “misleading, inflammatory” stories. That did not happen.

Saunders, in his first press conference as chief-designate, referred to innocent people who get carded as “collateral damage.” He later admitted it was a poor choice of words, saying the “proper term should be the ‘social cost’ … in which members of the community do not feel that they are being treated with dignity and respect.”

Saunders has said he is open to making sure officers are not conducting “random” stops.

The Star sought comment from both Saunders and Sloly on the early “community engagement” report and on the context of the internal correspondence.

Instead, the service issued a two-page response crafted by the “PACER Team,” on behalf of Saunders. In it, the police say “we have adamantly opposed the (Star’s) analysis” and methodology since 2002 and “stand by” the criticisms of the Star made in Saunders’s secret 2012 report.

Police again criticized the Star’s use of census data, and again said contacts with the public “will never be in proportion to census figures.” The response reiterates a longstanding police statement that officers police where violent crime goes on.

Toronto police Chief Mark Saunders’s secret carding report | Toronto Star.

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Advising resistance to police’s carding efforts grows more tempting: James

2015/05/15 Leave a comment

Royson James on Toronto police carding and the recent court decision:

In awarding damages to a man stopped in Moss Park and beaten up by police after he refused to engage the officer, citing his right to walk about the street without police harassment, Superior Court Justice Frederick Myers wrote:

“One who is not being investigated for criminality is allowed to walk down the street on a cold night with his or her hands in the pockets and to tell the inquisitive police officers to get lost without being detained, searched, exposed to sub-zero temperatures, or assaulted.”

You think?

Judge Myers awarded the victim, Mutaz Elmardy, $27,000 in damages in the 2011 incident.

“That police officers shattered Mr. Elmardy’s feeling of the law strikes at the rule of law itself and requires condemnation by the court,” the judge wrote.

You, sir, are a credit to your profession.

The same cannot be said of our Mayor John Tory (open John Tory’s policard). Since his election, it seems like he has done everything to perpetuate this odious police practice — from manipulating the membership of the police board, to hiring a chief committed to carry on the controversial exercise.

Tory calls carding corrosive. He says the police board is reviewing it. Yet he wouldn’t demand basic police accountability: provide those carded with a receipt of the encounter and respectfully inform them of their right not to engage.

http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2015/05/13/advising-resistance-to-polices-carding-efforts-grows-more-tempting-james.html

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Baltimore shows police killings America’s real state of emergency

2015/04/30 Leave a comment

Neil MacDonald on police killings in the US and the relative risk of being killed in the US by the police is much greater than being killed by terrorists. Of course, as all the numbers show, the likelihood is much greater for Blacks:

Today, though, even the conservative voices that have for so long defended law enforcement are wavering.

Take some time and browse the libertarian Cato Institute’s online National Police Misconduct Reporting Project.

It’s a scholarly work, and evidence gathered is weighed carefully; in fact, the last full year for which they have issued a definitive report is 2010.

That report identified 4,861 formal incidents of police misconduct involving 6,613 law enforcement officers and 247 civilian fatalities for that year alone.

If just a fraction of those fatalities were criminal, then the inescapable conclusion is that more people have been murdered by police in America in the last 10 years than by terrorists.

Of course, we are told, we don’t know how many terrorists have been thwarted by vigilant behind-the-scenes enforcement.

Well, true. But given the minuscule number of prosecutions, let alone convictions, neither do we know how many of the people who are supposed to be guarding us have gotten away with murder.

Baltimore shows police killings America’s real state of emergency – World – CBC News.

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In this election year, it’s cop versus cop: Akin

2015/04/29 Leave a comment

Not so sure that the dynamics will be as clear cut as presented by Akin.

There is a range of views within the police community on approaches. The Conservative one-sided (and overly simplistic) approach that runs counter to most of the evidence may not come out as well as Conservative MPs hope:

“The focus on being tough on crime — and I’ve been tough on crime, personally — but I think the focus needs to be on preventing our kids from choosing a life of crime and I don’t think that focus has been there.”

Sajjan and Blair — should Blair win his nomination fight — will help boost the Liberal profile on public safety issues. And many Conservatives couldn’t be happier. They believe a voter thinking about law and order puts their ‘X’ beside the Conservative candidate on the ballot.

“I would be just delighted,” said Daryl Kramp, an eastern Ontario Conservative MP. Kramp is the chairman of the House of Commons Public Safety and Security committee and, before a long career as a businessman, spent some time as a constable with the OPP.

Kramp, in fact, is one of at least eight Conservative MPs, including two in cabinet, to have worn a police uniform.

And that thin blue line in the House of Commons exists only on the government side. Not a single opposition MP has a background as a police officer.

“We’ve been identified as the law-and-order party and now (Bill Blair) wants to join a party that has voted against just about every measure we’ve put forward,” Kramp said Monday.

Those measures include new laws to help victims of crime, increasing sentences for some crimes, removing some judicial discretion and giving more power and resources to police.

In this election year, it’s cop versus cop | AKIN | Columnists | Opinion | Toron.

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Why Mark Saunders is a ‘bittersweet’ appointment for Toronto’s black community

2015/04/27 Leave a comment

More on the appointment of Mark Saunders as the new police chief of Toronto:

Winnipeg Police Chief Devon Clunis, who became Canada’s first black police chief in 2012, disagrees. The Jamaican-born police-chaplain-turned-chief says his black identity features prominently in his leadership, and is a significant asset in a racially divided city.

Winnipeg is often the focus of national criticism for the high level of violence involving the city’s First Nations population; earlier this year, Maclean’s magazine said Winnipeg was “arguably Canada’s most racist city.”

Clunis believes his heritage allows him to identify with some of the challenges facing aboriginal residents.

“Cultural understanding is what you can help to build into your community as a chief of police, because you do have that perspective,” he said in an interview this week. “Sometimes it’s very difficult to understand something unless you’ve actually experienced or walked in that particular shoe yourself.”

Clunis, who knows Saunders well and calls him a “fantastic guy,” said he will bring to the job a greater understanding of the black community and what its members experience — “he understands what it means to walk in that skin as he goes up and down the street.”

Asked in 2011 if the homicide squad needed more black officers to help solve the high number of shooting deaths among black men, Saunders — then head of homicide and the only black officer in the unit — said it was not necessary. The colour of his skin did not give him an advantage, he said.

“When I walk into the room, I am a police officer first,” he said at the time.

Asked this week if he felt there was a heightened expectation he would be able to ease racial tensions in the city because he is black, Saunders gave an honest response. It is also one that should be promising, considering that his legion of supporters within the force all point to one major strength: the man listens.

“Being black is fantastic. It doesn’t give me superpowers,” he said. “What will happen is there will be lots of open dialogue, lots of talking. More so than ever before.”

Why Mark Saunders is a ‘bittersweet’ appointment for Toronto’s black community | Toronto Star.

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Blair urges officers to reach across cultural divisions in parting words as police chief

2015/04/25 Leave a comment

Despite all the controversies (G20, carding etc), good parting words on inclusion:

In his parting words as police chief, Bill Blair asked officers to reach across cultural divisions – including, perhaps, those that separate them from civilians.

“More than half the citizens of our city have chosen to come here,” Chief Blair, two days before ending his 10-year term, told hundreds of top-ranking Toronto Police Service officers at his retirement gala dinner on Thursday.

“The reason they’ve chosen to come here is because this is a place of inclusion,” he said. “It’s more than merely tolerance… it is an example to the world.”

Chief Blair was appointed in April 2005, the youngest-ever Toronto police chief at the time. After a career partly spent walking a beat in Regent Park, his term was marked by breaks with tradition. On the day of his appointment, he acknowledged publicly that racial profiling existed within the force. He went on to heavily recruit women and members of ethnic minorities.

Ten years later, Chief Blair is ending his policing career amid criticism related to racial profiling, as well as much praise over his wider work as chief. One of his last acts as chief was to negotiate future terms for a policy that has long angered Toronto’s black communities–“carding,” in which officers stop and question people who aren’t suspected of a crime.

He has said repeatedly that the practice, which many critics would like to see abolished, is a useful public safety tool.

But in Thursday’s speech, he also asked officers in general terms to understand others’ perspectives.

“Let us all be careful,” he said. “Let us be careful that we do not succumb to…those forces, that would divide us, those forces which would separate us, those forces that would make us afraid of each other.

“Let us always be careful to return to each other, to support each other, and to be that place of social cohesion and inclusion that we should all aspire to be,” he said. “Because that’s what makes the city of Toronto, the country of Canada, an extraordinary place.”

More should follow this example.

Blair urges officers to reach across cultural divisions in parting words as police chief – The Globe and Mail.

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Ferguson’s predatory police are not the only ones

2015/03/12 Leave a comment

Good summary of the US DOJ report on the Ferguson police:

The report is the story of gun-toting, badge-wearing louts who probably spent hours imagining themselves as impassive, reluctant heroes, telexes in their ears, steely eyes concealed behind sunglasses, preparing to do whatever necessary to enforce the law.

In reality, they ran their little corner of Missouri like a lawless seigneury, bullying citizens, ignoring the law, abetted by an equally bent municipal court system. Ordinary folks didn’t stand a chance.

The federal report effectively describes Ferguson’s police as thuggish tax collectors, willing to use Tasers, fists and boots to satisfy their political masters’ desire for ever more revenue.

Their real job was writing tickets, not protecting the public. How much they could milk from motorists, or pedestrians, determined their career paths.

A few highlights:

  • Ferguson’s mostly white police department blatantly targeted black citizens. “Failure to comply” with police orders that the DOJ said were often illegal, and “walking unsafely in the street” were among the most popular money-generating citations.
  • Officers were particularly harsh with anyone who dared record their behaviour. They would issue an order to stop recording “for safety reasons;” those who kept rolling were charged with failing to comply. Smartphones were seized, video erased.
  • Drivers were cited for imaginary offences. One man was written up and fined for making a false statement. He’d given his name as “Mike” instead of “Michael.”
  • Ferguson police disproportionately went after the poor, who, if they didn’t pay promptly, did jail time and had their fines increased. One woman spent days in jail and paid hundreds of dollars for two parking tickets; she still owes $541.

Ferguson’s predatory police are not the only ones – World – CBC News.

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Toronto Police team with other forces to help Somali community

2015/01/19 Leave a comment

Some good community policing initiatives here in addition to the exchange program with Minneapolis:

Toronto Police spent roughly $500,000 to employ six officers of Somali background in 23 Division as part of a Somali Liaison Unit, a renewable two-year project as a way to build trust in the predominantly Somali community and to engage youth, Deputy Chief Peter Sloly said at a policing conference at Woodbine Banquet Hall Saturday.

“The connections between Toronto, Minneapolis, Edmonton and Ft. McMurray … it’s a large issue that involves senior police leaders,” Sloly said. “We’re applying that neighbourhood approach. We’ve employed those police officers on Dixon Rd., right around Woodbine Racetrack, they’re in there for two years and develop trusting long-lasting relationships and a deep knowledge of community conditions.”

Toronto’s Somali liaison unit has been in place since 2013 and will likely be renewed at the end of this year, Sloly said.

“We did a high-risk project in spring of 2013 (Project Traveller) and the three years before then, we had over 20 shooting incidents every year and 10 homicides every year and the two years since we’ve had this unit in place, we’ve only had one shooting and no homicides,” he said. “That’s because of great local leadership.”

Toronto Police are also working with Positive Change Toronto, an advocacy group that formed to bring down gun violence in North Etobicoke, particularly in the Dixon Rd. and Queen’s Plate Dr. areas.

“When we formed in 2012, that was the summer of the gun,” explained PCT spokesman Idil Burale. “There were way too many funerals. Something had to change. In the past two years, we’ve seen people call these police officers directly, rather than call the police. They were coming forward with information more. A lot of young men in our community are interested in becoming police officers.”

Toronto Police team with other forces to help Somali community | Home | Toronto.

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National Post Editorial: Good Riddance to Carding

2015/01/09 Leave a comment

From the National Post Editorial Board:

Police have long defended carding as a vital law enforcement tool, and claim it has led to breakthroughs in major cases. But critics have long claimed  the process was inherently discriminatory, as young, black, male Torontonians were far more likely to be carded than others.

The critics were right. Data compiled by the Toronto Star revealed that young black men were being carded far more often than other citizens. Blacks, who are less than 10% of Toronto’s population, made up roughly a quarter of those being carded.

This is not to suggest that the police were simply bigoted. It is a sad truth that young black men in Toronto kill and are killed at a number that is wildly disproportionate to their share of the population. Young black men are charged with violent crimes more often than their numbers alone would warrant. Carding was the police response to the genuine issue of alarmingly high rates of violent crime among Toronto’s black youth.

But it was still the wrong response. Since 2008, more than a million people have been carded in a city that only sees somewhere in the region of 50 homicides a year. Not only was this an unwarranted police intrusion into the lives of citizens, but it needlessly stigmatized members of a racial minority, casting individuals under suspicion — or certainly making them feel under suspicion — solely on the basis of their race.

My only comment, as earlier posts this week have illustrated (A MacArthur Grant Winner Tries to Unearth Biases to Aid Criminal Justice – NYTimes.com, The Science of Why Cops Shoot Young Black Men), is not that the police are “simply bigoted” but they, like all of us, have subconscious biases and prejudices that play a role here.

National Post editorial board: Good riddance to carding 

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