Community News
Police collecting race-based data a waste of time?
BY SIMONE J. SMITH
“Why do we play these games? We fought against it initially because we didn’t trust them.” Elder Louis March (Founder Zero Gun Violence Movement)
On December 27th, 2019, Andrew Palamarchuk wrote an article for Toronto.com called, “Analysis: Why are Toronto Police to start collecting race-based data?” It introduced to the general community that starting January 1st, 2020, Toronto Police Officers will be collecting race data for every interaction involving use of force and Level 3 searches (aka. strip-searches). In his article, he interviews some key people: Suelyn Knight (Service Manager of the Equity, Inclusion and Human Rights Unit), Mai Phan (Toronto Police’s Race Data Expert), Barbara McLean (Deputy Police Chief, in charge of Human Resources), Louis March (Founder of Zero Gun Violence Movement), and Jooyoung Lee (Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto).
Andrew Palamarchuk did a great job of documenting what is currently happening with the story, and I wanted to add to it by taking it a step further. In this article, I am going to bring light to some facts that I would encourage all readers to consider. It is important to dig deeper, sift through the noise, and this is exactly what I would like to do for the Afro-Caribbean Community. This article was initially shared with me on Facebook. Elder Louis March had circulated the article for the community, and in the article he made a statement that caught my attention.
“We didn’t trust the police (in the 1980s), and we didn’t trust them to do this right. We thought that the collection of race-based data would be done in such a way to promote excessive policing on the black community … so we didn’t trust the process, we didn’t trust the intention,”
“Hmmm,” I thought to myself, “What could he have possibly meant by that?” Instead of making assumptions, I went straight to the source. I called Elder Louis, and he gladly shared his thoughts on what is now called the largest community partnership initiative in the history of the Toronto Police Service.
“So elder,” I queried, “In that article, you were the only one who seemed weary of this community partnership initiative. Why is that?”
Elder chuckles, “ Why do we play these games? We fought against data collection initially because we didn’t trust them. We didn’t trust the source. We didn’t trust the system. We didn’t trust the people behind it. In Canada, force is backed up by legislation. The information gathered will be based on the interpretation of the officer. Yes, they are going to hire black people to be a part of it. Yes, they are going to find out what the community thinks about it. The academics are saying, ‘Let’s get our data. It will help us make our case.’ The fear? That they are doing this to justify the over policing of our communities; now they are just branding it differently. Any effort to collect data is just going to justify that black people commit more crime than anyone. ”
Speaking with the elder had peeled off another layer to the story, so I thought I would then visit the Toronto Police Services website to gather some information directly from the source. In a message directly from Chief Mark Saunders, he states that the purpose of the new policy and strategy is to identify, to monitor, and to eliminate potential systemic racism. Collecting the data will allow them to analyse, and report on it. It will also eliminate speculation about police interactions with the community, and allow both the public and the service to learn from their experiences. According to Saunders, this is a pivotal point in the history of the Toronto Police Services.
In Palamarchuk’s article, he also gathered some quotes from members of the police force directly involved in this initiative. Suelyn Knight maintains, “The data will be collected using an officer’s perception of the subject’s race, not how subjects identify themselves. Officers will have to check off one of the seven categories for each subject: Black, East/Southeast Asian, Indigenous, Latino, Middle Eastern, South Asian and White.” Mai Phan admitted that a certain amount of error in the data is expected. One source of error could include officers being dishonest in their selection of categories.
All right! It is time to take it there. It is time to flush our exactly why this is being considered, “A waste of time,” by some of our black community activists. With the help of Community Educator, and Managing Director at Hear 2 Help Dave “Rankin” Lindsay, we were able to dig into the archives of police interaction with the black community, and we did so based on factual research compiled by Dr. Ajamu Nangwaya.
Dr. Ajamu Nangwaya has his Doctorate in Adult Education and Community Development from the University of Toronto, and has been active in the Canadian labour movement around equity and class struggle issues. Dr. Ajamu has over 25 years of experience in community organizing and advocacy. He is a former Vice-President of CUPE Ontario and served as a Vice-President of CUPE Toronto District Council. Alongside all of that, he helps with the organization of the Network for Pan-Afrikan Solidarity. He compiled a “Fact Sheet on Police Violence against the African Community in Canada,” which was last updated in July 2013. What I am about to present in this article can and must be reference checked. Below are some accounts of police brutality, and past efforts to work with the community to end race issues between the police and the black community.
April 6th, 1911
F. Witsue, an African man, was arrested for allegedly stealing a diamond ring and money from the home of a white family in Edmonton, Alberta. A 15-year-old white girl, Hazel Huff, claimed that she was assaulted and drugged by Mr. Witsue. She also asserted that she had no idea what happened to her while unconscious.
It was later revealed that the young woman made up the incident. Nine days after initial reports of Hazel’s maltreatment at the hands of a black intruder, the young white woman confessed that her entire story had been a racial red herring.
The chief of police in the city of Edmonton was aware of this lie seven days before Hazel’s public confession, but he and her family wanted to whip up anti-African immigration excitement. It was their hope that the federal government would be pressured into further restricting the presence of Africans in Canada.
August 26th, 1979
35-year-old Albert Johnson was shot to death in his apartment. Two white police officers, William Inglis and Walter Cargnelli, were charged with manslaughter in this killing. Johnson’s killers were acquitted in November 1980.
December 8th, 1988
Michael Wade Lawson, a 17-year-old Mississauga (Ontario) teenager, was shot in the back of his head while joyriding in a stolen car. Two white police officers Anthony Lelaragni and Darren Longpre were charged with manslaughter and aggravated assault, respectively. An all-white jury acquitted Michael’s killers on April 7th, 1992. Several days later, over 300 people protested the “not guilty” verdict in downtown Toronto.
December 13th, 1988
The government of Ontario created the Race Relation and Policing Task Force in response to the killing of Lester Donaldson and Michael Wade Lawson.
Clare Lewis, the Public Complaints Commissioner of Metropolitan Toronto, was appointed to head the task force, which was empowered with the directive “To address promptly the very serious concerns of visible minority communities respecting the interaction of the police community with their own.”
Two moderates from the African community were appointed to the task force: Dr. Ralph Agard and Roy Williams.
August 1990
The new Police Services Act in Ontario proclaimed the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) and this body was charged with the responsibility of carrying out “Criminal investigations into circumstances involving police and civilians that have resulted in serious injury, death or allegations of sexual assault.”
This independent investigatory body is staffed by former police officers and the community does not view it as being sufficiently distanced from the police that it is called upon to scrutinize.
September 29th, 1994
Albert Moses, 41, was killed in his room in downtown Toronto. A white cop, Jeffrey Vance, shot Albert in his face and alleged that the latter attacked his partner with a hammer. The SIU cleared the killer of any wrongdoing.
October 19th, 2002
The Toronto Star published the findings of its landmark investigation into police racial profiling in Toronto.
It obtained access to a police database that recorded 480,000 incidents of police contact with civilians from 1996 to 2001, which generated a ticket or arrest. It was clearly established that Africans received racially differential treatment from the police.
The Star’s report uncovered the following racist police practices:
Most people charged with simple drug possession were free to go home, on a promise to appear in court and at a police station. Whites were released on the scene 76.5% of the time while blacks were released 61.8% of the time.
The difference in treatment was even more apparent at the next level of police decision-making. Of those taken to the station, blacks were held behind bars for a court appearance 15.5% of the time. Whites were kept in jail awaiting a bail hearing in 7.3% of cases.
The Toronto Star’s investigation also uncovered the existence of the “DWB or Driving While Black” phenomenon.
This is only a portion of what was found on this fact sheet, but it is enough to see that enough data has been collected. So my question to the community and the Toronto Police Services is, how much more data do you really need?
Full research by Dave Rankin – Toronto Caribbean News