Racial Profiling: Is Carding Black Youth Abuse of Power?

A young black teen leaves his apartment in his community housing complex.  He has a few friends with him.  He does not have a criminal record and has never been in trouble with the law.  Suddenly a TAVIS police cruiser pulls up and two officers get out and approach the youth.  One officer begins asking questions.  Where do you live?  Where are you going.  Who are your associates and who are your other associates at school?  Are your parents divorced or do they still live together?  What is your weight and height?  Your age.  Your name.

He has two choices he believes.  He can tell the officer that he does not have to give this information and turn and walk away or he can give the officer the information he seeks.  Some may believe that giving the information is the best choice because then you don’t arouse the suspicion of the officers who must believe you are up to no good.

It’s just info right?  What can anyone do with honest info?

Plenty.

The information TAVIS police collect, enters a data base that is accessed when youth require a criminal background check for employment purposes.  This can impair their ability to find decent employment and shows that they have intersected the law.   A clean background check is preferable.  How does carding over 50 times – 50 intersections with law enforcement appear to a prospective employer on a criminal background check?  This leaves  youth explaining how a police officer wanted to talk to him 50 times and that doesn’t look good to the average employer who would likely assume the police had a valid reason to stop the youth.  Many would ask, was he doing something he shouldn’t be?  Even with reasonable explanations of the carding process, employers could feel unsure and wary.

But, there is another reason that carding is useful for law enforcement but not useful for youth who do nothing to cause entry into the justice system, yet find themselves in a position of defending themselves.  The data obtained by police serves two purposes.  To harass and make it known that you are being monitored and scrutinized for wrong-doing.  And to build a data base of suspects that can be called on if they ‘fit’ the description.  Or ‘fit’ the association.  Now, a youth gets picked up and brought in on suspicion of committing a crime, because the data is already in the data-base and easily accessible.

For some, this may seem like an efficient way to profile people.  And this could be considered harmless demographic information, except for one thing.  Demographics collected on our age, postal code, income level do not generally lead to our incarceration.  Demographics is a marketing tool used to profile the perfect buyer.  Police racial profiling, 208 carding, of black youth results in black youth criminalized erroneously for acts they did not commit, at the very worst and at the very least, impairs employment opportunities.  Encounters of this type with the law create fear, distrust, and a reluctance to coöperate with police in the future, leaving them without assistance from the police when they need it.  Who then, will our youth turn to when they need protection?  Perhaps, each other and a concealed weapon.  If youth are carded and found with anything resembling a weapon, they will be charged and arrested as well, entering the justice system.

So, the question must be asked.  If you frighten youth into running away, and not relying on police for help and you do live in a neighbourhood that could have criminal elements in the mix, and carry something for your own protection because there is no one to help, hasn’t the system set you up to fail?  Hasn’t the system set you up for eventual incarceration?  If you feel frightened enough to carry a weapon to protect yourself, knowing police are not there to help, might you use it if you needed to?  If you use it, then you will go to jail.  Case closed.

There is the alternative.

You could say you don’t need to give any information and walk away.  Right?

When youth have tried this, they don’t get far.  Police do not generally agree good-naturedly and walk away.  In the priority neighbourhoods  TAVIS is supported, welcomed and endorsed by Toronto Community Housing.   Youth have told accounts where they have been grabbed, maneuvered, surrounded, assaulted into compliance.

Justice For Children and Youth, a legal aid clinic, supply credit card sized cards listing a youth’s rights if approached by police:

1.     I can refuse to talk to police or answer question, unless I am in a bar or a cinema, driving a car or they say I broke the law.  Must give name, date of birth and address or show ID.  Do not have to say more.

2.  I can say “NO” if the police ask permission to search me or my things.  Saying “NO” does not mean I have something to hide.

3.  I can leave unless I am being detained or arrested.

4.  If I am being detained or arrested, I have the right to know why, and a right to speak privately to a lawyer without delay – even if I can’t afford to pay.

5.  I have a right to know an officer’s name and badge number.

6.  I can report an officer who violates my rights.

When youth have tried to exercise these rights, compliance by Toronto police is generally not the order of the day.  In a recent piece, August 11th, 2012,  in the Toronto Star, Jim Rankin and Patty Winsa report on stopping and documenting by Toronto Police.  The Star obtained information through the freedom of information act that in each of the 72 patrol zones, black people were more likely to be carded than white people.  Police performance measures such as disciplinary actions and promotions are tied to the carding activity and the,”average number of cards per officer was 109 in 2008.  Of the top 15 carding officers, 13 were TAVIS officers who had a total card count of 17,460.”  And, “the top carding officer documented 12 young men in 5 different patrol zones.  All were either black or brown-skinned, and in each case, the nature of contact was listed  as ‘general investigation’.”

At the Toronto Police Services Board meeting, August 15, 2012, Moya Teklu of the African Canadian Legal Clinic, argued in a deputation that the issue of carding, police brutality and racial profiling has been ongoing since 1979.  She listed numerous reports highlighting the poor effects on youth when they are consistently carded and asked when this practice could change by giving a receipt of the encounter to the youth so they may be aware of why they were stopped, by whom, etc.  The Toronto Police Accountability Coalition asked the same question, highlighting the same concerns.

November 1st, 2012 is when we may see some interim temporary resolution.  After 37 years of waiting for a resolution to the 208 carding and racial profiling of black youth…I won’t be holding my breath.

The Justice Is Not Colour-Blind Campaign does not ask when changes to carding with issuing receipts to youth will begin.  JINCB asks when this form of racist hate crime called racial profiling and carding will be stopped.  Period.  Odion Fayalo of JINCB stated,   ‘The argument of contact receipts put forth by folks such as TPAC and ACLC yesterday may be well-intentioned but it is misguided considering it leads us down a path to accommodation under white power. It does not actually overturn
our relationship with white power. In this case, white, police-state power! ”

Odion argues, “The solution lies in uniting and building a movement to change public policy and social relations. Only an engaged and energized movement can make change.  We have to build the movement.  We have to become the movement.  JINCB and other progressive organizations must not allow business to continue as usual at the TPSB. Business has to be ceased literally, until our demands are met.  It is the carrying out of business that allows the police to control blacks on a day-to-day basis. It is public policy to control black people.  After all, its big business to lock up black folks!”

What are the chances that a black youth not in conflict with the law, could avoid getting carded by remaining calm and stating his rights if he is walking in his neighbourhood?  Watch this video below by Chief Bill Blair who discusses a youth’s right to say NO, then recants that right later in the video.  Seems like Blair is saying youth do have rights but do not have the right to exercise them.  What do you think?  Click on the link below to view the video by Toronto Chief of police Bill Blair.

http://www.torontopoliceguide.ca/english.html

Toronto Chief of Police Bill Blair

Justice Is Not Colour-Blind Campaign:

1. We want an immediate end to all racist programs, policies and practices that
target black people, which include but are not limited to: TAVIS, carding and
racial profiling.

2. We want an end to the practice of sweeps and raids
of black people, which have been used under false pretexts, in order to
criminalize the community.

3. We reject the notion of justifiable
homicide and want the families of all black victims of police killings, to be
fully compensated by the Province of Ontario, for their pain and suffering,
whether or not there are civil actions pending.

4. Given the documented
physical, psychological, mental, economic and other injuries resulting from
being racially profiled, we demand the criminalization of the practice of racial
profiling. We believe that racial profiling is a tenet of systemic racism, which
is institutional racism. Consequently, we want the immediate arrests and
vigorous prosecutions of all police officers in Ontario that have killed black
victims.

5. We demand an immediate end to the incestuous relationships
between the Attorney General’s ministry, SIU, and police services. We want the
SIU to be a truly independent and forceful agency, staffed with civilians from
top to bottom, and throughout. Furthermore, we call for an independent body to
be organized that can hold the SIU responsible. This body must be made up solely
of community members with substantial disciplinary powers to keep the SIU truly
accountable.

—
Justice IS
NOT Colour-Blind Campaign

Mobilize Our People, Maximize Our
Power!

Email: justicenotblind@gmail.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/justicenotblind/

Twitter:
@justicenoblind

Dudley Laws Day Celebration: May 6th, 2012

Yesterday, May 7th would have marked the 78th birthday of Dudley Laws.

In Dudley’s honor, a celebration of his life will be held every year to remind us how much he cared for his community.  In the final hours before his death as he lay in his hospital bed dying, Dudley instructed members of the Black Action Defense Committee to carry forward and continue all that he had worked tirelessly for since the committee’s inception in 1988.

The Black Action Defense Committee (BADC) was co-founded by Dudley Laws, Charles Roach, Sherona Hall and Lennox Farrell in response to growing numbers of unarmed black men, shot and killed by Toronto police.  The shooting death of Lester Donaldson, a man experiencing a mental health crisis, was pivotal, in moving Dudley and BADC’s co-founders to action.  The group pushed for independent police oversight, accusing police of targeting black youth, racial carding and profiling.

It has been said by every member of BADC, I have had the privilege and honor to speak with, that Dudley Laws was untiring and fearless and that he took all the risks for all of us in his effort to end police violence against unarmed young black men.

Arnold Minors, keynote speaker, at the Dudley Laws Day celebration this past Sunday, spoke of the experience of a black man while being relentlessly targeted, hunted down by a Toronto police force with impunity.  Can you imagine trying to live your ordinary life and being tracked continuously?  Can you imagine being watched by police so set on silencing your voice and stopping your efforts that every law including those of the late 1800’s are considered to prevent your success?  This was the life of Dudley Laws.

Dudley was targeted, set-up and attempts made to find some measure of law-breaking to charge and incarcerate this activist, halting his mission to end police violence against his people and other citizens.  In the end, police found nothing with which they could apprehend and contain this man, concluding what everyone else in the community already knew – that Dudley Laws was a decent, hard-working, law-abiding citizen, contravening no law.

Reuben Abib, of the Black Action Defense Committee and the Never Again Coalition, clad in blue hospital gown blazoned with the words:  NEVER AGAIN! spoke of the recent shooting death by Toronto police of Michael Eligon, 29-year-old man, father of an 8-year-old boy.  Michael Eligon, holding only scissors in each hand and threatening no one, wearing only a hospital gown, socks and a toque was gunned down by Toronto police on a cold February day.  Abib spoke of the urgent need to support BADC through membership and action, stating current goals were calling for total civilian oversight of police within the SIU and for police impunity to end.

Roger Love, Advice Counsel for the African Canadian Legal Clinic, spoke of the need for independent analysis by social scientists of the data compiled and gathered by the Toronto Star a decade ago on racial profiling and carding to prove the hypothesis that racism and racial profiling exist within the Toronto police force.  Love stated that it is not possible that the 49% of incarcerated men are black and this is representative of black men in the community.  It is not realistic to state that 49% of black men in the community are not law-abiding citizens.  Black men are jailed  for minor infractions of the law that non-blacks are not being incarcerated for.  Why is this?

It has been said that the police are afraid of the black man.  Dudley Laws asked, why is that?  Black men are not shooting police officers – they are being shot by police officers and are not retaliating.

Racquiah Topey, proud supporter and assistant to Dudley Laws for the last 15 years, tells me, “It is lonely at the BADC office without Dudley there.”  Racquiah shoulders the burden that Dudley once did.  She answers all the phone calls, assists her people and others in the community in need, as Dudley would have.  She listens to the phone messages – threats and hateful comments, peppered with the ‘N’ word and sighs, then carries on with the good work that Dudley started.

Racquiah spoke out to the crowd with passion, loudly, to not let the efforts of Dudley Laws die – to get involved in body and spirit.  This is the only time I have seen gentle Racquiah, with quiet, polite, polished  reserve, speak animatedly and with such verve.  She returns to her former mellow self once seated again.

In 1996, I witnessed the shooting death of Tommy Barnett by Toronto police.   I was shocked to discover that truths were re-interpreted and facts twisted to support the police version of events.  I could find no one in either my white community or the black community in my area who would champion the cause of this young man, Tommy.  Complete apathy.  The white people thought I had it wrong.  The black people believed, but worried for the safety of the community if truths were spoken about or issue raised – just leave it alone was the advice, which I sadly followed.  I wish I had know about BADC and Dudley Laws in 1996.

Today, black woman say – you are a white woman so you will be shocked by the death of black men at the hands of Toronto police, but this is everyday reality for us – not shocking.  Quiet resignation, silent defeat, stay safe, maintain the status quo.

This racial cleansing must stop.

The Never Again Coalition formed in response to the shooting death of Michael Eligon by Toronto police – another unarmed black man, one experiencing a mental health crisis – one in need of our help and assistance not execution and elimination.  White people witnessed, held a vigil, felt sad, still feel sad, feel outraged, shocked by what they have come to realize – that their community is not safe  for all Canadians equally.

Black and white members of the Never Again Coalition and any others – individual or groups who wish to assist us in standing up for the rights of any oppressed persons profiled or violently transgressed by police who have witnessed police violence against the unarmed or those who are simply outraged by this unjust treatment of our Canadian citizens are welcome to join us in changing policing in the city of Toronto, the province of Ontario or the country of Canada and carry forward the vision Dudley Laws had for all Canadians.

Dudley Laws’ vision was the creation of a just and equal society and an unmitigated stand against police violence towards members of the black community, poor whites, First nations and oppressed people.  Dudley has said that while growing up he learned the precious value for honor and respect for human lives and the expectation of a better and a more caring world.

Dudley couldn’t have said it better and I couldn’t agree more.  Together we can create an equal and just society.  Together we can fulfil the vision Dudley Laws had for a better and a more caring society – equality for all Canadians is the path towards a Canada we all want to live in – safe for all of us.

Darlene Marett, RPN, BAA Nutrition and Family Studies

Member of:  The Never Again Coalition, Black Action Defense Committee

Administrator/writer of:  peopleschoicemovement.com