Driving While Black - Toronto Judge Throws Out Case Against Balck Motorist

[tonirand]

Judge raps police in profiling case


PETER SMALL
STAFF REPORTER

A judge has thrown out a drug charge against a young black motorist, finding that two Toronto police officers used racial profiling when they stopped him and later "fabricated" evidence.

"Conduct of this kind by the police is reprehensible. It cannot be condoned or excused," Madam Justice Anne Molloy of the Superior Court of Justice said in her written decision, released yesterday, in the case of Kevin Khan, 29.

"Mr. Khan was targeted for this stop because of racial profiling: because he was a black man with an expensive car."

(Uniformed Police Officer, Glen) Asselin said he pulled Khan from the vehicle and then detected the obvious strong odour of cocaine coming from the car. He was charged with possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking.

The judge herself had the cocaine brought to the courtroom during the trial, and placed the open bag at her feet. "I could smell nothing," she said.

The Toronto Star


**aye sah**

[Tropicana]

Re: Driving While Black - Toronto Judge Throws Out Case Against Balck Motorist

Glad to see you telling it like it is up here.

Here is more from the same article (H)anna(H) posted to give the broader context:

Allegations of racial profiling by Toronto police were the subject of a series of articles published by the Star in 2002.

The Star obtained the police arrest database, listing more than 480,000 incidents in which an individual was arrested or ticketed, and almost 800,000 criminal and other charges.

The Star's analysis of the data found that blacks charged with simple drug possession were taken to a police station more often than whites facing the same charge.

Once at the station, black suspects were held overnight for a bail hearing at twice the rate of whites.

The data also showed a disproportionate number of black motorists in the database were ticketed for offences that routinely would come to light following a traffic stop. Civil libertarians and criminologists say this pattern points to racial profiling, whether conscious or not.

The Khan case is believed to be Canada's first judicial determination of racial profiling of a motorist — the classic "driving while black."

[Englan Girl]

Re: Driving While Black - Toronto Judge Throws Out Case Against Balck Motorist

Dahjah read dis yet? Oy sah!

[Suesumba]

Re: Driving While Black - Toronto Judge Throws Out Case Against Balck Motorist

was the cocaine planted or was it his?

[Tropicana]

Re: Driving While Black - Toronto Judge Throws Out Case Against Balck Motorist

Tried to post this before and the board was done.

I live in Toronto and I will go on record that I have never had any experiences like the one described. For YEARS, I have heard Black men complain about things like this and the problems associated with "driving while black" (more on that in a second). Yet, never once have I said, I haven't experienced it so it doesn't go on up here.

Dahjah has spoken out about this issue (driving while Black). I have spoken out about the challenges that I have faced as a Black female (e.g. dating, discrimination re: employment, negative media stereotyping - elevation of blondes vs portraying Black women in a negative light). There have been many boardites who have been supportive and who have provided encouragement. This has been wonderful. Unfortunatley, a number of times when we have spoken oupeople have come with the "I have not exprienced that you must be imagining it" line. I hope that in future this will not happen and that it won't take a "WHITE" reporter or "WHITE" newspaper speaking out to finally acknowledge that there is a problem. Trust me, we aren't making these things up and one of the reasons some of us come to a Jamaican board is to get support and encouragement from fellow Jamaicans wrt some of the challenges we are facing.

Reminds me of when Black people in the states were speaking out about discrimination and people dismissed their concerns as "chip on shoulder", "you're imagining it" and "you are exagerrating". It took a White writer, making his skin Black, going undercover and writing "Black Like me" before some were willing to FINALLY admit there was a problem.

Here is more about this issue so that people will have a context:
Report Traces Cost of Racial Profiles - Special Report

Race and Crime: The Original Series

Do members of the Toronto police force use racial profiling? Depends on who you ask, but in a controversial series, the Star alleged that police do factor race into the equation. While a class action libel suit against the Star brought by members of the Toronto Police Association was ultimately dismissed, the debate continues. Special Section

The police sued The Toronto Star for having the balls to run a series of special reports exploring these issues. Here was the result:

Judge dismisses suit against the Star
Jun. 25, 2003. 06:22 AM


An Ontario Superior Court judge has dismissed a $2.7 billion class action libel lawsuit brought against the Toronto Star by members of the Toronto Police Association, who claimed a series of stories about racial profiling implied they were all 'racists' and 'bigots.' Tracey Tyler reports. In throwing out the lawsuit yesterday, Mr. Justice Maurice Cullity said it was "plain and obvious" it had no hope of succeeding at trial.

The police association alleged that every officer's reputation was damaged by the Star's Race and Crime Series, but a simple reading of the stories "destroys" the foundation of the lawsuit, the judge said. "The whole thrust of the articles is that the evidence suggests that racial profiling occurs and that steps must be taken to identify the causes and remove them."

In the series, the Star looked at a police database of charges laid between 1996 and 2002 and concluded that, in some cases, blacks are treated more harshly than whites.

Blacks charged with simple drug possession were taken into custody twice as often as whites, the series found, while black motorists were ticketed more often than white drivers for violations discovered after they were pulled over.

The stories cannot "be reasonably understood" to state or even hint "that every member of the service is a racist or a bigot," Cullity said.

Nowhere do the stories imply, for example, that black officers have racist attitudes, and they do not suggest every officer — or anyone in particular — engages in discriminatory conduct.

In fact, Star columnist Royson James said in one of the stories it was a "scurrilous slur" to suggest most police officers are consciously racist, the judge noted.

Similarly, former Ontario lieutenant-governor Lincoln Alexander was quoted in one of the stories as saying the consensus at a "summit" meeting of politicians and community leaders over the issue of racial profiling was that "the overwhelming majority" of police officers do their jobs ethically and professionally, he said.

The stories included comments by academics, civil libertarians, municipal and provincial politicians, as well as members of the black community and Toronto police service itself, the judge added.

Cullity was ruling on a motion brought by the Star to have the lawsuit dismissed for disclosing no reasonable cause of action.

More re: lawsuit

[Tropicana]

Re: Driving While Black - Toronto Judge Throws Out Case Against Balck Motorist

For Jamaican and Black Parents:

This article written by a Jamaican reporter living in Toronto, highlights the reasons we shouldn't ignore issues just because they haven't affected us personally. Remember, they could have an impact on our kids and we need to prepare them. I have discussed these issues with my son and, now that he is 14, I have printed off this article and I will be sharing it with him when he gets home from school:

Why I Fear for my Sons

ROYSON JAMES

Most of us parents know the satisfaction of watching our kids grow up and drive off with friends in the family car.

It's part of the passage into adulthood.

But only some of us parents know the palpable, paralyzing fear that the car will be stopped by Toronto, Peel, Durham or York police, searched, have its passengers harassed and humiliated — simply because the driver is our black son.

Most of us expect to be treated fairly, respectfully and equitably when police suspect we may have run afoul of the law. And if there is a mistake, we expect, redress is available before an impartial judiciary.

Only some of us expect the direct opposite — end of story, no debate.

That's why, I suspect, reaction is quite different today, in the wake of The Star's series of reports on six year's worth of what may be called "proof, the statistical evidence" that Toronto police treat black citizens more harshly than whites.

"Yaah. So what else is new?" is the likely response from our black citizens. For most of them racial profiling is a debilitating fact of life. In beautiful, tolerant Toronto. Yesterday and today.

There will be little visceral anger at the Star stories among the victims, only a sense of relief that, "maybe, finally they'll believe us."

Ask your black colleague and he or she will share DWB stories. That's Driving While Black. They have the scars, mostly emotional but some physical ones as well, to prove it. They know that while a car symbolizes freedom to the young, it soon becomes a modern working reminder of enslavement.

They know the stereotype of the angry young black male; that a significant number of police officers feel blacks are criminal beasts deserving special attention from law enforcers; that some elements of society harbour such racist sentiments; that blacks don't have the same freedom to make mistakes like everyone else because the consequences could be harsher, the punishment more severe.

So, they develop coping mechanisms, some better than others.

My boys were taught to respect the police. From their earliest memories, they were introduced to police officers, allowed to call out to them, be friendly, shake their hands, see police officers as normal citizens doing a special and dangerous job in the interest of everyone's safety.

Whenever their father was stopped by the police, and as the officer approached the car, sometimes checking the holster, the kids were told to watch how Dad responded to the interrogation and model that behaviour. Even when their father suspected racial profiling, it was never brought up as a cause for the police contact.

Don't be lippy. Keep your hands on the steering wheel. Ask before you go to your pocket for your licence or to the glove compartment for the insurance and ownership. Keep your passengers calm and quiet.

Walking down the street, you don't have to give the police identification, unless you are under arrest. But your life will be easier if you co-operate. Swallow your pride and be courteous and you might get out of there faster and with fewer hassles.

It worked until the boys started driving. Now, nothing I tell them can separate them from the belief that black drivers are the subject of racial profiling; that they come in for special attention when they get behind the wheel; that they have to walk more circumspectly than their white neighbours.

These sentiments are not the subject of debate among our black citizens. They are the starting point to other debates, like, "Should police gather and publish race-based crime statistics?" (They gather demographic info to help identify suspects but are forbidden to use it to develop policy or guide policing practices).

Or, "Should we have access to police race-based crime statistics so we can prove biased policing against blacks?"

I have little use for crime-based statistics. They can be manipulated too easily to achieve little good. The dangers outweigh the benefits.

For example: It's been clear for some time that black citizens are appearing before judges more often than their numbers warrant. Social workers and lawyers talk about it, as do parents who are shocked at the numbers when they go in, greatly embarrassed, to see their own child facing charges.

One conclusion, the one preferred and proffered on talk radio, is that blacks are committing more than their fair share of crime.

Stop being a criminal and the cops will stop getting up in your face, callers often say.

Rarely are such arguments probed further to ask, why. Are blacks committing more crimes or are they being arrested and charged more often? Do police target them? Do they end up in court because they are given the full extent of the law where others are given a warning and let go?

For, if the answer to the above is no, no, no, we are left with two options: Either environmental, social and economic factors are contributing to this errant behaviour, or blacks have some genetic flaw, some innate propensity to crime.

Most of us, of course, don't want to go there. That's the road to eugenics and other racist dogma our civil society has rejected.

Which takes us back to the Herculean task of analyzing the police race-based statistics and what those figures tell us; which is that, in today's Toronto, police stop a disproportionate number of black people for no apparent reason, arrest black people more often for minor drug and traffic offences and jail blacks more frequently.

And Driving While Black is all that's needed to get black citizens harsh treatment at the hands of police.

[mountaingal]

Re: Driving While Black - Toronto Judge Throws Out Case Against Balck Motorist

Originally posted by SueSumba:
[qb] was the cocaine planted or was it his? [/qb]

from what i heard on the news, sue, the car was used by his brother before the officer pulled him over, and the young man's fingerprints were NOT on the bag of cocaine. it is still possible that it was planted.

[Tropicana]

Re: Driving While Black - Toronto Judge Throws Out Case Against Balck Motorist

Racism in Canada: 1950s to Present

Between 1988-1990 three black men were killed by police in or near Toronto. A young black woman was also shot by a police officer and was permanently paralysed. Members of the Black community who demanded public inquiries were labelled "Black extremists", while the police force mobilized opposition to inquiries through a "Cops are Tops" campaign which demanded the dropping of charges against one of the officers involved.

Toronto police raided a church, usually regarded as a place of sanctuary, and falsely arrested five innocent Black youths.


A Toronto judge dismissed all charges against a Black citizen after it was established in evidence that he had been persistently harassed by the police on an average of three times per week for an extended period of time

Criminal Justice and Racial Profiling

Participants were concerned about the fact that African Canadians are subject to racial profiling and are more often targeted, stopped, arrested and detained by the police. An extensive report concluded in 1995 showed that in a five-year period the number of Black prisoners admitted to Ontario prisons had increased by 204%, while the number of white prisoners admitted increased only 23%. African Canadians are also victims of extreme police brutality and violence. The overwhelming majority of people shot and killed by police are African Canadian men. Toronto police officers have killed fifteen African Canadian men over the past twenty years and many more have died in custody. The legacy of slavery and colonialism is real for people of African descent in the Canada.

[QK13]

Re: Driving While Black - Toronto Judge Throws Out Case Against Balck Motorist

Unless one is smoking it, there really is no obvious odor from cocaine... unless it's going up your nose at the time.

I used cocaine for years and can't recall ever once "smelling it"

My friend from Uganda is touring the country with a Christian singing group. He is their driver. They were pulled over, removed from the vehicle (a second hand white Dodge mini-van) and handcuffed while the police called in there information.
The officers told them they had reports that they looked "suspicious"...

When he called and told me what had happened I wasn't surprised. I TOLD him to stay out of Texas!!


On a more humorous note:
The reporter's name must have been a hit duing roll calls... Small, Peter
[img]/forums/images/graemlins/704555_dwl.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/graemlins/704555_dwl.gif[/img]

[Suesumba]

Re: Driving While Black - Toronto Judge Throws Out Case Against Balck Motorist

Originally posted by mountaingal:
[qb]

Originally posted by SueSumba:
[qb] was the cocaine planted or was it his? [/qb]

from what i heard on the news, sue, the car was used by his brother before the officer pulled him over, and the young man's fingerprints were NOT on the bag of cocaine. it is still possible that it was planted. [/qb]

i *thought* i heard this was one of the reasons the case was thrown out.

[sagal]

Re: Driving While Black - Toronto Judge Throws Out Case Against Balck Motorist

Last year I was chosen to present my side of DWB(Driving While Black) and SWB(Shopping While Black) to the Ontario Human Rights Commission and CBC radio. Listening to the stories one after the other, it made me both sad and angry. I applaud the Toronto Star for their courage with bringing out this story. Racial profiling is nothing new. However, various people and organizations have complained, and nothing has been done. They didn't listen to the visible minority organizations. However, they have listened to a White owned media outlet. It seems now the courts may be listening and trying to put an end to this serious problem that plagues Toronto. Racial profiling will never end! It is solely up to individuals to end it. It begins with us!

[Suesumba]

Re: Driving While Black - Toronto Judge Throws Out Case Against Balck Motorist

i know i'm gonna get stoned for this but here goes.

sometimes when i'm shopping in certain neighbourhoods (with a large black population, like regent park) i'll get followed around the stores because i'm shoplifting. i've even been accused of changing the price tags on items up on eglinton avenue west when an item was incorrectly tagged by the store's own imployee.

i've lived in mostly white areas (rosedale for eg.) never had that problem. in my last neighbourhood which was mostly concentrated with italians and portuguese i didn't feel that i had that problem either.

i know that racism exists and i don't believe it to be "an imaginary construct". but what would cause these shop keepers to behave like this?

why is that?

i'll peek back in to see if anyone will seriously consider that for every action there's a reaction and sometimes we make it very difficult for ourselves because of our own behaviours

[Tropicana]

Re: Driving While Black - Toronto Judge Throws Out Case Against Balck Motorist

various people and organizations have complained, and nothing has been done. They didn't listen to the visible minority organizations. However, they have listened to a White owned media outlet.

Here! Here!

Suesumba, people can make it difficult for themselves because of their OWN behaviour. What I object to is everyone being painted with the same brush becaues of colour and race. I have spoken to my son (from before he was a teenager) about watching what he wears and how he conducts himself in public. Wearing baggy pants, hat turned backwards (when this was in fashion), etc. is jsut inviting someone to harrass you. What many have experienced is that, even if they are wearing a nice business suit and ESPECIALLY when driving a fancy car, they are harrassed. It has never happened to me but I know it happens to a lot of Black men and teens. Like Royson James, Itoo fear for my son to the point that I don't think I will let him get his license until he goes to college and we move to another city.

[sagal]

Re: Driving While Black - Toronto Judge Throws Out Case Against Balck Motorist

Originally posted by Tropicana:
[qb]

various people and organizations have complained, and nothing has been done. They didn't listen to the visible minority organizations. However, they have listened to a White owned media outlet.

Here! Here!

Suesumba, people can make it difficult for themselves because of their OWN behaviour. What I object to is everyone being painted with the same brush becaues of colour and race. I have spoken to my son (from before he was a teenager) about watching what he wears and how he conducts himself in public. Wearing baggy pants, hat turned backwards (when this was in fashion), etc. is jsut inviting someone to harrass you. What many have experienced is that, even if they are wearing a nice business suit and ESPECIALLY when driving a fancy car, they are harrassed. It has never happened to me but I know it happens to a lot of Black men and teens. Like Royson James, Itoo fear for my son to the point that I don't think I will let him get his license until he goes to college and we move to another city. [/qb]

I'm sorry but I don't agree with you. I think you should let your son get his license and let him drive. Don't let what is going on stop him! I understand your fear, however you are letting these people win. They are going to target him regardless, even if he is riding a bike. Stopping him from getting his license will not guarantee that he will not get stopped by police. Royson James, has pointed out in his article that he has taught his son's how to conduct themselves when they are stopped by the police. Also ensure that your son does not fall into the stereotype of wearing braids, baggy paints. These things of course, draw attention

[sagal]

Re: Driving While Black - Toronto Judge Throws Out Case Against Balck Motorist

Originally posted by SueSumba:
[qb] i know i'm gonna get stoned for this but here goes.

sometimes when i'm shopping in certain neighbourhoods (with a large black population, like regent park) i'll get followed around the stores because i'm shoplifting. i've even been accused of changing the price tags on items up on eglinton avenue west when an item was incorrectly tagged by the store's own imployee.


i've lived in mostly white areas (rosedale for eg.) never had that problem. in my last neighbourhood which was mostly concentrated with italians and portuguese i didn't feel that i had that problem either.

i know that racism exists and i don't believe it to be "an imaginary construct". but what would cause these shop keepers to behave like this?

why is that?

i'll peek back in to see if anyone will seriously consider that for every action there's a reaction and sometimes we make it very difficult for ourselves because of our own behaviours [/qb]

Well let me give you a scenario Ms. Sue Sumba [img]/forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]
Last year while shopping at Jane Finch Mall. I was at particular grocery store that guarantees to chop your prices...hint! I will not call names. I noticed a white man following a young black lady around the store. I said to myself that he must be a pervert...well I was wrong. He was a white plain clothes security officer. My fellow sister was a victim of SWB(Shopping While Black). I informed her that she was being followed...my girl gave him a lesson 101 on fine Jamaican patois. She thanked me, and we both vowed to never shop there again. I have moved on to support my Jamaican brother at Fortino's at Albion Mall. He is the owner! yes! So, when you think that you are not being followed you are.
I guess consider yourself lucky that you have not been followed in white establishments. SueSumba all I can say to you is just be a little more observant of your surrondings. Technology is fierce, however they don't have to follow you around, they can use their cameras too zoom in on you.

Sue Sumba all I can say to you is yes you may be one of the fortunate blacks that haven't been experienced racial profiling. However, don't be blind and act like nothing is happening in Toronto or elsewhere.

In regards to your statement Racial profiling hurts all of us! Just because Tyrone robbed a store, I don't think that my brother should have to be treated differently or looked as a criminal, because Tyrone and him share the same colour! Think about it!