Black American applies for refugee status
A few weeks ago, Oregon man Kyle Canty was arrested after he refused to leave a bus station. Another time, police approached him because they thought he had flagged down their cruiser — but left as soon as the misunderstanding was cleared up.
Armed with this evidence, Canty is applying for Canadian refugee status on the grounds police will kill him if he returns to the United States.
“The United States of America is corrupt; they’re consistently killing black people,” Canty told CBC outside his Immigration & Refugee Board ( IRB) hearing.
The man entered Canada as a tourist in September, but soon applied for refugee protection in Vancouver. He is reportedly now living in a homeless shelter as he awaits a decision from the IRB.
He could not be reached by the National Post before press time.
U. S. media got hold of Canty’s story this week, reporting on the black man who slipped across the 49th parallel to escape “police brutality.”
“He’s gone to Canada to get away from America’s cops,” wrote the tabloid- style New York Daily News.
While there have been several high- profile police shootings of unarmed black men across the U. S., Canty’s home state has largely been exempt. According to statistics compiled by the Washington Post, Oregon law enforcement officials have killed 14 suspects this year — only one was black.
In that case, Kevin Lamont Judson, 24, was fatally shot while trying to flee a traffic stop by stealing a police cruiser.
Salem, where Canty was arrested, has seen three police shootings since 2014. The suspects were all white. Canty, who is originally from New York, has racked up several minor charges in Oregon since 2001, including two convictions for marijuana possession and a dismissed charge for impaired driving.
His most recent arrest appears to be from mid- September, when he refused to leave a bus station where he had been using its free Wi- Fi.
A YouTube video that appears to have been uploaded by Canty shows him yelling at security guards who asked him to catch the next bus or leave the premises.
“Go call the cops so I can get a police report … because I’m going to take that police report and I’m seriously going to sue you,” the camera operator tells the two guards.
Canty’s Oct. 23 hearing saw him present reams of video and documentary evidence to the IRB to back his claim he has been repeatedly targeted by law enforcement because he is black, and his life is now in danger.