Vindication for victim of profiling by police
Human Rights Commission says she was victim of both racial and social profiling
More than seven years after Montreal police fined and roughed her up after accosting her as she sat on a downtown bench, Amal Asmar has been vindicated — but it may be another year before the case is settled for good.
Quebec’s Human Rights Commission has recommended the city of Montreal and two of its police officers pay $45,000 in damages to the former Concordia University student, who complained she was arrested, detained and handled violently by police outside the Alexis Nihon Plaza in 2010.
In its non-binding decision, the commission found there was enough evidence to show that the officers engaged in “discriminatory profiling based on ethnic or national origin, but also based on social condition.”
Since the city and the officers did not pay the fines by the commission’s Aug. 25 deadline, the commission said it will ask Quebec’s Human Rights Tribunal to rule on the matter. It could take about a year for the tribunal to issue a binding decision.
“No one should ever have to experience something like this,” Asmar, who now lives in Saskatchewan, said via telephone at a news conference on Tuesday. “If me coming forward and enduring these years of having to fight could help shed light on the injustice and help prevent it from happening again, then it was worth it.”
She said the experience traumatized her, causing her to suffer psychologically and physically for years.
The Centre de recherche-action sur les relations raciales (CRARR), which helped Asmar with the case, said it appears to be the first time the commission has found “someone was at the same time the victim of racial and social profiling.” A commission spokesperson was unable to confirm this.
Asmar, 33 at the time, had been studying at Concordia’s downtown library until the early hours of the morning and was walking to a friend’s house when she sat down on a bench outside the Alexis Nihon Plaza at 2:30 a.m. on Feb. 4, 2010 to rest and retrieve gloves from her bag.
Asmar said two police officers pulled up and one of them asked her: “Is there a problem? What are you doing in this area?”
Asmar said she was confused and shocked and refused to identify herself. She said the officers then grabbed her, dragged her to the police car, pushed her against the hood and handcuffed her. She was searched and placed in the police car.
The officers, constables Sébastien Champoux and Michael McIntyre, wrote her two tickets — a $620 fine for misuse of municipal property (for putting her bag on the bench) and a $420 fine for making too much noise (for yelling in pain while being handcuffed). Several months later, the city told Asmar she did not have to pay the $1,040 in fines.
Asmar said she was the subject of racial profiling because she is dark-skinned. She is of Palestinian origin and was wearing a kaffiyeh (a Palestinian scarf ) at the time. And she said the officers also engaged in social profiling because they appear to have mistaken her for a homeless person since the area — on Ste-Catherine St. near Atwater — is frequented by many of the city’s homeless.
CRARR executive-director Fo Niemi said the types of tickets she received “are disproportionately issued to homeless people. In sum, to the officers, Asmar fit the profile of a homeless woman and was treated accordingly.”
He said the case “bears the hallmarks of social profiling,” which he defined as “profiling, mistreating and discriminating against people on the basis of their social condition, usually people who are economically disadvantaged and who are normally homeless.”
The commission has cited cases of social profiling in the past, but Niemi said the fact that the commission found both racial and social profiling in the same case is significant because it “doubles the seriousness” of the discrimination.
In its decision, the Quebec Human Rights Commission said the city (which oversees the police department), Champoux and McIntyre should pay Asmar $30,000 in moral damages. It said Asmar should also receive punitive damages — $10,000 from the city, and $2,500 from each of the officers.
In addition to the fines, the commission recommended a series of measures to prevent racial and social profiling.
Among other things, the police department was told to “cease repressive methods against homeless people,” while the city was asked to “systematically collect and publish data based on race and social status of individuals in police interactions.”
A police department spokesperson said the force is studying the decision. The city did not respond to a request for comment.
In a June brief presented to the city of Montreal, the commission complained the city and its police department do not take racial and social profiling seriously enough.
The commission said that when it deals with complaints regarding racial and social profiling, it is hampered by a “lack of co-operation” from the city and the police department that “can be interpreted as not listening to or respecting victims of profiling.”
In 2014, the Quebec police ethics commission rejected a complaint concerning racial profiling but suspended Champoux and McIntyre without pay for a day for several other breaches of the ethics code, including the use of excessive force.
If me coming forward and enduring these years of having to fight could help shed light on the injustice and help prevent it from happening again, then it was worth it.