Man accuses The Bay of racial profiling
‘Another bad day for a black man,’ he says after being detained by private security
A Montreal man is accusing The Bay of racial profiling after being detained and interrogated for two hours inside the store on suspicion of credit card fraud. Michael Bryan, 52, was doing some Sunday shopping downtown with a friend on Sept. 16 when he decided to look for a watch at The Bay. After about half an hour of browsing, he was approached by a salesman asking if he wanted to apply for a Hudson’s Bay Company credit card, which would entitle him to a 15 per cent discount. Bryan says he agreed, and handed over his driver’s license as identification. That’s when things went south. According to Bryan’s friend, Kris Gupta, the salesman went to get approval from the floor manager. But after glancing sideways at the two men and holding up the driver’s license, she called security, Gupta said. Within minutes, two plainclothes private security guards accosted Bryan and with no explanation brought him to a small room on the fourth floor, where he remained until the police arrived about two hours later. It was a very long two hours, Bryan said. While Gupta, a former military police officer, went up and down the eighth-floor department store searching for Bryan, and demanding an explanation from store staff, Bryan was told he couldn’t leave the room, even for a bit of air. He was asked what he did for a living, and if he had ever been in trouble with the law. When the police finally arrived, they scanned Bryan’s driver’s license, found nothing wrong with it, and told Bryan he was free to leave. “I just chalked it up to another bad day for a black man in Montreal,” Bryan said at a news conference Wednesday. “But there was no reason for this type of interrogation and that kind of attitude. It was racial profiling at the highest level and I don’t deserve that.” The next day, Bryan and Gupta approached The Bay’s downtown store manager and vice-president, Pascal Sauro, at his office on the eighth floor. According to Gupta, Sauro said he had heard about the “false arrest” and later said he wanted to offer Bryan something — a $300 gift card or a watch, perhaps. But neither the watch nor the gift card ever materialized. And the men never heard from Sauro again. Sauro was not available at The Bay on Wednesday, and did not respond to a request for comment. But in a statement sent to The Montreal Gazette, The Bay’s director of communications, Tiffany Bourré, said the company takes the allegations seriously. “The interaction with this individual was based on fraud prevention measures, and in no way was race a factor,” read the statement. “We are committed to always delivering a positive customer experience in our stores.” A month after the incident, Bryan decided he would file a discrimination complaint with the Quebec Human Rights Commission. With the help of the Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations, he will also file a complaint with the Bureau de la sécurité privée, a provincial agency set up to oversee private security guards. Alain Babineau, a law student and retired RCMP officer who is working with the CRARR, said this is a test case for Quebec, to see how the agency holds security guards account. “We often speak of racial profiling when police officers are involved, but it also happens in commercial centres and stores,” Babineau said. Private security guards have the right to search and detain people, he continued — but they also have responsibilities and obligations, including to respect customers’ human rights. CRARR has helped settle some racial-profiling cases out of court, for an average of $5,000- $10,000, and is assisting with others. At The Brick in the West Island, a black woman was arrested and handcuffed by the police because she said they assumed she was linked to a black man suspected of criminal activity. In another case, a black man, after getting a debit card at the National Bank, says he was accused by four security guards of stealing a bank stamp. The complaint says the guards went to the restaurant where he worked and, in front of staff and customers, forced him to return to the branch. Meanwhile, at a Super-C store, a black woman and her son say they were wrongly accused of shoplifting. Fo Niemi, the executive director of the CRARR, cases in supermarkets are the most common. In one case, a victim of profiling was given a year-long food voucher for the entire family. He says while cases in Nova Scotia and Ontario have been adjudicated, Bryan’s complaint for consumer profiling will be a first in Quebec. The complaints with the Human Rights Commission and the BSP will seek damages and name the two security guards, The Bay’s floor manager, and their employer, The Hudson’s Bay Company.