McMaster security called his bosses at Toronto police over a stop sign
‘If it were a white person in the car, I don’t think this would have happened’
A former Toronto police officer is accusing McMaster University Security Services employees — including director and former Hamilton police chief Glenn De Caire — of racial profiling and misconduct.
Kevin Daley, who is Black, was banned from the school’s campus in perpetuity nearly three years ago for allegedly not stopping at a stop sign.
De Caire and another McMaster security services senior manager complained to Daley’s superiors in the Toronto Police Service multiple times alleging his behaviour was unbecoming of a police officer.
Daley alleges the racially motivated traffic stop led to a number of false allegations against him, including dangerous driving offences, a trespass letter and
unsubstantiated traffic tickets.
The Hamilton man says the incident was the impetus for him retiring from a 30-year career in policing and forced his son, an Olympic-bound track and field star, to start travelling to Guelph for training.
“I’ve lost a lot of sleep because of this,” Daley said in a telephone interview with The Spectator. “If it were a white person in the car, I don’t think this would have happened.”
The allegations are tabled in two separate complaints.
The Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario has scheduled a hearing on Daley’s complaint in August.
In a report finalized last week, the Ontario Civilian Police Commission found no fault on the part of Daley and provided 10 recommendations to McMaster and the Hamilton police board to prevent similar incidents.
One recommendation was that special constables “ought not to follow vehicles” with intent to stop them — which was already prohibited by McMaster’s memorandum of understanding with Hamilton police.
Another recommendation included a reminder to the police board of “its statutory power to suspend and terminate special constables,” as well as its duty to “monitor complaints against the constables it appoints.”
McMaster vice-president of administration Roger Couldrey said in an emailed statement Friday that the university accepts all of the recommendations in the report.
“The details of the incident and the need for actions are outlined in the report and it is clear that errors were made in how the incident was handled,” Couldrey said.
The security division at McMaster has come under fire in recent weeks after the university’s students union voted in favour of a motion to oust De Caire as director, disband its special constable program and end what it considers an increasing presence of police on campus. Nearly 30 per cent of the McMaster’s security services staff are retired police officers.
Couldrey said the university took steps before the report was issued to ensure “greater clarity and training” in its “persona non grata” policy — also referred to as a trespass notice — to create more safeguards for its staff and visitors.
The incident
According to an incident report obtained by The Spectator, a McMaster special constable noticed Daley failed to stop at two stop signs on Stearn Drive at about 8:38 p.m.
The constable began following Daley and tried to stop him with flashing lights.
The report says Daley continued travelling west on Stearn before he pulled a U-turn and continued to a parking lot, where he stopped and waited for his son.
At about 8:41 p.m., the constable approached Daley’s vehicle.
The incident report from the constable says he told Daley he had been trying to speak with him and that stop signs exist for public safety reasons.
According to incident report, the constable asked Daley, “Are you visiting McMaster University for the first time?” Daley replied by saying, “I have been coming to campus for the past 30 years. You were not even born ... I don’t see you as an authority, you can’t stop me!”
The report says Daley then stopped talking to the constable, rolled up his window, and left when his son entered the vehicle.
Daley is referred to in a copy of the special constable’s notes as “Black male in his early 40s.”
He was identified by name only after Hamilton police — who train and supervise McMaster special constables — later ran his plates. The registered address matched that of a Toronto police building, according to the incident report.
Daley gave a different rundown of the exchange in his human rights complaint.
He said that he asked the constable whether he had the authority to issue traffic tickets.
“Instead, he responded by asking me whether I was a police officer,” Daley said. “I did not think that was an appropriate question and I declined to answer.
“At that point, there was no further conversation and (the constable) suddenly walked away. I was frankly surprised by this. He did not even ask me for my identification.”
McMaster said in its response to the complaint that “Daley, being a sworn police officer with (Toronto police), knows or ought to know that such conduct towards another police officer could constitute a ‘failure to identify.’ ”
According to the Police Services Act, special constables are sworn peace officers, not sworn police officers. In 2019, Ontario passed a bill banning special constables and their employers from referring to constables as “police.”
A senior manager with McMaster security services spoke with members of the Toronto police about Daley three times in the five days that followed the incident, the university says in its response to the human rights complaint.
The response says the manager — who was a Toronto cop for 35 years before coming to Mac — felt Toronto police should be made aware of the “concerning behaviour” of Daley in case “further intervention was needed,” noting Daley’s behaviour was “unbecoming of a fellow police officer.”
De Caire, the former Hamilton chief and director of security at McMaster, contacted Daley’s unit commander and said that a report related to the incident would be forwarded to him.
“De Caire believed that (Toronto police) should be made aware of Daley’s conduct, so as to address the behaviour of its member, provide support or intervene as appropriate,” McMaster’s response to the complaint says.
Daley said in his complaint that he was unaware of any pending trespass notices or traffic violations from McMaster until 36 days after the traffic stop — Jan. 4, 2018 — when he was questioned by his superiors about the incident at work. “I was surprised by the amount of detail that (they) knew about the incident,” he said in the complaint.
Daley received a letter from De Caire on Jan. 11 that prohibited him from attending McMaster property citing outstanding parking fines, dangerous driving and behaviour concerns.
De Caire also sent the letter to Daley’s unit commander “to ensure Daley received the letter and that any necessary steps could taken to address the matter with Daley,” the university said in its response.
De Caire wrote in the letter that Daley was driving at “excessive” speed and “endangering the safety of our campus community.”
The incident report by the special constable makes no mention of excessive speed.
The receipt of the information triggered an independent investigation by Toronto police into Daley’s conduct. It found no disciplinary actions against Daley were warranted.
‘This is a systematic failure’
It’s been nearly three years since Daley stepped foot on McMaster’s campus.
The 10-minute, three-time-aweek drives from his home on the Mountain to the track where he would often help his son Myles train have been replaced by two-hour trips to the University of Guelph, a campus he is permitted to visit.
Myles just finished his first year of a full-ride scholarship at UCLA and is training to qualify in the coming Tokyo Olympics.
Now that Myles is of age to drive, Daley bought him a car to get to Guelph himself, “because sometimes I can’t make it out, and that’s a big financial burden for me.”
Daley said his life has been upended in the time since the incident.
He retired from the Toronto Police Service in 2019 after he said existing patterns of systemic racism in his unit were exacerbated by the traffic stop.
He had to represent himself through painstaking human rights and policing complaints he said shouldn’t have happened to begin with.
He had to reflect on what he said is growing inaction towards racially charged misconduct by officers in Ontario’s police systems.
“I’ve contacted eight lawyers and all have declined to represent me. Who wants to fight the police?” Daley said in a telephone interview.
The human rights tribunal hearing in August is the last sliver of hope he has for justice, Daley said.
He said the Ontario Civilian Police Commission’s report and recommendations did not go far enough.
“If the police commission doesn’t discipline, and the Hamilton Police Service board doesn’t discipline, and the police don’t lay charges … How can the community expect change?” Daley said. “This is a systematic failure.”
In June 2019, McMaster amended its “persona non grata” policy — also referred to as a trespass notice — to allow recipients to visit the university’s health service locations.
But Daley said that does not address its employees’ wrongdoings. He said the incident shouldn’t have happened in the first place, and believes the absence of discipline opens the door to a culture of racial judgment within its special constable unit from the top down.
“The question I have is, what if my son would want to go to McMaster? How many other times have you done this?” Daley said.
“If I swear to protect the public, and Glenn De Caire and special constables swear to protect the public, why is only one of us punished?”