‘Carding’ policy will never be accepted by those who suffer in its grip

Even if this insulting proposal is amended by powers that be, it will lead to years of distrust

Just because you are a police officer, you can go around harassing citizens, ask personal questions for no apparent reason, and maintain you don’t have to tell your subjects why they are being questioned.

That’s the outcome of a compromise the mayor trumpeted last month, one mediated by a retired judge, authored by Chief Bill Blair, and foisted on the de-clawed chair of the police services board.

It’s being roundly excoriated, as it should be.

Either they don’t give a damn. Or they are deaf. Or they are deaf to the concerns of some people. Or they are very dense. So, let’s spell it out. The new proposal will NEVER be accepted by the people who suffer beneath its iron and arguably racist fist.

Worse, this scurrilous attempt at a revised “carding” policy is so insulting, so disrespectful, so utterly unconscionable that even after it is amended and fixed, as it must be, the fallout will be years of distrust and hurt. Why are folks spitting mad? The Toronto police are one of the few forces with a practice of “carding” citizens. In essence, officers go on a fishing expedition, ask seemingly innocuous questions of citizens, record the in- formation in a database, keep it indefinitely, use it in future investigations, and allow it to sometimes show up in police checks requested by employers.

When the Star, through a freedom of information request, analyzed the practice, the data collected and who gets carded, it found black and brown citizens are four times more likely to be targeted than white citizens.

Little wonder so many consider carding to be racial profiling by another name.

Chief Blair, who ramped up the carding practice during his tenure, convened a team of police and community folk to reform this and other elements of how police engage with the community. This advisory body educated the police board in 2014 and ushered in a new policy that kept carding, but dulled its most corrosive elements.

The 2014 police board policy required officers to tell citizens of their rights to not participate when carding them. (Again, this does not apply during criminal investigations, merely casual fishing expeditions.) And once carded, police were to give citizens a “receipt” stating the reason for the stop.

Well, apparently, the police brass was up in arms. This would hamstring their investigatory efforts, some reasoned.

In one testy meeting with the advisory group, one very senior officer reportedly thundered that he is the authority; he doesn’t need to give a reason for his detention of a citizen.

Well, that’s how I believe we get down the road to Ferguson. And Staten Island. And, now, Charleston.

‘Cause, I don’t need to give you my name and my parents’ status when your cruiser rolls up on me while I’m “liming” with ma boys, seen!

And if you insist on asking, I’ll ask you if I’m under investigation, or under arrest, or under psychological detention, and if so, can I call my lawyer.

And if it’s dark and we’re alone and you feel dissed, you might hit me upside the head. And I might retaliate. And pretty soon, I can’t breathe . . . or I’m running away and might get shot and a police Taser dropped beside my bleeding body ...

That’s the blowback we get — we respectful, business-suited black folk working with and within the system — when we train our youths who are the target of this damnable policing tactic.

What do we tell them now? That the mayor only pretends to listen? That the chief wants to give his constables the unfettered right and ability to psychologically detain anyone, whenever?

Blair acquiesced and refuses to comply with the board vote. John Tory becomes mayor and appears to placate Blair. Former judge Warren Winkler is summoned. A weak, new policy is trumpeted.

It’s contemptible. And listening at the public board meeting last Thursday, one could easily understand the vitriol hurled at Tory and the claim that should this compromise that he brokered go through, “This will dog you for your entire tenure.”

Law student Knia Singh welled up and nearly broke down, attempting to explain the reality of life for young black men.

Dressed in a business suit, Singh said he must daily decide if he wants to dress comfortably in his hoodie — and risk being carded — or appear as he did before the board.

“There is a risk to not being in a suit every day,” he said. “If I walk down the street, hands in my pocket, I’m at risk.” Then the kicker:

“My community has enough problems as it is, with self-hatred and fighting each other. We don’t need others fighting us as well.”

Yet, Chief Blair heralds the policy as a “milestone,” and the mayor, as an accomplishment.

It’s neither. As the Law Union of Ontario said, it’s an evisceration of the policy the board approved a year ago.

The citizen protections imbedded last year have been gutted at every turn.

“Those who find this acceptable have never been the subject of a police stop,” said Audrey Campbell, co-chair of the chief’s advisory board, in rejecting the “watereddown” compromise.

Blair retires at the end of the month. The police board is supposed to vote on the new policy next week. They’ll be wise to table this.

Royson James usually appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Email: rjames@thestar.ca

Chief Bill Blair heralds the policy as a “milestone” and the mayor praised it as an accomplishment