A closer look at the data review and what can be learned from it

Overrepresentation in use of force

Members of the Black community are “grossly overrepresented” in SIU cases of Toronto police use of force. The data review found that between 2013 and 2017, a Black person was almost 20 times more likely than a white person to be fatally shot by police, representing seven of the 10 fatal police shootings.

Accounting for approximately 8.8 per cent of Toronto’s population, Black people were involved in approximately 30 per cent of police use-of-force cases that resulted in serious injury or death and 60 per cent of deadly encounters with Toronto police.

Armed at the time

More than two-thirds of civilians (67 per cent) who were involved in police use-of-force investigations between 2013 and 2017 were unarmed at the time of their encounter with Toronto police, the report found.

Generally, a higher proportion of white civilians had a weapon of some kind when police used force against them. A higher proportion of Black people had a gun or a knife during cases where a police officer used force.

Outcomes of SIU investigations

The review found that 90 per cent of SIU cases result in no charges being laid against the officers, regardless of race. Between 2000 to 2006, two out of 43 use-of-force cases involving a white civilian saw charges against an officer, compared to one out of the 33 such cases involving a Black civilian.

The statistics are similar when examining the 2013 to 2017 period, with just two of the 55 use-of-force cases involving white civilians ending in charges, and one of the 36 cases involving a Black civilian.

Unauthorized police stops

According to the commission, the SIU director flagged instances of police misconduct in cases where no charges were laid, but problematic behaviour was nonetheless uncovered. They included some cases where Toronto police had no legal basis for stopping or detaining a civilian at the outset of a police interaction.

Lack of police co-operation

The review uncovered that in a “significant minority” of cases, the SIU director flagged issues with police co-operation before or throughout an investigation. That includes incidences of officers not notifying the SIU of a serious injury, failing to complete notes or destroying them, refusing to answer questions and “police attempting to access security camera footage while a SIU investigation was in progress,” according to the report.

But the SIU complaints about a lack of police co-operation were not related to the race of the civilian. For example, during the 2013 to 2017 period, the SIU found issues with police co-operation in 8.3 per cent of cases involving white civilians, compared to 9.7 per cent of investigations involving Black civilians.

Sexual assault allegations

Black males were “significantly overrepresented” in probes of sex assault allegations. From 2013 to 2017, Black men were 6.4 times more likely than white men to allege sexual assault by a police officer, an allegation often made in the context of a strip search or a police frisk. During that period, Black women were 1.3 times more likely than white women to allege being sexually assaulted by a Toronto police officer.