Black residents more likely to die in Toronto police interactions

TORONTO — Black people living in Toronto are far more likely to be injured or killed in interactions with city police, Ontario’s Human Rights Commission said Monday as it called on the force to deal with what it described as a serious problem.

The findings were contained in an interim report on the commission’s probe into racial profiling and discrimination by the Toronto Police Service.

After analyzing numbers from the force as well as an agency that investigates police complaints, Chief Commissioner Renu Mandhane said the data

— including a finding that black people were nearly 20 times more likely to die in a police shooting than their white counterparts — should stand as proof that the force needs to take urgent action.

“The Ontario Human Rights Commission’s findings ... are disturbing and they demand an explanation,” Mandhane said at a news conference outlining the investigation’s initial findings.

“At this interim stage, we are calling on the Toronto police to acknowledge the commission’s very serious human rights concerns.”

Much of the data in the report was derived from cases probed by Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit, an agency that looks into incidents involving police in which someone is killed, injured or accused of sexual assault.

An examination of SIU cases involving Toronto police officers between Jan. 1, 2013 and June 30, 2017 suggested black people’s interactions with city police were disproportionate to their representation in the population.

The report found that although black residents comprised 8.8 per cent of Toronto’s total population, they accounted for 25 per cent of SIU investigations during the period studied.