Carding victim

Cop who stopped Jermaine Carby was conducting a street check,

The Peel Regional Police officer who asked Jermaine Carby for his identification minutes before the Brampton man was shot dead by police wanted Carby’s name and date of birth because he was carding him, a coroner’s inquest heard Thursday.

During lengthy and sometimes tense questioning by Faisal Mirza, the lawyer representing Carby’s family, Const. Jason Senechal admitted he had no investigative reason to ask Carby for his personal information. Instead, Senechal was conducting a “street check” — also known as carding — to record the interaction and put Carby’s information into a police database.

“I’ll grab his name and I’ll do a PRP17,” Senechal said of his thinking at the time, referring to the form Peel police fill out when conducting a street check.

Senechal’s testimony answers, for the first time, a central question in the highprofile police shooting death on a busy Brampton street in September 2014: Why was Carby, a passenger in a car Senechal pulled over for a traffic stop, asked for his identification to begin with?

Passengers in a car stopped for a traffic infraction — this vehicle’s licence plate was said to be obscured and its headlights were out — are not required to provide personal information to police. Under questioning, Senechal agreed he was not seeking a suspect who fit Carby’s descrip- tion and had no reason to believe the car was linked to a crime.

The street check was “a dominant reason” why he sought Carby’s ID, Senechal said. That set off a fatal chain of events: Senechal ran Carby’s name through his in-car computer and found an outstanding warrant in British Columbia. When Senechal asked Carby about the warrant, Carby pulled a knife and was shot by another officer, the inquest heard.

That still-unnamed officer is expected to be identified and to testify Friday.

“If he wasn’t carded, Jermaine would still be here today,” La Tanya Grant, Carby’s cousin, said outside court.

Three Peel officers took the stand at the coroner’s inquest, which is being held to examine Carby’s death in order to prevent future fatalities — though such inquests do not assign blame.

Senechal, who was accompanied by two security guards as he entered and exited the courtroom, denied that he carded Carby because he was black.

The officer said that, at the time of the shooting, he did not know about the controversy around carding and was unaware that some members of Brampton’s black community felt unfairly targeted by the practice. When asked by Mirza if he read or watched the news, Senechal said: “Honestly, no. I watch sports highlights.”

Ongoing carding investigations by the Star since 2010 have shown that, in Toronto, the practice disproportionately affects black and brown men. According to six years of data obtained by the Star last year, black people in Brampton were three times more likely to be street checked by Peel police than white people.

Asked if he lived in Peel, Senechal declined to say, agreeing he felt some dis- comfort disclosing that. “So,” asked Mirza, “you can understand why, when you asked an African-Canadian passenger in a vehicle for their name and their date of birth, while they are sitting there quietly, it might be offensive to them?” Senechal replied that he could. He was also questioned about his response to health information displayed on the in-car computer when he ran Carby’s name. The computer showed Carby, 33, suffered from mental instability and had suicidal tendencies — the record would have been displayed on Senechal’s screen reading “***Mental Health***.”

“Subject attempted to disarm officer. Threatened suicide, wanted police to shoot him,” the record said, referring to an incident between Carby and Toronto police a month before his death, which resulted in Carby being hospitalized.

Jurors heard Senechal returned to speak to Carby roughly 30 seconds after seeing Carby’s mental-health history. By then, two backup officers had arrived.

Since there was no urgency to speak to Carby — still compliant and calm in the car — Mirza asked Senechal why he didn’t make a plan with colleagues, considering the risk Carby posed to himself and others. “You didn’t sit and take five minutes to discuss with them the plan of approach in relation to Mr. Carby, correct?

“No, I did not,” Senechal said.