Critic of Peel police chief ‘dropped’
Groups say the force is waging ‘co-ordinated’ anti-reform effort
A Brampton woman says she has been removed from a recently created Peel police black community advisory group after she made critical comments about Chief Jennifer Evans and the force.
The move comes as community groups voice serious concerns about a “co-ordinated” effort by Peel police against the civilian board that oversees it, following the board’s decision to conduct a probe of the force’s equity and diversity practices.
Patti Ann Trainor said she just found out that she was dumped from the advisory group struck last year by Evans.
“I phoned yesterday and spoke with (a Peel police inspector),” Trainor said Tuesday. “And that’s when he said to me, he called me back, he said there is a caveat to the membership and it really is the chief’s discretion.”
Trainor said she suspected she had been dropped from the group when she was not included in an email that was recently sent to members, and that Monday the inspector confirmed she was no longer part of the committee.
“He said it was regarding attendance, overall commitment and what people are bringing to the table,” Trainor said, add- ing that she attended four meetings and believes she missed only one since the committee was formed by Evans last spring.
Neither Peel police nor Evans responded to a request from the Star on Tuesday seeking comment and confirmation that Trainor had been removed.
Trainor, who is white, has raised three children who she says identify as black. She said she joined the committee with a sense of “hope” that Evans was committed to changing the force’s culture, something Trainor has fought for ever since her children began to be routinely “profiled” by Peel police, she said.
“I really admire Chief Evans as a wom- an, the first woman in Peel as the chief, and I came to this committee very, very excited to be working with her. As a fellow white woman I wanted to be able to make a difference and have her really understand the systemic racism, all the profiling, just how heartbreaking that was for my children.”
But Trainor said she quickly came to feel that Evans, who attended the advisory committee meetings, was only paying “lip service” to the issues, and using the group as a publicity tool to show the public she cared about improving diversity relations.
After Evans ignored a police board vote in September to have carding stopped in Peel (where the practice is known as a street check), and then in January presented a widely-criticized report in support of street checks, Trainor began voicing her criticism of the force and called for Evans to step down for failing to listen to the community.
“That’s why I believe I was dropped from the advisory committee. I wasn’t even told or asked if I could sit down for a discussion.
“You wouldn’t think this would happen in a democracy by an institution meant to uphold democratic principles.”
Margaret Parsons, who has for decades been at the forefront of the movement to reform police culture and deal with alleged systemic racial profiling by police in the GTA, says she’s not surprised by the way Trainor appears to have been treated.
“These advisory groups are just there to rubber stamp the actions of the chief and the police service,” said Parsons, executive director of the African Canadian Legal Clinic.
“These groups should be completely independent, not stacked with individuals that the chief feels comfortable with.”
Parsons said the public in Peel should be concerned about the recent actions by the police against a reform-minded civilian police board, featuring new chair Amrik Ahluwalia, and Mississauga and Brampton Mayors Bonnie Crombie and Linda Jeffrey.
Despite overseeing the force, they have come under fire from police members, including Evans, with three scathing letters sent to the board in the last three weeks.
A letter from the senior officers association called for Ahluwalia to resign.
One from the police union alleged the board had labelled its members “racist” for ordering the audit of the force’s diversity practices. And one from Evans to Ahluwalia harshly criticized him for the way the audit was called.
Union president Paul Black did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Edmond Brown, president of the Peel Criminal Lawyers Association, said police are taking the wrong approach. He referred to an Ontario Court of Justice decision by judge Jill Copeland last week, when a Sikh man had charges of driving with excess blood-alcohol dismissed because Peel officers failed to obey policies against keeping the man’s turban from him.
“This was something that was occurring. (Some) officers had no idea that this was part of the policy . . . the only way to get their attention was to dismiss the charge.”
Brown said the force should welcome the board’s move for an equitydiversity audit.
“I would think it’s a good idea. What we want to do is improve the force.”
Sophia Brown Ramsay, programming director for the Black Community Action Network of Peel, is a member of the advisory committee that Trainor was removed from. She described the move against Trainor and the recent letters as a “co-ordinated” effort by the force.
She said she’s “troubled” and “perplexed” by the move at a time when the community is demanding Evans and her force acknowledge mistakes and learn from them.
“We are surprised by how things were handled, the letters, Patti Ann has just found out about this . . . I need to ask (Evans) why wasn’t she called, why wasn’t she notified about this,” she said.