Black police officers reflect on Floyd case,
Black police officers in Canada open up about Floyd’s death and anti-cop protests
Carl Cartright, an inspector with the Ottawa Police Service, says he hasn’t been able to bring himself to watch the entire video of a Minnesota police officer pressing his knee on the neck of an unarmed Black man who later died.
“It’s very hard not to put yourself in George Floyd’s position,” says Cartright, the son of Haitian immigrants. “It could easily have been me.”
Even after 26 years in policing, Cartright acknowledges he still wrestles with what he calls a “duality in roles,” simultaneously trying to fulfil the expectations placed on him by the city and by the Black community.
“I’m being pulled in both directions,” he says.
It’s a struggle that has been exacerbated in recent days in the aftermath of Floyd’s death. Waves of protests across North America have targeted antiBlack racism and police institutions. Polls show huge gaps between white and Black Americans when it comes to their trust in police.
The outcry has spilled over into Canada and intensified following the death of Regis Korchinski-Paquet, the woman who plummeted from the 24th floor of a Toronto apartment building after police responded to what the family says was a call for help after she became distraught during a family conflict. Her death is under review by Ontario’s police watchdog.
Some critics have gone so far as to suggest doing away with the current model of policing under the banner “defund the police.” No amount of training or diversity hiring will change the recurring pattern of police violence, they say.
Black officers across the country are now stepping out of the shadows and into the fray.
“It’s sometimes hard being a Black police officer,” Arjei Franklin, a constable with the Windsor Police Service, wrote in a recent Facebook post. “I feel as though I may be viewed as a ‘sell out’ in the Black community especially if I don’t publicly speak out against the injustice I see in this world dealt by the hand of law enforcement.
“At the same time, I worry about not being accepted by my colleagues if I speak out against police brutality.”
In an Instagram post, Sebastien Lavoie, an RCMP sergeant major in B.C., asked: “What does the way forward look like for those who have chosen a profession perceived by so many as oppressive, abusive and self serving?”
Officers who spoke to the Star this week acknowledge they don’t have all the answers. They condemn the actions of Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer now charged with murder in Floyd’s death, and empathize with protesters who are yearning for change.
At the same time, they are pushing back against the notion that such incidents are a systemic problem.
“I say this wholeheartedly. Ninety-nine per cent of people I work with are good men and women police officers,” says Sgt. Ray Wilson, a 20-year veteran with the Edmonton Police Service. “It’s the low percentage are the ones who make it hard for the rest of us.”
Wilson says he was disgusted not only by Chauvin’s actions, but by his fellow officers who stood by and did nothing.
“I’ve been in situations where I’ve let my emotions get the better of me and my partner has stepped in. That’s what I was waiting to see, but those guys didn’t do that,” he says. “You see something that’s wrong, you’ve got to step in.”
In the same way the protesters shouldn’t be treated the same as the looters, neither should all police officers be lumped in with those who misbehave, says Const. Alex Charles, who’s been with the Vancouver Police Department for 15 years.
“You can denounce the actions of that officer and still be pro-police. You can denounce the actions of the rioters and the looters and still be pro-protest.”
Getting buy-in from the community isn’t going to be easy.
Stacy Clarke, an inspector in 14 Division of the Toronto Police Service, says some of the young Black aspiring police officers she has been mentoring are now telling her they’re reconsidering.
“I’ve got a lot of people that I am currently mentoring backing out,” she says. “Folks are looking at the profession right now and having second thoughts.
“They really want to do this because it’s the right thing to do, and they feel they can be impactful. They are torn, with their families saying, ‘No, don’t do this.’ ”
Clarke says she understands emotions are raw. She, too, was heartbroken after watching the video of the last moments of Floyd’s life.
“I watched an assassination,” she says. “I watched a murder at the hands of law enforcement, a profession I love and cherish, against a member of my community.
“As a Black female officer, mother of two young Black children, I just felt in an instant so much good work literally was wiped out in that moment, so many good partnerships.”
It’s that work, she says, that led to her become one of five Black women police inspectors across the country and that led to the recent decision by her force to start tracking the race of people who come into contact with Toronto police to try to ferret out any potential systemic racism.
“As a Black female, I hear the protests. I see it. I’m in pain just as much. But I really do believe we can do better collectively. It can’t all be fixed through protest. There needs to be a real push on the inside.”
The president of the Association of Black Law Enforcers agrees. Jacqueline Edwards, a manager with the Correctional Service of Canada in Kingston, Ont., says there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done to diversify the upper ranks of public safety agencies.
Edwards says when she was involved in recruitment many years ago, she attended a community event in Toronto.
“I had a young Black boy — he looked to be 14 or 15 — put his hand up. He said to me, ‘Excuse me, Miss. Do you guys hire Black people?’ … I said, ‘Yes, why?’ He said, ‘None of your posters have Black people on it.’ ”
His question sent a clear message, she says.
“What he was saying to me was, ‘When you’re not here and I look at your posters, your brand, if I don’t see myself in it I’m going to question whether I belong in it.’ ”
Police forces also need to do a better job of connecting with the community, says Edmonton’s Wilson. Going from call to call and driving away is not enough. There needs to be more of a conversation.
“It’s an us-and-them mentality,” he says. “We need to make people realize we’re approachable.”
But even if all these changes happen, will it be enough to mend the broken trust? Just this past week, it was reported that an Ottawa police officer was charged with misconduct after circulating a racist meme.
The meme reportedly shows a collage of the faces of 13 current or former officers, most of whom are racialized. “Ottawa Police Service,” it says. “We’re always hiring … anyone.”
Cartright says he was overcome with emotion during a meeting with the chief and other senior officers over that meme.
The force is now doing its best to learn from the incident, he says.
“We’re trying to mend it, not only hold people accountable. How do we use this as an educational piece so it doesn’t happen again?”
It’s unfair to equate a singular incident with an inability to change, he continues.
“Saying that disregards the experiences of all racialized police officers, throwing aside all the work, all the efforts.”
Cartright says he remembers the callousness shown by a senior officer who recruited him years ago who said, “Wow, we’ve been looking for one like you — and educated, too.”
“The fact that I’m still here, the fact I was able to reach the rank that I am, the fact I now have the ability to serve under a Black chief, tells me that change is occurring.”
Veronica Fox, an RCMP sergeant in B.C., says in an email that she thinks her experience as a Black woman has helped her be an empathetic cop.
That experience includes a classmate calling her the “N word” when she was in Grade 3 or 4. “I was shocked. I didn’t fight back when he spat in my face; I just took it,” she writes.
It happened again in Grade 6. “My class was wrapping up a sporting event on the school field and a female classmate called me that ugly word again. I decided to fight back and I called her the worst thing I could think of: ‘freckle face.’ ”
Fox says the teacher ended up reprimanding her, telling her she should’ve just kept silent.
“When I decided to become a police officer, for the first time in my life, I came to truly understand what it means to hold power. I was suddenly granted the ability to take away someone’s liberty and the responsibility to utilize appropriate force. I took this very seriously; I never wanted to forget what it was like to be my former, externally powerless self.”
For those young Black people who may be sitting on the fence about pursuing a job as an officer, Const. Kenny Mugisha, who joined the RCMP in Burnaby, B.C., a year ago, has this suggestion: police aren’t going away. We all have to live and work together. Be part of the solution.
“I don’t want a young Black kid to be afraid of police forever,” he says.
Sure, some people may have called him a sellout after he decided to ditch his job as a personal trainer to become a Mountie. But he brushed it off. “I want to be on this earth to do good,” he says. “If someone can’t respect my career choices and understand when I put on these boots and this uniform I’m going out there to do good, that’s their weight to bear.
“I know what I stand for.”