What role does historic injustice play?
At the heart of policing is trust. A covenant of faith between citizenry and law enforcement.
But also an expectation of integrity within policing institutions.
That has too often been proven a misplaced fealty — when cops abuse authority and when disciplinary hearings allow malefactors to dodge commensurate punishment.
Supt. Stacy Clarke seems, by every measurement and by all accounts, a superb, even exemplary officer. That doesn’t change the fact that this individual, who became the highest-ranking Black woman in the Toronto Police Service — a passionate advocate for diversity, a mentoring champion — has admitted to grave misdeeds: Helping half a dozen racialized officers cheat in a promotional process, by supplying confidential interview questions to candidates vying for the rank of sergeant.
She broke the trust. She broke the faith. And yes, she is deeply sorry.
Yet so valued is Clarke in the hierarchy of Toronto policing that dismissal — arguably proportional to the misconduct — was taken off the table at the disciplinary hearing underway. What’s being argued is how admonishing the penalty should be. Knocking her down two ranks, to staff sergeant, for a year, then down one rank to inspector for another year, whereupon she can reapply to superintendent status. Or, as her lawyer is urging, demotion of one rank for one year or 18 months and automatic reinstatement to superintendent.
Neither is an arduous comeuppance. For an institution built on the gravity of rules, breaking them must have meaningful consequence or the whole construct falls apart.
There’s no doubt Clarke regrets what she did out of frustration and disillusionment with the promotional process. Significantly, as the hearing heard Wednesday, there was widespread dismay when police leadership reversed an undertaking to make promotion to sergeant more equitable, at a time when Black officers represented a mere 1.7 per cent of successful applicants.
“It was devastating, because we thought that finally we had climbed over that hurdle,’’ Clarke told the hearing.
It can be said that was the first betrayal. And a couple of months later Clarke was clandestinely, dishonestly, greasing the wheels for her mentees. That was the second betrayal.
The impact on Clarke’s life, even beyond her career, has been severe, though it hasn’t crushed her. The single mother of two described having to tell her kids what had happened. “But mommy, you were trying to help. I said, I know, but I did it the wrong way. They said, it’s OK though because the Toronto Police knows who you are and they know you didn’t mean to harm anybody. And you’ll accept your penalty and you’ll be OK.”
It’s impossible to disentangle the seven offences of misconduct to which Clarke’s conceded from the institutional racism in which she was operating and despite which she’d achieved historical ascent. If mitigating, it still can’t be exculpating, for all that an expert witness tried to drag the hearing into adjacency with white supremacy and neo-Naziism in the U.S.
“White domination is the process by which people of European descent through imperialism, through colonization, through forms of genocidal conquest that was often and almost principally at odds with the existence of African peoples … has left a particular legacy not only in this country but the very institutions that support our democracy,” said Wendell Adjetey, an assistant professor at McGill University who researches inequality and anti-Black racism.
Police prosecutor Scott Hutchison objected. “We’re well off the mark in terms of the real issues in this case. Neo-Nazis in the United States is a bit far away from whether or not it was OK to help six people cheat on a sergeant’s exam.”
Hearing officer Robin McElaryDowner agreed that was going “really, really down a rabbit hole.”
Of course, it isn’t a rabbit hole for many in the Black community who are supporting Clarke, including those attending the hearing. There’s an immediacy and a continuum to it in the over-policing of their communities and the harm that has befallen Black suspects.
But a disciplinary hearing can’t address the enormity of historical and present-day grievances. The focus is on the specific, and to some extent on how Clarke’s experience of racism animated her poor decision, one which resulted in a smearing on social media, comments from former colleagues that stunned her in their toxicity, and even a threat assessment of her home.
She remains highly regarded in her community and, it would seem, by current command.
“I want you to understand that in my community, we do everything not to shame our community. I mean everything. We also understand that when you rise and become one of, you have an even greater burden to make sure that … there can be no stain on you.
“When you think about my value and my worth, take a look at my record. Don’t use this incident as the incident that decides on whether or not I’m valued or whether or not I’m worthy.
“I most definitely am worthy. I’m valued. I deserve to be here, I deserve to be a superintendent, I’ve worked for it.”