Adam: Police apologies are meaningless without accountability


Toronto chief apologizes, Ottawa commits to addressing the issue, but minorities can’t escape the feeling that nothing will change

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For what it is worth, Toronto police chief James Ramer has apologized after a report revealed disproportionate use of force against the city’s Black, Indigenous and other minorities. 

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The apology was directed particularly at the city’s Black communities against whom more force is used more often. But it may well have been aimed at Black communities across the province because they share the same experience. The obvious question then is, what use is such an apology when nothing ever changes. 

“The results have confirmed what, for many decades, racialized communities, particularly the Black and Indigenous communities have been telling us…,” Ramer said. “As an organization we have not done enough to ensure that every person in our city receives fair and unbiased policing. As chief of police and on behalf of the service, I am sorry and I apologize unreservedly. We must improve and we will do better.” Haven’t we heard this before? 

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The problem however, is not confined to Toronto. In Ottawa, another report showed similar disproportionate use of force against Blacks and other minority groups.

Blacks were 4.8 times more likely to have force used against them by Ottawa police, while people of Middle Eastern origin were 2.4 times more likely to have force used against them. Indigenous people were 1.8 times more likely to be subjected to the use of force.

Ottawa’s acting police chief Steve Bell didn’t apologize for this, but he acknowledged the problem and said police needed to do more to eliminate discriminatory practices. “We are happy to get this data. We are not happy with where the data sits,” Bell said. “This is identifying an issue in policing, in our society, that we need to address and that is where our commitment is.” Yes, their commitment, which means virtually nothing. 

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Here’s something to ponder: How is it that two reports issued in two different Ontario cities by two different police forces come to the same conclusion? Why would Blacks, Indigenous people and other minorities face more stops, arrests and use of force than whites? What’s the explanation? It is not a stretch to say that if such studies were done in say, London, Hamilton, Winnipeg or Calgary for that matter, the findings would be similar. And the reason is that police behaviour is a state of mind. It comes from a police culture that sees Blacks, especially Black men, as self-evidently bad, and must be handled as such.  

Police heavy-handedness comes from this inherent assumption, and having so tarred Blacks, any interaction with them must start with the iron fist, so to speak. Blacks and other minorities do not get the benefit of the doubt accorded to most whites. It is why when officers see a group of young Blacks gathered at a street corner, the assumption is that they must be drug-dealing or committing some other crime, and must be confronted. It just can’t be that these may be young people doing nothing but just passing the time. It is why so many Blacks and other minorities get stopped by police numerous times, questioned and humiliated when they have done no wrong. This state of mind speaks to why Ontario Blacks face more use of force than others.  

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The 2020 reports from Ottawa and Toronto are not startling, not even surprising. In 2018, an Ontario Human Rights Commission study of seven years of police interactions with Blacks in Toronto released a staggering report. The OHRC found that Blacks in Toronto were 20 times more likely to be shot dead by police than white residents. Twenty times!  You’d think this would be a wake-up call, but nothing changed. People shrugged. It was business as usual. You always hear about police reform, sensitivity training, new hiring practices, and community engagement, but the violence never stops. It keeps happening because police are never held accountable. 

Without accountability, one can say with some confidence that if another use-of-force report is issued next year, the results would be no different. And police chiefs would be out making more meaningless apologies and commitments.  

Mohammed Adam is an Ottawa journalist and political commentator. Reach him at [email protected]

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