During the holiday season, many black mothers lived with fear in their stomachs, as their barely out of childhood sons entered the adult world. Overflowing with joy, these young men were going to experience their first festivities after two years of the pandemic.
While their hearts must have been filled with joy, in the face of duty accomplished, it was indeed anguish and anxiety that tormented these mothers. Parties with friends, evenings in bars with friends. Youth has to happen: that was the leitmotif of these anxious mothers. However, this foray into the world of adults is not without risk. On the contrary, if their son crossed paths with certain police officers, these mothers said to themselves.
In 1993, the fate of a “black race” teenager, Rodney Daren Small, 15, crossed paths with a policeman. His life has changed. While riding his bicycle in a black Halifax neighborhood, he recognized his cousin being handcuffed by a police officer. He then yelled at her, “What’s wrong? What happened ? You want me to go tell your mother? »
The policeman claimed that the discussion with Rodney lasted “a few seconds” and that Rodney drove his bicycle into him, yelled at him and pushed him with his shoulders and hands. What Rodney strongly denied.
Rodney denied hitting the officer, saying he told him to shut up and that if he didn’t he would be charged and arrested. He testified that his hands remained on his handlebars. It was rather the policeman that he grabbed him while he was still astride his bike, strangling him, just as he had done to his cousin.
Eventually, Rodney Daren Small was arrested and formally charged with assaulting a police officer with intent to prevent the lawful arrest of another person and obstructing the work of a police officer.
In 1994, the first black woman to ever become a judge in Canada, Corinne Sparks, acquitted Small. In her judgment, she pointed out that police forces were overreacting in their dealings with non-white young people (today we would say racialized or black). She made this observation after the publication of the Marshall Report on the wrongful conviction of Donald Marshall Jr. Indeed, in 1989, a royal commission led by three judges examined the racist and unjustifiable treatment of an Aboriginal person by the police, the Nova Scotia lawyers and judges. Following this commission, criminologist Donald Clairmont described the situation in Nova Scotia as reflecting “the long heritage of negative relations between police and black people in Nova Scotia.” The Commission concluded that “the hostility of many blacks towards the police and, apparently, of many police towards blacks is ‘well documented’. Judge Sparks’ decision was appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada, and although the majority of the nine justices – all white “race” – upheld the ruling of acquittal, she nevertheless chastised her for having denounced the behavior of certain police officers who “overreact” when dealing with young black people, judging his remarks “disturbing”.
This decision was the subject of a book, Reckoning with Racism: Police, Judges, and the RDS Casepublished last November, in which Professor Constance Backhouse analyzed transcripts, oral arguments and informal comments from Supreme Court justices that illustrate a lack of understanding of racism.
You will tell me that Halifax is not Montreal and that we are in 2023. But who can claim that the anxieties of these mothers are irrational?
As the Christmas festivities were in full swing, Nicous D’Andre Spring, a young black man, died in disturbing circumstances while illegally detained in Bordeaux prison. Nothing justified this pre-trial detention, that’s what the court had decided. According to the media, many procedures were not followed. Of note, in November 2022, Correctional Investigator Ivan Zinger, a member of the federal penitentiaries oversight body, found that systemic barriers like endemic racial discrimination, stereotyping and bias are “as pervasive and persistent as previously “.
For the time being, officials have been suspended, investigations will be held. What matters is that the questions posed by the Royal Commission into the wrongful conviction of Donald Marshall Jr. are raised. Is this tragedy the isolated fact of certain individuals qualified as “bad apples”? Or should the multiple systemic aspects be considered?
The many shortcomings and their domino effect led Nicous D’Andre Spring to his tragic fate. If the procedures had been followed, he should not have been inside the prison walls. If procedures had been followed, he should not have been sprayed with cayenne pepper while wearing a spit mask. If the procedures had been followed, he would be alive.
If the procedures had been respected, all mothers would sleep in peace!