More than four years after being wrongly arrested in front of his home and detained for several hours in a police station, a resident of Saint-Constant, now 25, intends to continue his fight before the Court of Quebec in order to obtain financial compensation of over $ 60,000 for the racial profiling he alleges he suffered.
On the morning of June 21, 2017, Malik Smith, then 20 years old, got into his car to park it a few streets from his parents’ house, so that he could smoke a cigarette without their being able to walk away. ‘see. He then immobilized his car in front of the residence of an agent of the Régie intermunicipale de police Roussillon. The man, who was not performing his duties at the time, came to meet the young man while he was smoking and chatting with a friend on his cell phone. After asking Mr. Smith what he was doing there, he wrote down his license plate number.
“I felt really uncomfortable”, recalled Saturday Malik Smith, in interview with the Duty.
The police officer in question then entered his home and heard a deafening noise which he associated with a gunshot. He then called the police to describe the situation and provide them with the license plate number of the car driven by Malik Smith. Shortly thereafter, at around 11 a.m., numerous armed officers disembarked in front of the young black man’s home to arrest him, handcuff him and take him to a police station, where he was questioned and detained for nine hours before being released without any charges being brought against him.
It was subsequently shown that the noise heard by the man who called the police was more related to a breakage in a Hydro-Quebec transformer in this area.
“I do not see why a young black man, only by being in the public space, can be automatically associated with a member of a gang”, laments Mr. Smith, who says that several of his friends are often questioned by officers of the Roussillon intermunicipal police board because of the color of their skin. “I have friends who have been questioned several times in a month,” says the young man.
$ 61,000 claimed
After this event, Mr. Smith and his mother, Suzette Spaulding, received support from the Center for Research-Action on Race Relations (CRARR), which filed a complaint with the Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la youth (CDPDJ), which delivered its decision on 3 November. This confirms that Mr. Smith would have been the victim of “discrimination and profiling based” in particular on the race on the part of a police officer of the Régie intermunicipale de police Roussillon. This one is not named in the decision of the Commission.
The latter thus proposed certain “remedial measures” to the man concerned in this case, in order to avoid having to bring this case to court. These provided for the remittance of $ 44,000 to Malik Smith as well as $ 17,000 to his mother, Suzette Spaulding, since she would have been “an indirect victim of the discriminatory conduct of the party in question”. The investigation by the CDPDJ indicates in particular that the family home was the subject of a police search for many hours on the day of Mr. Smith’s arrest.
“Malik’s mother and her family were unable to access their residence before 8:30 p.m. while the officers lifted the entry ban following the outcome of their investigation,” said the Commission decision, which adds that the mother “declared to have lived through hours of anguish and anxiety during the whole period when her son was detained”.
In addition to this financial compensation, which amounts to a total of $ 61,000, the CDPDJ demanded that the police officer in question undergo training on discrimination and racial profiling. However, the police officer refused to comply with these requests within the time limit set by the Commission.
“According to the Commission, the person had until December 3 to comply with his decision, and this on a voluntary basis. Because [le policier concerné] did not want to do it, we must go to the Court of Quebec to enforce the decision, ”explained Saturday to the Duty the Director General of CRARR, Fo Niemi.
Mr. mith and his mother will also announce their intention to defend their case in court at a press conference to be held at 10:30 a.m. Sunday in front of their home in Saint-Constant.
“It’s a lot of stress, but I waited four years to get there,” said Mr. Smith, who intends to defend his cause to the end. “I want justice done, it’s my right. “
The Roussillon intermunicipal police board will comment early next week.