(Montreal) To fight against racial profiling, the pressure group Coalition Rouge is asking the SPVM to record the “race or ethnicity” of people arrested without cause by the police.
“It’s the only way to obtain convincing statistics to demonstrate what all racialized people know: that they are disproportionately arrested,” said the organization’s director of racial profiling and public security, former police officer Alain Babineau, during a press conference held almost exclusively in English in the borough of Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. Obtaining these figures will accelerate the fight against racial profiling, said Mr. Babineau, who worked at the Office of the Commissioner for the Fight against Racism and Systemic Discrimination in Montreal from 2021 to 2022.
An example of arrest
Cyrus Senior, a 27-year-old black man, considers himself a victim of racial profiling. On June 23, the software engineer, also a DJ in his spare time, went to a prom to take care of the musical aspect of the evening. While driving his friend home around 2 a.m., Cyrus was stopped by a police officer.
“He told me he was stopping me because I was driving at an unusual time. He also told me he was stopping me because the car was registered in a woman’s name. [sa mère] “, he said during the press conference on Friday. For Cyrus, the real cause of his arrest is obvious: the color of his skin. The young man says his conduct was exemplary.
Several requests to the SPVM
Arrests should not be based on a hunch, argues Mr. Babineau. This is why the Red Coalition would like arrests to be subject to a legal framework. The organization now requires that the police have a “reasonable suspicion in cases where a crime is about to occur or has occurred” before arresting a person.
In addition, Coalition Rouge wants the police to distribute receipts to each person arrested arbitrarily. The paper should contain the officer’s name, badge number and instructions for filing a complaint with the police department.
Little progress since 2019
A report commissioned by the SPVM and unveiled on June 22 revealed that the police were stagnating in their fight against racial profiling. In 2021, Indigenous people were 6 times more likely to be stopped by the police than white people. In the same year, black people were arrested 3.5 times more often than white people, according to research by a team led by Professor Victor Armony.
The report thus recommended putting an end to all arrests without reason in order to accelerate the fight against profiling.
The measure was not adopted by the SPVM. Its leader, Fady Dagher, had mentioned on June 22 that it was preferable to solve the problem at the source.
SPVM relations did not react to Coalition Rouge’s requests, but reminded The Press that Mr. Dagher wanted a police arrest “free from bias” and “respectful of the rights and freedoms of all populations”.