Newly released data shows that Black, indigenous, and other minority communities in Canada’s biggest city of Toronto have faced disproportionate use-of-force by police officers.
Interim Toronto Police Chief James Ramer said at a morning news conference on Wednesday that the force needed to do better, as he apologized and promised to address systemic racism in the police force.
“As an organization, we have not done enough to ensure that every person in our city receives fair and unbiased policing,” Ramer said.
“As chief of police and on behalf of the police, I am sorry and I apologize unreservedly,” he continued. “The release of this data will cause pain for many. We must improve and we will do better.”
Ramer said the newly released statistics “have confirmed what for many decades, radicalized communities, particularly the Black and indigenous communities have been telling us – that they are disproportionately over-policed.”
He said his force would implement 38 “action items” that would purportedly help address racial discrepancies in the use of force and strip searches, including training on anti-Black racism and indigenous discrimination, as well as mandating the review of officers’ body cameras for all use-of-force incidents.
The statistics released Wednesday relate to incidents that took place in 2020, including 949 instances of use of force and 7,114 strip searches.
According to the previously unseen race-based data, Black people are 2.2 times more likely to have an interaction with police officers and are 1.6 times more likely to have force used on them during the interaction.
People from Black, Middle-Eastern, Latino, and Asian communities were also overrepresented in reported use-of-force incidents, the report said.
‘We do not accept your apology’
Ramer’s apology was not welcomed by Beverly Bain from the group No Pride in Policing, which was formed in support of Black Lives Matter Toronto and is focused on defunding police. In a tense moment during the news conference, Bain slammed Ramer’s response to the data.
“Chief Ramer, we do not accept your apology,” she said. Bain called Ramer’s apology a “public relations stunt” that is “insulting” to Black and indigenous people.
“This is not about saving our lives. What we have asked for you to do is stop. To stop brutalizing us. To stop killing us,” she said.
The release of the data comes in the wake of several recent reports from human rights and police complaint watchdogs that called for major reforms within the Toronto police.
In 2018, the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) concluded that Black people were “grossly overrepresented” in several types of violent police interactions, including use-of-force cases, shootings, deadly encounters, and fatal shootings.
The OHRC reported that between 2013 and 2017, a Black person in Toronto had been nearly 20 times more likely than a white person to be shot and killed by police.
A follow-up analysis by the OHRC released in 2020 found that Black people were also more likely than others to be arrested and charged during interactions with Toronto police.
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