Windsor Police Service takes the lead on understanding and responding to homophobic violence

Last summer, in two separate incidents, three gay men in Windsor were violently assaulted and subjected to homophobic slurs. Their cases are currently before the courts with one of the accused charged with public incitement of hatred, a crime that is rarely charged.

The Windsor Police Service has responded by implementing mandatory training on understanding and responding to homophobic violence. According to Helen Kennedy, executive director of EGALE, the WPS is the first police service in Canada to fully implement its training recommendations. The proposal has been welcomed by all members of the service including the Windsor Police Association.

The training comes at a fundamentally critical time as reported hate crimes against the LGBT community are on the increase and gay men, in particular, are at greater risk of being violently assaulted in a hate crime than members of religious minorities and racialized communities. See "Hate crimes against gays doubled in Canada". Moreover, LGBT hate crimes remain under-reported and under-classified.

Hopefully, similar training is occurring in other segments of the criminal justice system. For example, section 718.2(a)(i) of the Criminal Code permits judges to increase a sentence for a crime motivated by "bias, prejudice or hate based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation or any other similar factor." Unfortunately, this section has been rarely used by Crown Attorneys or applied by trial judges. See, for example, the case of Aaron Webster who was brutally beaten in Stanley Park in British Columbia. On this front, things may be changing. In British Columbia, for example, a new Crown policy relating to section 718.2(a)(i) came into effect on October 12, 2010. It requires Crowns to lead any evidence that a crime was motivated by hate and make 718.2(a)(i) submissions in cases where "there is a reasonable likelihood that the court will make a determination on sentencing that an offence was motivated by bias, prejudice or hate ...." Of course, this still requires training to ensure that the cases are properly identified.

On March 11, 2010, LEAP is hosting a conference entitled Accessing Justice and Accountability in Policing. One of the issues that will be addressed is policing issues relating to the transgendered community. Constable Christine Schulz of the Ottawa Police Service and one of Canada's first transgendered police officers will be speaking.

Posted by Professor David M. Tanovich

Ottawa taxi driver case raises issues of racism, police accountability and transparency

On May 11, 2007, Sami Aldoboni, an airport taxi driver, was driving on the Airport Parkway in Ottawa when a male driver in an SUV tried to overtake him on the single-lane road. The man in the SUV allegedly followed Aldoboni to the airport taxi drivers’ parking lot where he got out of the SUV and, while shouting racial insults at Aldoboni, shoved him to the ground and beat him until other drivers intervened. Aldoboni suffered two broken bones in his wrist and a broken index finger. Atiya, a driver who intervened during the altercation, reports that when he confronted Aldoboni’s attacker, the man showed him a police identification card. When police arrived at the scene, witnesses reported that the assailant was not handcuffed, but instead handed a pen so he could write his own statement. Further, the two police officers then got into the backseat of the SUV with the assailant driving, and the three left the parking lot together.

Although the incident happened two weeks ago, no charges have been laid. The Special Investigations Unit (SIU) is investigating the off-duty officer’s actions to determine if charges should be laid at all.

This incident raises serious issues of both overt and systemic racism within the Ottawa Police Service. A 2006 census of the Ottawa Police found racialized individuals under-represented among its members, sometimes by large margins. It is a frightening incident for the Ottawa community to have a member of their police service allegedly act so overtly racist, and apparently not afraid to connect that racism to his identity as a police officer.

A second issue raised by this incident is the accountability of officers in the Ottawa Police Service. The reported reaction of the police officers that came to the scene is an indication that officers involved in criminal activity are treated much differently than are civilians. One would presume that if the assailant was a civilian he would have been handcuffed, put in the back of a cruiser and taken to the police station. The way the assailant was actually treated in this case sent a strong message to those who witnessed it; and later to those who read about it. As one witness has said: “It was like, ‘He’s a police officer, we care about him. You’re just a taxi driver, we don’t care about you.’”Further, without having laid charges to date, we are forced to question if this officer will be held accountable at all. In a similar attack on a citizen by police officers in Vancouver in January, charges were laid in one week.

Lastly, this incident also raises issues of transparency. To date, the name of the police officer has not been disclosed by the Ottawa Police Service. Since the investigation of the officers that came to the scene has been postponed until the assailant’s investigation is completed, one would hope that the assailant’s investigation would be completed promptly. Yet the Ottawa Police Service has remained quiet about the incident since the Chief of Police met with Airport taxi drivers the day after the incident. While the response from taxi drivers after that meeting was positive, I’m sure that two weeks later they are getting curious as to what might come of the case.

Posted by Ashley Paterson (Law II) (LEAP Summer Intern)

Two Vancouver police officers charged with assault and robbery in unprovoked attack of South Asian victim

Assault and robbery charges have now been laid against two Vancouver police officers following what the victim, Firoz Khan, described as a vicious and unprovoked attack during which racial slurs were made against him. Constable Jeffrey Klassen was charged with assault. Constable Griffin Gillian was charged with robbery. Klassen was a use of force teacher at the B.C. Justice Institute for four years. The officers were off-duty and Khan was delivering papers to the Hyatt Regency Hotel. A third officer present during the attack was not charged because the police believe that he tried to intervene. Two City of Vancouver workers witnessed the incident. According to an earlier newspaper report, the police will not be treating the case as a hate crime because Khan cannot identify which officer uttered the racial slurs.

The case is the latest in a number of incidents of serious violence and death involving police officers in British Columbia. See "B.C. Police Officers Under Scrutiny", Vancouver Sun (26/01/09).

Posted by Professor Tanovich