Can Racial Profiling be Eradicated in Montreal?

A couple months ago, a Quebec Superior Court ordered a new trial for Joel Debellefeuille, who refused to show identification when stopped by Montreal police. The police report pointed out “reasons” for the stop including the fact that the car belonged to a man by the name of Debellefeuille but the person they had stopped was a black man who did not “correspond at first sight to the owner”. The report also stated that Debellefeuille sounded like a Quebecois family name and not a name of another origin. Finally, the intercepting officer specifically wrote that the primary reason he stopped Debellefeuille was because of his race.

Cases like this one - coupled with the fact that in the first half of 2011 they received 10 complaints against the Montreal police force for racial profiling – caused the Quebec Human Rights Commission to create a report with 93 recommendations to address racial profiling and discrimination in Quebec.

As a result, Mayor Gérald Tremblay and Montreal police chief Marc Parent have outlined a ‘zero tolerance’ policy surrounding racial profiling with the goal of having a better understanding of vulnerable groups in society. The proposal calls for equal access to jobs, housing and social programs as well as monetary aid from the Province to help fight poverty and the resulting issues that arise from it.  The Mayor also stresses the responsibility that the public has in making Montreal a more tolerant community. At a press conference on the new initiative, Mayor Tremblay spoke of Montreal as an example of multiculturalism and stressed that, “Profiling in any shape or form is unacceptable”.

However, there is valid concern that the plan, press conferences and statements, however well intentioned, will end up simply being symbolic and ignoring both the root causes of profiling while also failing to provide consequences for when it occurs. For instance, Fo Niemi, director of the Centre for Research Action on Race Relations commented on the policy stating that, “The real skepticism lies in the position of the Police Brotherhood Union on racial and social profiling, and how it will work with the police management team to equip all officers with better management skills to police a diverse city. To date, the position is not clearly articulated where the plan of action is concerned.”

Niemi says that two recommendations specifically would have an immediate impact. First, that Montreal police revise the tactics being used by their anti-gang unit, which, he says, has been known to target young black men as being suspected of being gang members. The second is that Montreal police alter their policies regarding incivilities, which can include any public conduct deemed to be uncivil such as talking loudly, jaywalking or spitting in the street. The willingness of police to stop and fine people for these actions give them the leeway to go after a broad range of people as they choose.

The effectiveness of the ‘zero tolerance’ policy will depend on willingness at all levels of policing to keep an open mind and implement true changes that are meant to reach the root cause, not to quell negative press. What seems to be lacking are any concrete plans on how these police officers will be trained to think different about minority populations. Do these elected officials truly believe that years of inherent biases can be eradicated simply by stating that they are inappropriate? What would the most important changes be in trying to rid policing of racial bias and profiling? Similarly, what would the appropriate penalties even be for officers that participate in profiling, whether intentional or not?

Posted by Melissa Crowley (Windsor Law II)

Internal Montreal Police report reveals degree of disproportionate stopping of Black youth

According to a story in the Montreal Gazette, an internal police study that examined 163,000 police files from 2001-2007 discovered that:

"Young black men in neighbourhoods such as Montreal North and St. Michel are far more likely to be pulled over than young white men. ... [R]oughly 40 per cent of the young black men in Montreal North and St. Michel were stopped or questioned by police, compared with roughly five per cent of young white males. ... [T]wo out of three young blacks questioned by police had no links to local street gangs. Forty per cent of those who were pulled over were not fined or charged with any crime or traffic violation."

In an editorial, the Montreal Gazette has called for action. See "Racial-profiling study demands action."

City of Montreal loses racial profiling appeal

CRARR Press Release

Montreal, June 9, 2009 --- The Quebec Superior Court has thrown out a judicial review case brought by the City of Montreal against the Quebec human rights commission and CRARR.

In a decision dated June 2, 2009, Madam Justice Hélène Lebel rejected the City's argument that a person found guilty in municipal court over a city by-law cannot file a civil rights complaint against the police for having engaged in racial profiling leading to the issuance of a ticket. For the City, the filing of the discrimination complaint is tantamount to a disguised appeal.

The case involved a complaint filed by CRARR in September 2003 on behalf of a Black minor, F.F., in the East-end district of Saint-Michel, who was fined by the police for “incivilities” (i.e. using urban property for a purpose other than that for which it is designed - the youth was sitting on a small fence in front of his public housing project).

Of the many youths present, the police officers only singled out Black boys for citation; racially discirminatory comments were also directed towards these youths. In January 2004, the youth in question was found guilty by default, for failing to appear in court to contest his fine. In December 2007, the human rights commission ruled that the youth was the victim of racial profiling and recommended $10,000 in damages. Two other Black boys were also fined by the police (one of whom was under 14 and could not be fined under Quebec law); the human rights commission also recommended $10,000 for each of them.

Since the City refused to comply with the commission's decision, the case was brought before the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal, as with all cases of racial profiling. In August 2008, the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal dismissed the City's contention that it did not have the jurisdiction to hear it; the City filed for judicial review before the Quebec Superior Court, which now sends the case back to the Human Rights Tribunal for a hearing on the merit of the cases.
In recent months, the City has systematically challenged racial profiling cases on procedural grounds before the courts. To date, the City has lost despite its numerous actions to prevent the Human Rights Tribunal from proceeding.

The Montreal Police continues to apply its policy against incivilities, which has deemed in New York City and in many cities in France to be discriminatory towards youths of color and the poor. Under this policy, many young males of color, disadvantaged youths as well as the homeless have been fined for conduct deemed by the police to be “uncivil” (spitting, talking loud, jaywalking, etc.), resulting in penal (not criminal) records for many youths. Despite its application since 2001, the policy has never been the subject of public debate and evaluation at City Council.

Information : René Saint-Léger, Counsel
Fo Niemi, Executive Director
CRARR : 514-939-3342

Activist group files complaint about investigation of Villaneuva death

Earlier this week, LEAP reported on the issues not being investigated at the coroner's inquest looking into the death of Fredy Villaneuva, an 18-year-old who was fatally shot last August by Police in Montreal. We now learn that the Coalition against Police Repression and Abuse, an activist group, is filing a complaint with Quebec’s Police Ethics Commission about the investigation of the incident, an investigation the group alleges was flawed.

The two officers involved in the shooting were never charged. However, when the inquest into Villaneuva’s death began last week it was discovered that those two officers were never even questioned during the investigation, but instead asked to provide written statements to the investigators a week after Villaneuva’s death. This aspect of the investigation stands in stark contrast to the treatment of civilian witnesses, who were “separated and questioned the night of the shooting.”

The inquest has been put on hold due to the Villaneuva family’s refusal to participate. This refusal stems in large part because of their desire dor a more thorough investigation into the systemic issues surrounding the shooting, such as racial profiling.

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

Montreal taxi driver allegedly pulled over and fined on account of race

After David Bastien, a 25-year-old Haitian taxi driver in Montreal, was pulled over and allegedly “unfairly handcuffed” and fined by Constable Jean-Francois Croteau, concerns about why this happened and why it has happened more than once are surfacing.

On April 5, 2009, David Bastien reports that he was ordered by Croteau to pull over and provide his driver’s license. He further alleges that Croteau pulled him out of his car and handcuffed him. Croteau proceeded to issue four fines against Bastien, reports the Montreal Gazette. The fines included:

-“$638 for ‘having refused to produce for examination by a peace officer a (driver’s) permit’”; -“$169 for ‘being the driver and not behaving in a dignified or civil manner’”;-“$100 for ‘not ensuring that the inside of the taxi is clean’”;-“$169 for ‘being a driver and raiding with the taxi,’ trying to pick up another’s fare.”

Since the incident, Bastien has gone to the Quebec Human Rights Commission and the Police Ethics Commission with his case against Croteau, but both Commissions are yet to hear it. According to the Gazette the complaints filed by Bastien state, among other things, that “most taxi drivers are afraid of reprisals by police and do not have confidence in the complaint procedure.” The precise evidence that Bastien has to substantiate this claim, if any, is unknown. However if proven to be true, it is a powerful proposition, especially considering that this is not the first time recently that a Montreal taxi driver has been detained and issued what seems to be an outrageous amount of tickets at once. In March and May, respectively, another officer, Constable Pierre Belanger, issued $600 in tickets to one cab driver and $2,310 in tickets to another. Both Croteau and Belanger work out of Station 21. When asked about these incidents, Commander Alain Simoneau replied that “[t]his is not a situation of racial profiling in any way,” but “application of the highway code, pure and simple.” Whether such a response will placate taxi-drivers in Montreal is yet to be seen. However, with the recent incident in Ottawa regarding an alleged police attack on a taxi-driver, drivers are being given more and more reasons to distrust the police. It seems too coincidental that all four taxi drivers in these two cases are racialized.

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

Demands that Villaneuva inquest consider racial profiling as factor in police shooting of unarmed Hispanic teenager in Montreal

The public inquest into the fatal police shooting of 18-year-old Fredy Villanueva was suspended on the same day it began, last Monday, May 25, 2009. The coroner conducting the inquiry suspended it because the victim’s family and the two other men injured during the altercation indicated that they will not participate, leading the coroner to conclude that the inquest was tilted in favour of the police. The coroner who is a Quebec Court judge, Robert Sansfacon, decided that under the circumstances he could not continue because of the substantial legal representation for the two officers involved, for the police force and for the city, opposed by under-represented victims and family members. He believed this created an imbalance that would lack "fairness and credibility."

Last August, Mr. Villaneuva died after being shot twice as police tried to arrest his brother, Dany. The police officer who shot Mr. Villaneuva, Constable Jean-Loup Lapointe, said he fired when the group tried to overpower him and his partner. Two other men with Mr. Villaneuva were shot during the altercation, but survived.

The Villaneuva family and the two other men that were shot had been designated as “interested parties” by the coroner, but while the province agreed to pay for legal representation for the Villaneuva family, it refused such compensation for the other two men. Both parties withdrew as a result. Most of the intervener groups, which previously included civil-rights defenders and race-relations activists, have also withdrawn. Only five interveners remain and all represent the police.

Last Tuesday, Public Security Minister Jaques Dupuis stated that he would provide for the legal costs of any interested parties that could assist with the inquiry. However, legal fees are not the only concern. The victims and the Villaneuva family believe the inquest to be too narrowly-focussed. They want the investigation to go beyond Mr. Villaneuva’s death and examine issues such as racial profiling by police, the disproportionate number of visible minorities among victims of police shootings and the socio-economic situation in Montreal North.

The Villaneuvas and the two other victims have chosen to stand up to a situation that they foresee creating an unfair result. They clearly have no interest in an investigation that will reveal what they likely don’t believe; that the fatal shooting was provoked. With an inquest that even the coroner believes to be skewed in favour of the police, their concern seems to be well-founded. More appropriately, they would like the investigation extended beyond Fredy’s death to the systemic issues taking place in Montreal North, often referred to as the city’s Bronx. Their boycott of the inquest has not, as of yet, produced any positive results. The situation has seemed to remain at a standstill since last week. However, if nothing else, their boycott on the inquiry has brought an awareness of issues of poverty and racial inequality into the public forum once again. Hopefully, the case will cause the public to increase the standard of accountability they require from officers in “the Bronx.”

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

CRARR releases "Any Negro Will Do" report on misuse of race in suspect descriptions

For Immediate Release
Montreal, Canada, May 6, 2009 --- Authorities must enact measures to prevent the police from using vague, race-based, suspect descriptions to stop and arrest young Black and other racialized men even when they do not resemble the suspect or when the description is so general that every male of colour can be subject to police stops. This is the main recommendation of a report released by CRARR today to highlight a frequent situation encountered by many innocent young men of colour who end up arrested and being roughed up by police officers due to mistaken identity. Produced with private donations and technical support from the Pro-Bono programs of the faculties of law of McGill, UQAM, and Université de Montréal, the 80-page report, entitled Any Negro Will Do: Race and Suspect Description - the Slippery Slope towards Racial Profiling, provides a detailed review of the practice. It reviews case law in Quebec and other provinces, and submits 11 recommendations for actions to
prevent such a practice.

Named after a popular American expression, the practice involves the police broadcast and use of vague suspect descriptions based only on race and gender (usually, “a Black man”) that leads officers to stop, detain, arrest and point guns at individuals whose looks often bear little resemblance to the suspect other than the fact that they share the same race. The problem can be compounded by the fact that many police officers lack training and personal knowledge with racial diversity, which can lead to further complications in identifying race (for instance, mistaking a South Asian for an Arab).

This practice can be a result of individual or institutional conduct based on conscious or hidden bias, ignorance or negligence. Since it involves the description of a specific person, race-based suspect descriptions that contain little information on features other than race and gender, differ from criminal profiling, which involves the elaboration of a profile of a group or type of persons likely to commit a particular crime based on a hosts of factors; and racial profiling, which involves using race as a proxy to subject all persons associated with that race to heightened scrutiny and differential treatments, without any valid motives or any report on a specific suspect.

As a result, race-based suspect descriptions, no matter how vague, tend to be considered as legitimate and necessary to police work, although there have been little public policy debates on the issue.

Further, the courts have generally been upholding the practice and ruling in favour of the police. The report examines specific decisions by the Supreme Court (R. v. Mann, 2004), and by other courts or tribunals in Ontario (R. v. Smith, Superior Court, 2004), Quebec (Commissaire à la déontologie policière c. Chan et Pépin, Police Ethics Committee, 2006) and Alberta (Coward v. Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission, Court of Queen's Bench, 2008) that rejected victims' challenges to what is seen as racially biased police conduct and that upheld the constitutionality of the police stops and arrests.

To illustrate the problem, CRARR presents the stories of Black men in Montreal who have been the target of this “Any Negro Will Do” practice, including:

❏ A 19 year-old McGill Black student who came out of a Wyclef Jean concert at the Metropolis club and was arrested at gunpoint by the police acting on a report of a “Black man wearing red pants and carrying a gun” near the St-Laurent metro station. One officer even asked him if he belonged to a gang;

❏ A 21-year-old college student who was stopped at gunpoint by two officers in Laval when he was walking home at night and handcuffed. The police was looking for a “Black man with a backpack” and found that he matched the suspect description;

❏ A 28 year-old biracial man who was going from his car on Guy Street, to his workplace downtown, when he was cut off by a police car, arrested at gunpoint and handcuffed by a policewoman who also told him that his name was fake since no Black man could carry a “Québécois” name;

Reviewing Canada's international obligations on preventing racism in policing as well as policy actions in Quebec and Ontario on racial profiling, the report outlines challenges facing authorities and racialized communities with regard to race-based suspect description and calls for measures to protect people of colour from such abusive and dangerous police actions. Some of the report's recommendations to the government, police departments and civil rights watchdog agencies include:

❏ Officially recognize that the practice of using vague, race-based suspect descriptions is discrimination as it exposes all members of a racial group to disproportionate scrutiny and harm;

❏ Require that police suspect descriptions be more specific in terms of physical description (skin colour, height, weight, age group, etc.) and that they mention time and geographic scope to narrow the search and avoid casting the wide net of discrimination on all members of a racial group in the area;

❏ Avoid lengthy legal procedural challenges to claims by victims of the “Any Negro Will Do” practice and settle early, especially in cases of obvious mistaken identity and immediate admission of such an error by the police officers involved;

❏ Adopt policies enabling the Quebec human rights commission and the Quebec Police Ethics Commissioner to better handle complaints of the “Any Negro Will Do” practice. Pending such adoption, these agencies should suspend all decisions on these complaints to avoid inadequate investigation and incorrect analyses;

❏ Train future and current police officers, judges, and members of administrative tribunals on issues of race, racial profiling and race-based suspect description.

Source: Fo Niemi, Executive Director
Gabrielle Michaud Sauvageau, Communication and Research Officer
CRARR: (514) 939-3342

Montreal municipal authorities considering "no police insult" by-law

Montreal police are urging municipal authorities to pass by-laws in March that would enable them to ticket and fine anyone who verbally insults them. The issue has draw concerns about freedom of expression from a number of activists and academics including Professor Dick Moon at Windsor Law.

In addition, there is a concern that vague laws like this will serve as a vehicle to promote racial harassment for two reasons. First, they provide the police with a pretext to conduct a criminal investigation. Indeed, a number of concerns have been expressed over the number of existing by-laws governing conduct known as "incivilities" and the disproportionate impact these laws are having on Black and Latino youth in Montreal. See the 2007 submissions of CRARR (Centre for Research Action on Race Relations) to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Second, given the sensitivity of those in power when accused of racism, the police are more likely to use this power when confronted by insults from Aboriginal and racialized individuals than from Whites.

Posted by Professor Tanovich