Quebec police face more than 100 racial profiling complaints a year. Few result in discipline
CBC
One Sunday afternoon in September 2019, Hèzu Kpowbié was sitting on a park bench watching his son play when he was surrounded by three police officers, guns drawn.
"I thought I was going to die," said Kpowbié, recalling how terrified he felt at that moment.
"I was really very shocked. And still today — I am still shocked."
Kpowbié's experience in the years since reflects the lengthy, complicated and often futile battle waged by those who feel racially targeted by police.
The encounter took place in Repentigny, a suburb of Montreal.
Kpowbié, who is Black, was holding a letter opener his son's friend had brought to fix a remote-control toy car when police approached, after someone called 911 reporting a man with a knife. His surprise quickly turned to fear.
Guns pointed at him, Kpowbié was ordered to the ground, handcuffed and detained in a police cruiser for half an hour, while his eight-year-old son looked on. Police gave him a $150 ticket for possession of a weapon. (A municipal court judge later threw out the ticket, and praised him for his conduct.)
WARNING | This video contains graphic footage of a confrontation with police:
Kpowbié took the case to Quebec's police ethics commission, which handles complaints against officers. His complaint was rejected outright.
That means he never got a hearing at the next stage, the police ethics committee, a judicial body that has the power to sanction police officers.
In rejecting Kpowbié's appeal, the commissioner wrote that "in my view, a high-risk intervention was warranted in the circumstances" and that, "I have no reason to believe that the complainant's race or colour played a role in the manner in which the police acted in the present situation."
Unwilling to give up, Kpowbié also brought the case to the Quebec Human Rights Commission, which ordered the City of Repentigny and the officers involved to pay him a total of $42,000. The commission also recommended police adopt a series of policies to counter racial profiling.
But decisions made by that commission are not binding. To get them to pay, Kpowbié will need the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal to rule in his favour. (He's still waiting for a date to be set.)
The province's police ethics commission has fielded an average of 156 racial profiling complaints annually over the past five years available, up until April 2022, accounting for seven per cent of all complaints.
A long-serving United Church minister is preparing to leave his pulpit, adding pressure at a time when filling vacancies has become increasingly difficult.
Garrett Hawkins is on the cusp of making it to the big leagues. The pitcher from Biggar, Sask., has been added to the San Diego Padres 40-man roster.
Charlottetown Police and Fire Services are asking residents to avoid areas around Green Street due to a structure fire on Sunday morning.
Despite being born on a Christmas tree farm in Ohio, he wasn't really a fan of the holiday season.
A Hamilton hospital network is taking a closer look at how psychedelics might be useful in medicine.
Most people would prefer to spend the Christmas holiday weekend in warmth and comfort — but a Philadelphia man is going to spend it trudging 120 kilometres in the cold across Windsor-Essex.
Long before the first Calgary Stampede, the city attracted a different kind of cowboy.
After waiting four years to get his son the support the family says he needs to navigate school with learning challenges, a father from London, Ont. is fighting to make equitable healthcare and education a fundamental right.
Waterloo region and Guelph are under two yellow weather alerts warning of freezing rain changing to heavy rainfall Sunday, Environment Canada says.
A survey recently conducted on Prince Edward Island turned up a type of freshwater snail that experts say has never before been identified in the Maritimes.
A downtown Toronto long-term care home is rebuilding with a new design that considers lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, going beyond the province’s standards — but some say those standards are out of date.
It’s another wet and stormy day for much of Newfoundland and Labrador.
It’s been years since the tiny but aggressive European green crab made its way over to the Magdalen Islands, and some researchers in Quebec are warning it could be headed for the Gaspé next.