|
Dee
Brown and Jason Troy | Abdulahi
Mahamad | Racism in Federal
Immigration | "Gangsta"
profiling | Jerome Almon
- Judge raps police in
profiling case
Throws out motorist's drug charge
Fantino takes comments `very seriously'
PETER SMALL, Toronto Star
STAFF REPORTER, Sep. 17, 2004
A judge has thrown out a drug
charge against a young black motorist, finding that two Toronto
police officers used racial profiling when they stopped him and
later "fabricated" evidence.
"Conduct of this kind
by the police is reprehensible. It cannot be condoned or excused,"
Madam Justice Anne Molloy of the Superior Court of Justice said
in her written decision, released yesterday, in the case of Kevin
Khan, 29.
"Mr. Khan was targeted
for this stop because of racial profiling: because he was a black
man with an expensive car."
Saying that Khan deserved to
"have his name cleared completely," Molloy wrote that
"the evidence is overpowering" that the officers' testimony
was "untrue."
John Struthers, Khan's lawyer,
called it the first "driving-while-black" case in Canadian
history in which a judge has found a motorist was stopped solely
because he fit a racial profile.
Khan, who was acquitted by
the judge in June, told reporters that he's relieved by her comments.
"Their behaviour and what
they did could have resulted with me being in jail," he
told reporters via speakerphone, to protect his privacy.
His lawyer went further, saying
Khan was worried that if news photographs made him "the
face of racial profiling," then "every police officer
in the city of Toronto will go, `Hey, that's the guy.'"
Molloy found that Khan's constitutional
rights against unreasonable search and arbitrary detention had
been breached by the officers and thus ruled the drug evidence
inadmissible.
More than that, Molloy wrote
that "I quite simply do not believe the evidence of the
officers."
"In fairness to Mr. Khan
and in recognition of what he has been through, I think it appropriate
to clear his name completely.... He testified he did not know
the cocaine was in the car. I believe him."
Toronto police Chief Julian
Fantino said in a news release that he has directed the force's
professional standards unit to investigate.
"I will take whatever
action is appropriate," he said. "I take the judge's
findings and comments very seriously."
Glenn Asselin, then a uniformed
sergeant, and Craig James, then a constable (but no longer with
the force), stopped Khan as he drove along Marlee Ave., near
Eglinton Ave. W. and the Allen Expressway, shortly after noon
on Monday, Oct. 21, 2001, in his Mercedes-Benz.
Asselin, now a detective in
drug enforcement, testified that he had earlier noticed Khan
sitting with his hands fixed on the steering wheel, "kind
of in a frozen state," staring at the police car.
Asselin testified they saw
him nearly collide with parked cars and that, as he drove behind
their cruiser, seemed to be looking down at his lap. They became
suspicious and felt the need to investigate, they said.
After they stopped him, Asselin
testified, Khan didn't comply with their requests to put his
hands on the steering wheel and instead fumbled with his right
hand in the glove box, while pushing what appeared to be a garbage
bag under the driver's seat.
Asselin said he pulled Khan
from the vehicle and then detected the obvious strong odour of
cocaine coming from the car. He was charged with possession of
cocaine for the purpose of trafficking.
Khan, a public schoolteacher,
real-estate broker and father of a young girl, testified he had
only just picked up the car from his brother, who had had it
for the weekend, and that he didn't know the drugs were in the
car when he drove off to show a condominium to a prospective
buyer.
He later told the court he
was driving normally and was pulled over for no reason. He said
he was not trying to hide anything and was not fumbling with
anything when police approached the vehicle, and that he complied
with all of their requests.
"I found Kevin Khan to
be a very credible witness," the judge ruled. "His
story hangs together and makes sense."
This was in "stark contrast"
with the police officers, whose testimony is both inconsistent
with the documentary evidence and "defies common sense,"
the judge said.
"It follows from these
conclusions that the officers involved in this case fabricated
significant aspects of their evidence," the judge said.
"Why did they single out
Mr. Khan on Marlee Ave. at about noon on a Monday in October
and decide to search his car? Because he was a young black male
driving an expensive Mercedes."
The judge herself had the cocaine
brought to the courtroom during the trial, and placed the open
bag at her feet. "I could smell nothing," she said.
Allegations of racial profiling
by Toronto police were the subject of a series of articles published
by the Star in 2002.
The Star obtained the police
arrest database, listing more than 480,000 incidents in which
an individual was arrested or ticketed, and almost 800,000 criminal
and other charges.
The Star's analysis of the
data found that blacks charged with simple drug possession were
taken to a police station more often than whites facing the same
charge.
Once at the station, black
suspects were held overnight for a bail hearing at twice the
rate of whites.
The data also showed a disproportionate
number of black motorists in the database were ticketed for offences
that routinely would come to light following a traffic stop.
Civil libertarians and criminologists say this pattern points
to racial profiling, whether conscious or not.
The Khan case is believed to
be Canada's first judicial determination of racial profiling
of a motorist - the classic "driving while black."
A 2001 decision by Mr. Justice
Brian Trafford found that police had stopped a man who was walking
near the Eaton Centre because of his race.
"Stereotypical assumptions,
including those concerning young black men and narcotics, have
no proper place in a properly conducted investigation,"
Trafford wrote in his decision. "The inherent worth and
dignity of all people, regardless of their race or ethnic origin,
must be respected by the police at all times during the investigation
of even the most heinous crimes."
University of Windsor law professor
David Tanovich, an authority on racial profiling, said he hopes
yesterday's ruling will give courage to other judges to make
similar findings and encourage lawyers to raise the argument
every time they are representing a visible minority in a similar
case.
A spokesperson for the federal
justice department, which prosecuted the case against Khan, said
it is still studying the ruling and has not made any decision
on whether to appeal.
Native quality of life low priority
poll
Anne Kyle, Saskatchewan
News Network; Regina Leader-Post, November 23, 2004
REGINA -- Most Canadians do
not consider improving the quality of life of aboriginal Canadians
to be a high priority for the federal government, according to
national opinion poll results released Monday in Regina.
Less than a third of Canadians
(29 per cent) surveyed in the poll, which was conducted on behalf
of the Centre for Research and Information on Canada (CRIC),
a program of the Canadian Unity Council, thought that improving
the quality of life for aboriginal people should be a high priority.
"We asked people to rate
how strongly they feel about a number of items that should be
a priority for the federal government, and improving the quality
of life for aboriginal peoples came second last in a list of
14. The highest ones were the environment, federal-provincial
relations and health care. Seeing it so low in the list tied
with increasing military spending was a disappointing result
for us," Leslie Seidle, senior researcher with CRIC, told
reporters.
"It is hard to know why
it is. Obviously, there are a lot of priorities for the government
at the moment. Speaking for the council, I think it is partly
based on a lack of information and understanding. People need
to know more about some of the socio-economic indicators for
aboriginal peoples that reveal significant gaps between many
aboriginal people and other Canadians," he said.
Seidle, who was speaking at
a Canadian Unity Council luncheon in Regina, released the aboriginal
component of the Portraits of Canada 2004, a poll of 3,200 Canadians
conducted by CROP and Environics Research Group on behalf of
CRIC. The survey, which was conducted in September, has a margin
of error of plus or minus 1.7 per cent, 19 times out of 20.
Younger people, aged 18 to
34, are least likely to rate improving the quality of life of
aboriginal Canadians as a high priority, according to the poll
results. And almost one out of two Canadians think that the situation
of aboriginal Canadians is about the same or better than that
of other Canadians, and there is a growing segment of the population
that believe relations between aboriginal peoples and other Canadians
are improving. In 2000, Seidle said, 31 per cent of Canadians
thought relations were deteriorating, while this year that number
has dropped to 19 per cent.
"As you go up the educational
scale, people treat that issue (the need to improve the quality
of life for aboriginals) as a higher priority. We were surprised
and I would say disappointed about the result for the youngest
age group -- 18 to 34 year-olds. In other surveys those Canadians
are usually seen to be somewhat more tolerant and somewhat more
supportive of diversity than other Canadians," Seidle said,
explaining it shows a need for more education and more information.
"CRIC will continue its
activities to broaden public understanding of aboriginal issues
and to encourage dialogue between aboriginal and non-aboriginal
Canadians," Seidle said.
Other findings in the survey,
which were released earlier this month, include an increasing
confidence levels in our political leaders, which is the highest
point since 1998 and a 13 per cent increase from last year in
the proportion of Canadians who think federal-provincial relations
are functioning well.
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2004
|
Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell
