Transcript
Speaker: I'm Jane Williams, this is the Red Eye Podcast. In our show today, Lorraine Chisholm talks with LaToya Farrell about the need to end police street checks in Vancouver. Police street checks or carding is a practice where police stop a person in public to question them and record their personal information in a police database. These stops occur outside the context of an investigation.
Speaker: Indigenous and Black people are severely overrepresented in the number of street checks conducted by the Vancouver Police Department. Data from 2017 shows that Indigenous people accounted for over 16 % of the checks despite making up only 2 % of the population in Vancouver. And Black people accounted for 5 % of the checks despite making up only 1 % of the population.
Speaker: For many years, there have been calls to address this racial disparity and discrimination. On June 10th of this year, the BC Civil Liberties Association, the Union of BC Indian Chiefs, and Hogan's Alley Society called for the police to stop street checks in Vancouver. In response, on Monday, June 22nd,
Speaker: Mayor Kennedy Stewart has announced he will be introducing a motion to City Council that will direct the Vancouver Police Board to end street checks. Earlier this week, Lorraine Chisholm spoke with LaToria Farrell, a policy lawyer with the BCCLA to discuss the future of street checks in the city and systemic racism within the VPD. Lorraine began by asking why it's so important that this practice ends.
Speaker: We say that street checks are fundamentally an illegal exercising of police authority. There are no provisions in statute or any kind of common law principles which authorize this type of interaction. In fact, by virtue of their own policy, they define it as voluntary. And the reason why they need to do that
Speaker: is because they need the cooperation of the public in order for these to be conducted. As we've seen from the data that was released from 2017, this has been a discriminatory practice that's been disproportionately impacting both Indigenous and other racialized groups like Black people in Vancouver. And we think that by virtue of the fact that they are an illegal practice and they've been used discriminatorily, they need to be stopped.
Speaker: Now police claim that street checks are what they call an important crime prevention tool. What does research show about the effectiveness of street checks?
Speaker: Well, I mean, the idea that street checks are a valuable tool, this is something we've heard police departments talk about, but the evidence of that is anecdotal at best. Whereas there have been, you know, so many reports, there's the Scott Wortley report, there's tons of academics who have done research in this area, who have demonstrated how much street checks and harassing the public really just harms communities and erodes trust in the police.
Speaker: So we've seen lots of studies that have indicated that. And the idea that street checks are used as a way of preventing crime, the street check review that was done by Vancouver Police Board and Pixis Consulting demonstrated that roughly 40 % of street checks were originally triggered by a bylaw infraction, which is a regulatory infraction, meaning jaywalking, sleeping on a park bench, things like that. And so we know that that's pretext policing. It's a way to get in,
Speaker: and start questioning people about their identity, their whereabouts, where they're going, where they're coming from. And that kind of rolls into a street check. And that's not there to prevent crime. That's there to basically monitor people illegally on the street. Sometimes we look at these issues and we talk about percentages. So it's pretty clear that Indigenous and people of colour are targeted. And we know the numbers, but what's the effect
Speaker: of having these street checks, so for a person constantly being questioned by police? Well, I mean, police exercising this unlawful authority to stop an individual, question them and often collect their identifying information. It can create emotions of powerlessness, it can create emotions of panic and fear in the individual, particularly in those communities that are over pleased and under protected.
Speaker: particularly where individuals have had multiple encounters with police, multiple questioning, and these are negative interactions. This is a form of psychological detention, which is, in fact, detention. That is arbitrarily detaining people to question them. And for folks that have consistently encountered police,
Speaker: and had these kind of negative interactions. For them, the idea of any sort of voluntariness to this interaction is not meaningful. It is not part of their reality. They feel like they need to obey and answer questions and all of those things. And they don't under law need to do that. But that's not what happens in communities that have the collective consciousness of understanding how police have been patrolling their communities.
Speaker: Now in June of 2018, the BC Civil Liberties Association and the Union of BC Indian Chiefs filed a complaint calling for an immediate investigation of the significant racial disparity in the VPD's practice of street checks. How did police respond to the complaint at that time?
Speaker: The Vancouver Police Department came out with their own report discussing the data that had come out of the FOI request. And they claimed that street checks, they don't conduct them arbitrarily, that they do in fact have a reason for doing them.
Speaker: But something that came out of the street check review was the fact that what has been listed and inputted in the data as reasons for stopping and interrogating people are in fact arbitrary. We saw in the report that some of the things that were listed were walking a dog on a church lawn, standing in the rain, a clean couple in a poor hotel, riding a bike, riding a bike in the rain.
Speaker: These are not reasons for stopping people and questioning them. That is not reasonable suspicion. Those are arbitrary reasons for stopping people. And so what came out of the report was in direct conflict with what VPD was saying that they do. What's the process been like working more generally with the city and the police department trying to get an end to street checks?
Speaker: There's been a lot of resistance. It's been difficult. We've gone through the process. We filed our complaint. And then, you know, after the street check review was completed by Pixis Consulting, something that we came out against and talked about our fundamental issues with the way that that research was conducted.
Speaker: We thought that it wasn't objective. The fact that Ruth Montgomery has 27 -plus years of policing experience and was a police officer just goes to show that by the very apprehension of objectivity is kind of out the window in that circumstance. But fundamentally, the report
Speaker: assumed that street checks were a valuable policing tool, did not question any of the information that's come out of different reports and reviews that have been done across the country, including the independent legal opinion done by an ex -judge and was commissioned by the Human Rights Commission of Nova Scotia, which clearly states that there is no statute authorizing this type of behavior. There is no principle at common law or if it were challenged in the courts.
Speaker: that it would be deemed unconstitutional and and so we we had so many problems with the report itself but the fact that
Speaker: The Vancouver Police Board then decided to conclude our complaint and maintain their oversight capacity to continue to monitor the circumstance was just insufficient for us based on the very problematic policy that came out of VPD and other police departments in January.
Speaker: Based on the very problematic research report that was done by Pixis Consulting, based on the information and reports that have come out from other people across the country, we felt that this was not properly considered and researched. Again, we say that this is fundamentally illegal. We went through the proper channels and the proper mechanisms.
Speaker: that were established in order to file a complaint and we were left incredibly disappointed with the way that everything went. We will be releasing a letter tomorrow.
Speaker: indicating an investigation that was launched into the way that the research was conducted. It's incredibly frustrating to try and go through the proper channels. And now we're saying enough is enough. Enough is enough. We tried it their way. And we know now that this is an ineffective means of policing. It's completely illegal and unconstitutional. And we don't understand why there's still resistance about just finally banning this illegal and discriminatory practice.
Speaker: Now there's been a lot of discussion Latoya initiated by activists about systemic racism in the police force. How does this connect with this whole ongoing issue of carding and also other racial violence at the hands of police? Well, I mean, there's so much that needs to be fundamentally done to restructure and to
Speaker: target systemic racism in policing and in many other areas, including prisons, child apprehensions. A lot of these systems have deep rooted problems when it comes to racialized and indigenous communities. But street checks in and of themselves are a very low hanging fruit for Vancouver police departments and for the province to simply ban this discriminatory and illegal practice. It's not that it impacts their ability to do their job.
Speaker: In fact, it doesn't produce valuable information. I mean, some of the things that came out in other reports were garbage in, garbage out. And that was quoted directly from police officers. The fact is that this is not a valuable technique. It is not a legal technique to be using in policing. And it doesn't impact their ability to do their job. This is a very small thing to show that they are truly trying to push for transformative change.
Speaker: and target systemic racism and policing. And the fact that there's been resistance for this long on this just goes to show how deeply entrenched the problem is. Mayor Kennedy Stewart says he's going to put in a motion calling for an end to all street checks in Vancouver. What's the response of the BC Civil Liberties Association to that?
Speaker: Well, we're definitely hopeful because, you know, we urge council to pass the resolution, but the resolution really just allows the mayor to write a letter recommending a stop to police street checks to the Vancouver Police Board. It doesn't effectively end street checks in and of itself. And so we think that this is a small step in the right direction, but
Speaker: You know, he also released as chair of the Vancouver Police Board. He also released another press release. And in that release from the Vancouver Police Board, it states that they're going to do a six month review of the new street check policy.
Speaker: So both of these press releases in his function as chair of the Vancouver Police Board and his function as mayor are in conflict with each other. So as hopeful as we are and we hope that council will pass this resolution for the mayor to be able to make that recommendation to the police board,
Speaker: We're also looking at the press release from the police board and saying, well, this isn't direct conflict from what the mayor is wanting to do. And I'll be honest, our heads are spinning about this because it seems so clear cut and simple, but there's still this division that's happening here. So while we're hopeful that this is a step in the right direction, we are cautiously optimistic about how this is all going to play out.
Speaker: And how do you think that people in Vancouver, citizens can help make this happen and be a concrete action? As you, as you say, it's, it's such low hanging fruit. There's going to be open letters that are released. Please sign those open letters. There's going to be petitions. Please sign those petitions. Please write to your, your counselors. I'm urging them to stop this illegal and discriminatory practice. Please write to the minister, organize yourselves, support the groups.
Speaker: around you that are protesting this, that are pushing for this, and become part of the voices that are being raised against this practice. I mean, I think that people forget that the police are here to serve and protect the public. They are here for us. And it's time that we as
Speaker: a nation start to band together and hold these systems accountable to us because we are not here for the police. They are here for us and we need to make sure that we're holding them accountable for that.
Speaker: It's really a remarkable moment in time where we've seen activists call for defunding of the police. And that is actually starting to be something that I think is being discussed in more mainstream circles. And I'm wondering, I know the carding and police checks is just such a small part of that.
Speaker: What's the BC Civil Liberties Association thinking on calls to reduce police power and defend the police in our community and put those resources somewhere else?
Speaker: For years, for decades, governments have been cutting education. They've been cutting mental health services. They've been cutting health services. And during this time, police budgets have been getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And so we fundamentally believe that there are people that are trained professionals, that they are better situated, better placed to deal with things like wellness checks, mental health crisis, the opioid crisis, and things of that nature, education, intervention,
Speaker: Counseling and so we think that the funds that have been consistently being cut from these departments should be going back to these departments so that individuals who are working on the front lines and are better place to handle the circumstances have the resources that they need to do that.
Speaker: At the end of the day, policing is a law enforcement body. It's an enforcement body. It is not there to be proactive. It is not there to be preventative. It is not there to intervene in crisis. That is not what they're trained for. There are other social services that are better trained for that. We've seen it with different Welshness checks and how they've ended up across the country. I mean,
Speaker: You know, we have the UBC student recently and the video that came out about that and her being dragged through the hallway because her boyfriend called in a wellness check. We've seen what happened with Chantal Moore and a wellness check. And she ended up being shot and killed. We see what happened with.
Speaker: Regis Kurchitsky -Paquet and a wellness check and she ended up dying as well. So we know that there are other people that are better placed to handle these circumstances and we believe that these folks should be funded to do the great work that they're doing. Well it's been great talking with you Latoya and we'll keep on this and keep following this super important issue. Thank you so much again for having me. It was wonderful speaking with you.
Speaker: Lorraine Chisholm spoke with Latoya Farrell on Wednesday. She's a policy lawyer with the BC Civil Liberties Association. To learn more about this issue, you can check out the BC Civil Liberty Association's website at bccla .org. You can also go to the Union of BC Indian Chiefs at ubcic .bc .ca. The Hogan's Alley Society can be found at hoganssallysociety .org.
Speaker: The Red Eye podcast is produced at the studios of Vancouver Co -op Radio. You can support us by supporting Co -op Radio. Go to coopradio .org and click on the donate button. Independent media relies on the support of people like you.
