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The push
1.2k Plays2 years ago
Danielle Paradis of APTN joins host Duncan Kinney to discuss politics and policing, body cams and the context and fallout of the violent push that was caught on camera in Chinatown last week.
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Transcript
Introduction to Hosts and Podcasts
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey folks, Duncan Kinney here, host of The Progress Report. We're a part of the Harbinger Media Network, and a podcast on the network that I want to highlight is actually someone I'd love to have on the pod. I should probably reach out to them. That's Sarah Burrell, the host of Unmaking Saskatchewan. It is a proudly anti-capitalist and anti-colonial podcast series on how Saskatchewan was made and on how it can be unmade.
00:00:19
Speaker
It's fucking fantastic, I love it. I really do recommend the pod on Colton Wall, who is Brad Wall's fuck-up son, if you were not aware. And also, while you're here, if you like what we do and want to keep in touch, this is usually the part where we ask for money. I mean, if you want to give us money, please, there's a link in the show notes. But if you're not on our newsletter list, we would really appreciate it if you could sign up for it. Jim and I, once a week, deliver everything you need to know about what's going on in Alberta, straight to your inbox. We've been doing it for nearly seven years now, and it's a great way to keep up with what's going on.
Danielle Paradis' Reporting Role
00:01:12
Speaker
Friends and enemies, welcome to The Progress Report. I am your host, Duncan Kinney, recording today here in Amiskwetchu, Skaigan, otherwise known as Edmonton, Alberta, here in Treaty 6 territory on the banks of the mighty Kasiska-Sawanissippi, or the North Saskatchewan River. Joining us today is Danielle Paradis, a reporter with APETN, here to discuss not just the latest kind of police brutality story here in Edmonton, but also a wide variety of Edmonton police issues. Danielle, how are you doing?
00:01:14
Speaker
in the world without being on social media.
00:01:43
Speaker
Great, Duncan, glad to be here. And I know I called you a reporter. I didn't actually double check with you. What is your official title with APTN? I know you're relatively new there. I am, yeah. I just started in July with the papal visit being my first story. I am the Western correspondent for APTN. All right, all right, correspondent. That sounds better than reporter. That sounds more like, yeah, definitely official sounding.
00:02:10
Speaker
I guess it kind of sounds like you're explaining the West to the rest of the country, which has long been something that I've strived to do. Uh, I want to be the Chantilly bear of the prairies. Yeah. Uh, Manitoba. Sorry. Yeah. Like Manitoba all the way to Euclulid. That's your beat. I guess now, um, it, it, it shifts, uh, predominantly I'm focusing on Alberta NBC. We do have, of course, the headquarters of APTN is in Winnipeg. So they have a lot of reporters there and also in Saskatchewan.
00:02:42
Speaker
Okay, well, let's get to it. Let's not waste
Viral Police Push Incident Discussion
00:02:44
Speaker
any time. Let's not mention any words. The reason I saw you yesterday at the Edmonton Police Commission meeting, the reason we're chatting today, what has caught the attention of a lot of people, including myself, was
00:02:54
Speaker
an incident that happened recently that was caught on camera just after 4 p.m. on September 15th near the Hope Mission in Chinatown in Edmonton where an unnamed Edmonton police officer was caught on camera in a 13 second video clip kind of violently pushing a woman to the ground. Bear Clan Beaver Hills House posted the video online and it quickly went viral.
00:03:20
Speaker
Uh, before we get into the details, I just, I'm curious as to like your initial kind of thoughts and reactions when you first saw it. I was actually about to, uh, drive out to musket cheese with a colleague. So he gave me a call and, uh, the first place he had seen the video was on Reddit. So he sent it to me and then we were both watching.
00:03:42
Speaker
And it was quite shocking. The videos which have been released since they show a completely different angle, but the initial video that we all saw had the woman being shoved and you could see her actually, I would say flying as she's met with that level of force or open hand force as the Edmonton police call it. Definitely shocking to me.
00:04:07
Speaker
Yeah, and later in the day, the police put out a statement saying that the woman was brandishing a knife, name dropping the gang that she was affiliated with and that the violent push was justified and that no further investigation was needed.
00:04:20
Speaker
On Monday, it was revealed that she was not charged with any crime and that she was released after she was sobered up and was given a meal. And just yesterday at the Edmonton Police Commission meeting that we were both at, the police did finally release stuff, the evidence that did corroborate their version of a bench. They released video footage that showed a knife as well as a picture of the knife.
00:04:43
Speaker
So, you know, you were at the commission yesterday. You've had, you know, a chance to kind of sit down. This is the day after, recording this the day after the meeting. What are your thoughts now that you've kind of seen the additional kind of context that those videos provide?
00:05:02
Speaker
It doesn't really do anything to diminish, I think, the shock of the first viewing, but I would say we've had context given to us over the, since the event happened last week. You know, Duncan, I also saw you at a rally where we were going to watch, that was put on by Bear Clan, and we both heard people talking about police brutality that day
Public Distrust and Police Justification
00:05:30
Speaker
as well. I spoke with somebody who had picked
00:05:32
Speaker
experienced mental health problems and mentioned that they had been hogtied and had a bag over their head. I can't confirm those details, of course, but there's definitely a real lack of trust in the homeless community and the Indigenous community when it comes to the police. So I think a lot of what reaction we saw online came from that and even at the police commission.
00:05:59
Speaker
There was a person there that we interviewed and spoke to media who didn't believe the videos, just said, you know, I've seen enough, I don't believe a video if it comes right out. And that is quite the place to be in if you are the Edmonton Police. Trust is an important part, you know, of our democratic system, of the way the
00:06:23
Speaker
the province works and it shows that there's a lot of work that needs to be done. And that kind of gets us further into the police commission because in their own strategic plan, they did have a note where they mentioned that, that the standards of policing or the thoughts on what policing is or should be have been changing. So there's a little bit of recognition. There's recognition at the strategic level, but I don't know that I saw that come through in the remarks.
00:06:55
Speaker
No, it was, it was, it was a slam down comb run. The cop was justified. She had a knife cop can do it, can do what he wants. And he did what he wanted and got the outcome that was desired. Right. Like this is, I mean, I think the, one of the more interesting things about the rhetoric around this is, is the quotes from the acting chief Devin LaForest yesterday, as well as from, um, uh, Michael Elliott, the chief of the Edmonton police association, the cop union, where they're like, yeah, like,
00:07:22
Speaker
This is policing sometimes is, I mean, I'm paraphrasing them right now, but it ain't pretty is essentially what their quotes were. And I don't think most people are aware that this kind of violence is just kind of par for the course, right?
00:07:40
Speaker
No, I don't think most people would, well, I guess it depends what we mean by most people. Let's say like an average Canadian or average Albertan, probably a middle class person might not have a lot of interactions with the police. It's certainly not a surprise within the Indigenous community. It's stories that I hear quite often. Although I have to say this,
00:08:07
Speaker
story correlates with me also going to Muscatchees and hearing concerns about gang violence and deaths in that community where they're actually calling for tribal police. So we're in a world where we're seeing at least a noticeable increase of disorder or social breakdown, drug use, that sort of thing.
00:08:36
Speaker
And I think we're still reckoning with how to deal with it. Yeah, and Commissioner Jodie Callahue Stonehouse, like she sits on the Edmonton Police Commission, though probably not for much longer than she is running for the NDP.
Homelessness and Systemic Issues
00:08:49
Speaker
I imagine she has to step down at some point. She did kind of raise obliquely the kind of elephant in the room here that this was a houseless indigenous woman who was on the video, who was shoved to the ground. And I'll just read out the quote.
00:09:04
Speaker
Houselessness of Indigenous women has tripled since pre-COVID, so we're going to see more and more incidents unless we strategize collectively on how we might solve these complex problems. When she kind of like stood, I mean, she didn't physically stand up, but when she actually like went to the effort of raising that point, what was going through your head? I was really glad to hear her voice in this conversation. It really shows the importance of having an Indigenous or First Nations woman
00:09:33
Speaker
at the table as a member of the community. She also, she did start by talking about peace pipes being raised and elders reminding her of the importance of the treaty and how that agreement was made with peace and friendship. And when you hear Indigenous people talk about that, that's very much a cultural thing. People may not understand, but there's a real reverence for elders in the culture.
00:10:01
Speaker
We often look to them to give the wisdom of past years and maybe tamp down our more hotheaded impulses. I hope, I mean, she may have to sit down. I'm not really sure of that, but it would be a real loss to the police commission. And I hope that they would look for another perspective in the Indigenous community if that is the case.
00:10:23
Speaker
Yeah, my understanding is that she, I mean, she's running to be an NDP Emily in Edmonton.
Edmonton Police Commission Changes
00:10:29
Speaker
So like, they're very, very good chance she wins. Uh, and like,
00:10:33
Speaker
So I think at that point, she just has to step down. And I think there are a few vacancies, maybe three. I think there are three actual vacancies coming either after Joe Duchal, who steps down, that are coming up. So that's actually like three out of 12, that's what, a quarter of the commission that will end up being replaced over the next, whatever, six months or something. So that is an interesting kind of wrinkle to all of this as well. I think the other big thing that I have to bring up is that like, you know,
00:11:01
Speaker
I was wrong. I am going to have to eat crow on this one. I did not see a knife in the initial video. I spoke to a witness who also said that she did not see a knife, and I thought that the initial reluctance of the EPS to release a picture of the knife, which they would have had right away,
00:11:19
Speaker
as well as the corroborating kind of like, uh, surveillance camera footage and the fact that they didn't charge her. I thought that this was all just going to be a coverup. I was extremely skeptical of the EPS version of events. And I, I think it as a journalist who does police accountability journalism, like I think I'm very justified in being skeptical of the Edmonton police service, but I was wrong. You know, their, their version of events ended up being corroborated by the footage. So now.
00:11:48
Speaker
Danielle, is your opportunity to roast me? Did I fuck up on this one? Well, there's a saying in journalism, first to publish, first to be wrong. So that is one of the perils of rushing on a story, Duncan, and you were one of the first that were out.
Skepticism in Journalism
00:12:07
Speaker
Now, I think when it comes to skepticism,
00:12:12
Speaker
I teach journalism too, and so one of the things that I talk to my students about is the importance of sort of waiting. Sometimes the story, the entirety takes a while to come into focus, and that's not a very popular thing. So you're certainly not alone. There were other media rushing to cover the story in whatever way they could as well. Where you may have been premature was in bringing in that analysis part, I would say. So did you fuck up?
00:12:42
Speaker
A little, yeah. To be fair, I did post the EPS statement. We have updated our story to reflect the footage that's been released. We're doing all of the journalism things that we should be doing. I am a member of the Canadian Associate of Journalists. I did go to journalism school, got taught by maybe not the same people that taught you, but the same type of people.
00:13:05
Speaker
You don't have to prove your bona fides to me. Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough. But I guess moving off of that, I mean, I suppose the fun one final kind of question about this incident that I that I want to raise with you is like, was this still police brutality?
Police Brutality and Accountability
00:13:22
Speaker
Well, there's I don't know that the police brutality as a term is kind of it's not it's not a legal definition. There's not a black and white description of what it is. It's even the police, the acting
00:13:35
Speaker
Chief for McPhee, LaForge, mentioned that people do have different perspectives. So people that you and I have interviewed still feel like this was an excessive use of force.
00:13:50
Speaker
When we look at the use of force report that the commission receives twice a year, we see that that was a category two, I believe, so minor, minor injuries, but not requiring outpatient procedures or hospitalization. So there's a real difference in opinion and feelings and probably an experience. I mean, imagine you're
00:14:14
Speaker
the woman who was shoved to the ground, that's probably a far more traumatic experience than the officer doing the shoving for whom it appears to be quite routine based on their comments at the commission. I mean, I think what the footage did show was just kind of how fast it all happened and the kind of instantaneous decision making that was at play there. And I don't think the first instinct was not to de-escalate the situation, right? The first instinct was to push that woman to the ground when she wasn't looking
00:14:45
Speaker
And, uh, you know, from the police point of view, it worked. It got the outcome that it wanted, but, uh, you know, when, when, when you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail, right? And in this case, the solution was to immediately escalate.
00:15:05
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think the framework of escalation and de-escalation as we talk about it, it seems to be different than how police view successful interactions with the public. Their comments at the commission showed that they thought that this was, although maybe not by the book, because of shoving not being the tactic that they necessarily teach, but that the decision making, the lack of any further incidents and the
00:15:33
Speaker
Like the way that she was de-armed and then, you know, they definitely repeated several times that she was fed a meal. So that was something that they really wanted us to know. I think that when we talk about these things, we're coming at it from different worldviews. The police don't necessarily view interactions with the public in the same way or what constitutes positive or negative social experiences.
00:16:03
Speaker
I mean, the police made it seem like she was about to go on like a murder spree or like a stabbing spree, right? And I watched the footage and I think even the cop just showing up there kind of like broke up the argument that was happening, maybe the fight that was about to happen between those two women. You know, I don't want to like Monday morning quarterback what happened here. I think we've discussed it enough, but it's just like, you know, this is policing.
00:16:26
Speaker
in with, this is how it works. And this officer, according to the police did nothing wrong. And there's not going to be any follow up or any investigation and that this is it. The case is closed. Okay.
00:16:40
Speaker
Yeah, and within the frameworks, like, you know, ACER does the serious incident investigations. You can see how it wouldn't fit into anything, an investigation there. And then for the internal standards, I think what they focus on is really the resulting injury is when it comes to those interactions, like was the person severely injured, hospitalized,
00:17:07
Speaker
you know, or was there an outpatient procedure? When we look at the metrics, I think that's how we can begin to start to understand the ways in which the institution that is policing views the work that they do. And I think that that's an important perspective to look at. It doesn't mean that you have to agree with them, but to have these conversations, and Jodi Callahue Stonehouse also called them uncomfortable conversations. But you have to kind of, you have to try and understand the worldview in order to get
00:17:37
Speaker
how we can make changes within it, if that's what you're looking to do. I'm glad you brought up this strategic plan because, yeah, that was another interesting part of the Edmonton Police Commission, the whole experience. I mean, I think that was your first meeting. I go to them all the time. But like, yeah, they just kind of drop these documents full of corporate speak. Like, it very much does function like a corporation and they have these documents. But there were a couple of very eyebrow raising
00:18:07
Speaker
parts of this strategic plan that I think speak to the conversation that we were just having about the lack of trust. They literally, the subhead is lack of trust. I'm just going to read it out here because this is actually in an Edmonton Police Service document. Across North America, there have been several highly publicized incidents involving police that had tragic outcomes for racialized communities. Can we just, before I can keep reading the lack of trust subhead here,
00:18:34
Speaker
Can we just marvel at the like, amazing passive voice of that sentence? Yeah, I mean, we're looking at, you know, still essentially a branch of government. So they really do follow that.
00:18:48
Speaker
way of speaking, several tragic outcomes for racialized community, that phrasing can hide a lot of sins. And that's not really from an opinion perspective. That's just if you're a journalist who covers any kinds of government offices, you get used to having to actively
00:19:10
Speaker
makes sense of what they're saying. And Ruto, you know, that kind of language is infectious. You have to actually pull it out yourself. I found myself having to go back and edit, I think it was like, disabling injuries and hospitalizations, something that I was horrified to see, I put in my own work.
00:19:27
Speaker
Oh man, it is. It is everywhere. You do have to constantly kind of root it out. But here, I'll keep reading. Consequently, public calls for accountability of policing have increased while trust in all police organizations have declined. EPS's own statistics show a decrease in the number of Edmontonians who have confidence in EPS. And according to the EPS annual perception survey, overall perceptions of EPS declined over the last year. Some of these indicators reflect a lack of trust. And then they go on to reference a poll, which whatever polls or polls.
00:19:56
Speaker
They're probably referencing a poll too, but I don't think they're wrong to kind of highlight.
00:20:00
Speaker
the lack of trust within their own strategic document. And this whole, the other two things I'm going to read, which are quite interesting as well, this is all like a state of policing kind of is the super head of all of this. But like, I mean, I still have to go back to that. Several highly publicized incidents involving police that had tragic outcomes for racialized communities, what they're talking about are where police murdered black people. I mean, that was the starting off point for,
00:20:30
Speaker
Black Lives Matter and the summer of 2020, the largest protest movement in North American history. Let's just read little pieces of this strategic report back and forth to each other as a podcast. It was right above the comments about politicizing policing and how
00:20:54
Speaker
police and politics have become increasingly intertwined. And so here, they're looking at the federal and provincial laws. And if you've ever been in a strategic planning session, you know, it's like this big group of people, everybody's kind of like, oh, pining, there's always some loud mouth, who wants to over intellectualize everything is always somebody else that thinks they're an expert. And then you kind of jam this into a document that is full of somewhat non sequitur conversations.
00:21:23
Speaker
But one of my favorites is literally talking about decriminalization and the social effects. For example, while decriminalization may prevent a person from being arrested for the personal possession of a small quantity of drugs, the use of drugs still has social consequences for which there are limited supports.
00:21:44
Speaker
It's like, okay, well take that a step further then. Where should the supports maybe come from? Maybe your giant police budget? I don't know. This all seems, I don't know, how do you say this, Danielle? Very political? Like the decriminalization of drugs would be a political decision, not a policing one. Even though Chief Dale McPhee has come out very publicly, as have all the Alberta chiefs of police against decriminalizing drugs.
00:22:12
Speaker
which again is a political position. The police don't get to decide what the laws are, what's legal or illegal. But I think this one leads very well into the final one, which you kind of raised as well, which is the little subhead here is politicizing policing.
Police as Political Influencers
00:22:26
Speaker
Police and politics have become increasingly intertwined with many opposing views on what some believe policing should be and what it fundamentally must do, keep people safe. This has led to disruptions in funding and erosion of public trust in the police.
00:22:41
Speaker
Yeah. Are politics and policing becoming increasingly intertwined? I wouldn't say that there's an increasing, I mean, police unions have existed for a long time. For 60 years, yeah. For 60 years, which, you know, in the Canadian memory is forever. It's like half of the creation of the country. So well, a little bit less than half. Anyway, moving on from my bad math, we need to
00:23:08
Speaker
think about the ways in which police have always had a tremendous influence in conversations, especially at the municipal level, because the police, even the way that the police are governed is largely unknown to people. And I know you know this because you've been doing a lot of
00:23:27
Speaker
a lot of work, but when I speak to people, they come to me, if they're upset about some police interaction, they ask, well, what does city council do? And I have to explain the role of the police commission, the kind of like at arm's length role. It's not as though you can just call the mayor and have him like, go scold the police chief. That's not how the system works. And most people are shocked about that. And they say, well, why don't we know this?
00:23:52
Speaker
That's a pretty good question. The police are some of the most intensely effective and vocal political actors that exist in politics. Straight up. That is not an over exaggeration. The police have a political agenda and they work towards affecting that political agenda
00:24:13
Speaker
very well because they have a huge platform. Media listens to what they say. Counselors listen to what they say. The public listens to what they say. They have massive communications department. The chief can just show up and call a press conference and every media person will show up. There is
00:24:29
Speaker
No world in which politics and policing are not incredibly intertwined because the police are political actors and always have been. There's a reason the Edmonton police have a half a billion dollar budget. And it's not because they're not political. Yeah, at the very, I mean, I think
00:24:50
Speaker
Andrew Nack once talked about this when I was talking about police budgets back with my Rage Against the Municipal newsletter, that this is one of the few areas of a bureaucracy, be it like the provincial, federal, municipal, where whatever the performance measures, they could be given more money because that's the defense, right? And we saw that just the other day when it came to
00:25:16
Speaker
discussions on body cams. So some community members like Jodi from Beaver Hills, Bear Clan is interested in body cameras and the police respond with yes we are too and that means that we would need more money. And so that's a unique, well it's not unique for a branch of government to be calling for more resources and money, that's very normal, but to be so effective.
00:25:39
Speaker
as a message and to get that public outcry. You know, Andrew Knackett said that was one of the few areas of the city where if you even try to have a discussion on the budget, you get momentous public pushback and people kind of say to you, well, you know, the police need what they need to do their job.
00:25:59
Speaker
And that doesn't really happen anywhere else. You don't hear that in social services. The boss of Edmonton Public Transit does not have the same amount of political sway as the police chief. I don't even know that person's name. What is their name? I don't know.
Body Cameras and Budget Allocations
00:26:18
Speaker
I'm sure you did a great job though, whoever you are.
00:26:23
Speaker
No, I have no beef with ATS right now. But you did bring up a point that is in the notes that I do think I do want to spend a little bit of time on, which is this issue of body cameras. I believe it was raised by counselor Karen Tang. And I think Judy Gale also brought it up in some quotes.
00:26:39
Speaker
to media and I have my own thoughts on body cameras and I'll just gonna put them out there because I think it's worthwhile to just like nip it in the bud. I think the call for body cameras must be resisted. Body cameras do not address poverty or housing or mental health or addiction.
00:26:57
Speaker
They do not address a broken police accountability system where cops investigate cops and where cops skate away from nearly all of the consequences for their actions. Body cams won't make the Edmonton Police Commission like do the job of providing civilian oversight. And finally, body cameras can just be turned off when cops want to turn them off. It is literally just millions of dollars more into the police budget, into the unaccountable money pit that is the police budget. Like you remember the dash cam stuff, right? You've seen that story.
00:27:28
Speaker
Yes. So the dash cam, they were given money for the dash cam, and then they decided the police asked to reallocate the funds for that. So that's kind of the 50 cent view of the story. They went to City Council, they're like, we need five million. I think it was five. Don't quote me. But like, we need five million dollars for dash cameras, which is like, and then City Council was like, great, here's five million dollars for dash cameras. And then EPS was just like, actually, we spent it on IT instead.
00:27:56
Speaker
You know, like, that's the police budget. So you can't necessarily guarantee that there would be purchasing for the body cameras. But I think what you've said is really interesting as well. I certainly don't blame the community for trying to look for a way that they can increase what they view as a lack of accountability. But, you know, I think you raise interesting points about why that might not be the solution.
00:28:26
Speaker
Yeah. Like I'm just going to pull a number out of there. Let's just say it's another 5 million for body cameras. There's, you got to pay a guy to do it. There's the data management. There's attention. You got to buy the cameras. Let's just say it's 5 million. Let's say it's like 4 million capital cost, 1 million ongoing. That's like, you can actually build housing, you know, like anytime I, I have a story coming out, I'm going to scoot myself a little bit. Uh, but like I have a story coming out, uh, either probably by the time this comes out,
00:28:53
Speaker
And the city of Edmonton pays $1.4 million a year in just cash payouts to cops for close.
00:29:00
Speaker
They have a, in their collective agreement, uniform cops get just under $600 a year. Cops who work in civilian clothes get $1,250 a year. It's just, and it's just wired into their account at the beginning of the year. It's just like, Oh, you're a cop. This is part of your agreement. Here's, here's $1.4 million a year in money that goes out the door for, for cash. That's in for clothes. That's $1.4 million a year that could like literally be building houses. Like what, uh, what defines like the closed budget?
00:29:28
Speaker
Uh, like boots, clothing, dry cleaning is the, like the broad rubric, but it's just, it's just, but it's just a cash benefit. Right. Like they could spend it on anything, but it's like, as a union, they're also remarkably effective. That's a, that's quite a benefit. Yes. Uh, when you compare it to ETS, for instance, the, the transit union, uh, they get $85 a year for boots.
00:29:49
Speaker
That's the, that's what they get. And then fire has, uh, like $700 a year, but it's like a point space system and they have to, um, they can only get half of the money has to be spent on like firefighting clothes. Uh, so it's like, it's not comparable. It's not, it's not like a direct cash benefit either. So yeah, they do have a very effective union.
Race-Based Data Collection Challenges
00:30:10
Speaker
Yes. Uh, I wish every union was as strong and effective at bargaining as the cop unions were.
00:30:17
Speaker
Um, just some other police commission stuff I wanted to run down real fast. Uh, we were supposed to get a presentation from stats can on the race data project that they have been working on for many, many years. Uh, but unfortunately they canceled and pushed it a couple of months, but this really does highlight the fact that EPS does not collect race based data. Um, and their justification for this is that, Oh, we're waiting for stats can to give us these unified guidelines. Um,
00:30:45
Speaker
But Ontario collects this race-based data. It was released earlier this year to great fanfare. Really, I mean, a wholly ineffective but very large scale PR blitz by the Toronto Police Service to try and minimize the fact that, oh yes, Toronto Police do in fact use more force against black people with very little explanation than any other group. Isn't it kind of embarrassing that this data isn't collected already, Danielle?
00:31:13
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, as a journalist, it's been incredibly frustrating when you're trying to contextualize police interactions with the public or even just statistics when you see high levels of incarceration among certain populations. We've long drawn inferences, I think, from the US, which does beat us when it comes to data and transparency in some states.
00:31:40
Speaker
where you see higher levels of interaction with police within, say, the Black community, which naturally then would correlate to higher levels of incarceration. We've not effectively been able to do that kind of analysis here in Edmonton or in Canada. Now, we do have a couple years of data from, was it Toronto or Ontario policing?
00:32:04
Speaker
Maybe just Toronto, yeah. Toronto, yeah. So Toronto specifically. And that gives us a tiny picture, but that's a very different community and very different like diversity and like communities that you'd find in Toronto than you find in Edmonton. You have, you know, a port city, it's a place where lots of people coexist together, whereas Edmonton is still somewhat homogenous and or slightly segregated in our
00:32:35
Speaker
in how we are in our communities. And so you're left to you're left with like, with anecdotes. And although the
00:32:44
Speaker
Another aphorism is that the plural of data is not anecdote. But we don't have anything else to work with. So it's not only embarrassing, it's frustrating, it's deliberate, I think. Not sharing this information means that it's challenging to form a narrative.
00:33:09
Speaker
that tries to show that, say, indigenous populations are disproportionately affected by the police or other marginalized populations as well, of course. And the police collect some race data, like as the the foips and the work of kind of Bashir Mohammed showed, like indigenous people and black people are carded.
00:33:30
Speaker
were street checked more than disproportionately more than like their population in the community. But I think the lack of free space data really, the fact that they canceled and that we're waiting on this unified guidelines set and EPS doesn't collect this data, I think the fact that
00:33:46
Speaker
the fact that this is embarrassing that they don't collect it was made all the more clear because of the same police commission meeting, they released, EPS released their control tactics report, which is essentially like every six months they release a report that says, here's all the times we like pulled our guns out or beat someone up or like took them to the ground or used a Taser. And they've got all the numbers, they've got the graphs, they've got the trend lines, but
00:34:12
Speaker
We don't have any context on whether all that force is disproportionately being applied to a Black and Indigenous people. We suspect that it very likely is, but we do not know. Yeah, when it comes to analysis or those big conversations, and this actually ties in in kind of a weird way to a release that came out while you and I were at the police commission, I believe, about hiring more female peace officers.
Police Force Diversity and Use of Force
00:34:43
Speaker
So we have all these interactions, I would say, with diversity metrics, like it's, you know, obviously, if the city is going to put out a release, then they view this as here's a positive thing that we're working towards, you know, race and gender inclusion. While simultaneously, we're hearing at the police commission through
00:35:07
Speaker
not only Lafarce, but also the Staff Sergeant had their Tassen, I believe, talking about race and gender, in fact, not being a consideration when they apply force to somebody. They've said that they don't include that because it doesn't have anything to do with lethality or the ability to disrupt community or something like that. They just said they don't think about race and gender when it comes to that.
00:35:30
Speaker
Even in the strategic plan, though, there was a conversation about hiring more racialized police officers or something about metrics on Indigenous police officers. And so it's either important or it's not when it comes to how we interact in the world. If race and gender is not a factor, then why would they think it's important to hire more people from that population?
00:35:53
Speaker
That's a very good point. I hadn't considered that, but they definitely down to the, yeah, every single woman, every single like nonwhite person that gets hired, like that gets noted in a report and they.
00:36:02
Speaker
Like I've seen those reports, they definitely keep track of that shit. And I think there's, I mean, just from the use of force, like the control tactics things, like I've looked at those a couple of times, they come out, I've reported on them before. The trends in this one are the trends that I've seen before, which is that police, the amount of times that police pull their guns out keeps going up and that's steadily rising. The amount of times police pull their tasers out keeps going up, though the amount of times they use them has remained relatively flat.
00:36:32
Speaker
Um, like the actual, like punching, kicking, striking numbers went slightly down while the amount, the number of takedowns or, uh, what did they, they had some, uh, what was the police nomenclature for takedown? It was like balanced dislocation or something. It was something like that. Yes. They had take down in there as well, but it was, uh, yeah, it was like balance, location slash takedown, just in case you like couldn't figure out their cop speak. Um, I think those were up.
00:36:58
Speaker
So, you know, take it what you will. I mean, this was the first time you've kind of looked at this data. Did anything kind of jump out at you from these kind of use of force statistics? I mean, we had a conversation pretty early on when I saw them about the slight, the increase that was somewhat significant when it came to firearms and tasers. It's very hard to like, this is where metrics are not that useful to me. I mean, each one of these is a story.
00:37:27
Speaker
And when you take like that, that story that we just covered of, of the woman being shoved to the ground, that's the category two. Um, that doesn't, that doesn't necessarily have a weapon. So it would be like an open hand strike. I think is what they called that. So within each one of these numbers is, is a whole story. And, and it, I don't find it personally. And then maybe this is just being a journalist or a writer. Like it's not a very compelling way to tell me what's going on.
00:37:55
Speaker
the community. It doesn't tell me if there's a problem with police aggression or not. I don't think. Like would the hospitalization numbers have to be high for us to be concerned or how can you look at this chart and parse out what this has to do with trust in the community? Like how can you, you could maybe do some overlapping graphs of like
00:38:15
Speaker
increased number of open hand strikes or, you know, versus, versus public trust polling or something. Right. But even that would be very ineffective because the people that they're polling are probably not the people that they're open hands. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,
00:38:32
Speaker
It is a relatively useless data because there is such little context. You don't have the race-based data. The other thing that makes the data less useful as well is the fact that any super serious incident that gets kicked up to assert, it just isn't included in the stats for some reason. The Edmonton police have killed four people this year with their guns.
00:38:54
Speaker
Like one of them was just like a person sitting on their couch, like behind someone else who was getting shot. None of those stats, none of those deaths are included in the stats.
00:39:04
Speaker
Yeah. And then I don't know what the reason for that is if it's just some, because it's a different department or, or they don't feel it's someone else's problem. It's someone else's problem. It's Acer now because it's an Acer it's, it doesn't exist or it doesn't exist to them. Right. But this information does still go to the police report or the police commission. It's important to say that like, it's not as though nobody has this information. I don't know. It just does this for whatever reason, it's not included in their control tactics, statistics for whatever reason. Yeah.
00:39:32
Speaker
And did they, um, if you have those in front of you now, what do they, do they have any, um, like contextualization or like metrics? Like, is there a good percentage of stress of force? Or do they, is it just kind of a neutral? Just remarking on trends. They're just like, it went up, it went down and stayed the same. You know, like the analysis is not deep. The analysis is just like, does the line go up? Does the line go down? You know? Right.
Transparency and Gender Goals in Policing
00:39:59
Speaker
But one last police commission thing, and I will take a small W from this, which is that buried in some like policy changes is the fact that the Edmonton Police Commission yesterday debuted a policy, put it into actual practice that the salary of the chief will now be disclosed on a yearly basis.
00:40:22
Speaker
And now this is only happening because like I foiled it and I kicked up a stink about it because like for some reason it wasn't public. Like Albert, like Calgary and Edmonton like seemed to be the only two major municipal police forces that just like don't disclose the salary of the chief for some reason. And Edmonton is now disclosing the salary of the chief. So, you know, journalism works folks.
00:40:47
Speaker
So yes, a good small W. It is nice to see, well, I don't know. This, I'm trying to say I have bambivalent feelings about them, but if other public servants have to have their data out there, then it is equally fair to have the police chief.
00:41:03
Speaker
I mean, he's the highest paid civil servant in Edmonton by a wide margin. Say what you will about Sunshine Lists, but the guy makes $340,000 a year. He's the highest paid civil servant by a wide margin. That should be public information. Yeah, I think that's fair. Lastly, yes, this is law enforcement adjacent.
00:41:26
Speaker
This came out literally like the same day as the police commission stuff. And I did just want to touch on it briefly, which is the city of Edmonton sent out this release to the media list yesterday headline city of Edmonton takes pledge to advance women in enforcement. The city of Edmonton signed on September 19th, city of Edmonton signed the 30 by 30 pledge to increase the recruitment, retention, and promotion of women in law enforcement in the city of Edmonton's community standards and neighborhoods branch to 30% by 2030. Uh, they really do.
00:41:54
Speaker
These kind of bureaucratic institutions really dove these numbers, like 30 by 30 as if it means it. It's picked out of the air, but okay. Currently, 19% of the city's community standards peace officers are women. This is below the national average of 22% and get this Danielle, below the demographic breakdown of Edmonton's population. Did you know that 19% is less than 50?
00:42:23
Speaker
Yes, well, let me think of a positive thing to say. It was nice to see David Jones name. He was a former police officer, now apparently a branch manager for community standards and neighborhoods. David Jones was a big advocate for having more women in policing. So I guess he's bringing that initiative over to the
00:42:47
Speaker
the city of Edmonton's, what are we calling them? The peace officers? These standards and neighborhoods. Yeah, these are the peace officers. These are the people who like hand out bylaw tickets and yeah, these are the like, they don't have guns. These essentially, they're like enforcement folks who don't have guns. And apparently it's a good job with work-life balance. They have some quotes in here from a peace officer who loves the job and
00:43:15
Speaker
One minute she's doing patrols on bike. The next day she's working at downtown festival, you know? Yeah. Yep. Um, I mean, I'm not, I don't think this is like a huge news story or anything like good on the city of Edmonton, I guess, but like that line just, I had to, I had to bring it up like below the demographic breakdown of Edmonton's population.
00:43:41
Speaker
Thank you. I mean, I guess you have to put that in.
00:43:50
Speaker
It's very funny. Just some stat. There are 190 peace officers and 40 municipal enforcement officers in Edmonton. So if they want to get to 30% by 2030, they have to have a lot of work to do. And I did mention, and I'm curious what the outcome of this would be. So I think this is something to watch. And I don't know, actually, this brings like, where's the data on peace officers and their interaction with the public?
00:44:16
Speaker
because they do mention that they are trained in Indigenous awareness, mental health awareness, de-escalation techniques, and how to work with youth and Edmontonians experiencing homelessness. So for people whose job it is to issue parking tickets, I'm really curious how that interacts with the, or how they envision, is this community policing? Are they trying to have some kind of policing outside of the police because they're not seeing the changes they want to see? Or what does this mean for us?
00:44:46
Speaker
I mean, the scale of this I think needs to be put into context. So like 190 plus four, that's 230. We'll just lump them together. There are about just under 2000, there's like 1900 sworn police officers in Edmonton.
00:45:04
Speaker
So you're looking at a fraction. It's almost an order of magnitude more police officers than there are these kind of police peace officers, these unarmed peace officers or municipal enforcement officers or whatever they're calling them. So the scale of the budget is much smaller. There isn't really any oversight as far as I'm aware.
00:45:26
Speaker
There isn't a police commission for peace officers. There isn't really this civilian oversight body that exists.
00:45:35
Speaker
It's, uh, it is kind of parallel and adjacent to police, but it is, it is not police and it doesn't have the resources that police have or nearly the amount of just people working the job.
Peace Officers vs Police Force
00:45:46
Speaker
So, you know, I like the fact that they're trained in indigenous awareness and mental mental and mental health awareness, I think is very funny. Um, I've always found indigenous awareness to kind of be a funny phrase too, to be honest, like what, just like aware that we exist or like, what do you, what do you know that they're around? Yeah.
00:46:05
Speaker
Like you talked to an elder and now you're like, oh, well, I should stop now.
00:46:12
Speaker
But, you know, like this all sounds like, you know, fine. The people who are out there, like making sure you don't jaywalk or like, I don't, I don't really know what these peace officers do. Like, I know they, they show up to these, uh, when, when encampments are getting kind of like torn apart, uh, usually there's cops and peace officers there too. Like, and they're like responding to.
00:46:35
Speaker
You know, incidents that don't require police, but like they're no substitute for like actual kind of like crisis mental health crisis response, which is dramatically under resourced compared to even these peace officers. So.
00:46:52
Speaker
And I know that this doesn't fit in very, like it's just because we're talking about mental health awareness. This has reminded me. Do you recall that story in Calgary about the police officers doing some training with like a very dubious source?
Training and Mental Health in Policing
00:47:07
Speaker
Yes. Charles Risnell's scoop. Yes. I mean, I don't have it in front of me, but what a scoop by Charles Risnell. I mean, the cops just absolutely got taken in, but in an absolute con job diploma mill.
00:47:19
Speaker
of like, yeah, it is. It was a very funny story. Uh, and the like, what was he was, he was a member of the, like some hilarious associations that like the association of like surfing doctors or something. Yeah. It was this, um, like, it was like an alternative response. And, um, there's somebody in the HR world that has their PhD from this Academy. And then they had just these scathing remarks from the FM and American, um,
00:47:48
Speaker
I forget who he is, but like an American talking about how, you know, it wasn't worth the paper, it was printed on. And it was really interesting. So I guess I'll just say I hope that the mental health awareness training was from a good and reputable source. But I think I think we do need to keep an eye on like this peace officer program and what it means because I think like the city is trying to signal something but I'm not
00:48:13
Speaker
entirely sure what it is yet, and maybe this is just being an obtuse reporter, but you know, why are you telling me about the Indigenous awareness, the mental health awareness, the de-escalation techniques? And does that mean that this is designed to be or intended to be a program that will help to take away the calls from police? Or what's the goal here in having this kind of simultaneous quasi police force?
00:48:40
Speaker
I agree. I think they do need more scrutiny and we do need to kind of like, what do they actually do? I'm just going to read the headline for this global news story. It's a 13 minute read. It's really quick. We'll put it in the show notes. If you haven't read it yet, go read it. But it is a very funny headline. Education fraud experts raise alarm about Calgary police ties to unaccredited college that uses Anaheim PO box in strip mall.
00:49:01
Speaker
and then the first paragraph here. Dr. Robert Perkins, a self-described expert in the prevention and treatment of PTSD, a certified sexologist and a board member of the North American Surfing Doctors Association, was scheduled to give an in-person presentation on September 13th to Calgary Police Service members. Despite your laughing, it's also very serious because I'm sure PTSD is a huge issue within
00:49:28
Speaker
all police forces. I mean, there are some stats on that, but you need to get actual help, not some weird surfing doctor. It's like surfing sexologist. Yes. So the story is wild. Like it, uh, and it's wild. Like, like Charles personnel posting about it online too. It was like, yeah, this was like literally like a Google search. We found out this guy's like background. Like it was not like it was hard to find.
00:49:55
Speaker
No, and I think it, you know, I think a lot of the influence comes in because it is, of course, a lot of age, like most of the time in organizations that I'm familiar with, HR is responsible for the training of the employees. So if you have somebody who's already going to the school, I can definitely see how it happened. But I feel for the person that actually, like the guy that uncovered this too, he took the training, he thought, whatever, whatever happened in the training made him look up like, who is this person? And then he realized, oh, this is a,
00:50:24
Speaker
a weird sexologist? And why is he training us on PTSD? So it is funny, but I
Contact Information and Engagement
00:50:32
Speaker
also feel for the people that are, you know, had time and money and resource wasted and probably need actual mental health, health support. So it's kind of a darker element to this story, too.
00:50:46
Speaker
Yes, you have much more empathy than I do on this story. I'm just maybe in life in general. Maybe, maybe. This has been a lovely conversation, Danielle. Thank you so much for coming on. What's the best way for people to follow along with the work that you're doing? What's the best way people can keep track of what you're up to? You can find me on Twitter at at dannyparody, or you can find my writing on APTN.
00:51:13
Speaker
If you must, you can go to danielparity.com and you can see some samples of my previous work as well. Sweet. And, uh, yes, I'm very excited that you're there now and, um, you know, over the Western correspondent, lofty title and, uh, I hope to be able to grow in the role.
00:51:36
Speaker
Now also folks, if you have any notes, thoughts, comments that you think I need to hear, I'm very easy to get ahold of as well. Like I'm an email at Duncan K at progressupholder.ca. And I am also on Twitter far too often at, at Duncan Kinney. Thanks to Jim Story for editing this podcast. Thank you to Chasmic Famicominist for our theme. Thank you for listening and goodbye.