Editor’s Letter: the cost of police carding is just too high
Since the Toronto Police Service introduced the practice of carding about 10 years ago, they have collected data on over a million Torontonians—and that’s a conservative estimate. On the face of it, the process sounds benign. The police stop you, take out a form and ask you a series of questions: your name, your car’s make and model, your home address, phone number and other details. They note where you are and who you’re with. That information goes back to their division, where a clerk enters it into a massive database.
The advantage of this broad-based fact gathering is obvious. Data, in the digital age, is power. Naturally, the cops want as much information about the citizens they police as possible. They use it to make connections among people of interest in investigations and ultimately to solve crimes. When they want to question the friends of a shooting victim, for instance, all it takes is a few clicks on the keyboard, and presto, they have a slew of names and contact numbers.
But at what price? Desmond Cole, in his vivid memoir “The Skin I’m In,” answers that question by chronicling his long, painful history with police in Ontario. As the Toronto Star proved definitively in its exhaustive data analysis a few years ago, the cops are much more likely to stop a young black man like Cole than a mid-career white mom like me. I’ve never been carded. Desmond Cole has been stopped and interrogated more than 50 times in almost 15 years.
The outgoing police chief Bill Blair, under tremendous public pressure, reluctantly suspended the practice of carding in January pending review. The Toronto Police Services Board, the civilian body that oversees the cops, drew up a set of guidelines for police interactions with the public—a comprehensive reform of carding procedure. And for a brief moment it looked as though this whole ugly carding business was behind us. Significantly, the board recommended that cops only be permitted to stop people when there is a valid public safety purpose, i.e., when they’re preventing or investigating a crime. That’s obviously the right idea. It will make police work harder, but it’s the price we should all have to pay to avoid humiliating and terrorizing citizens like Desmond Cole. In his memoir, he lays out the psychological toll of all that police questioning. After you read it, I’m sure you’ll agree that the cost of carding is just too high.
However, Blair was so unhappy with the recommendations that he refused to implement them. A former judge had to step in to facilitate a compromise between Blair and the board. In the end, the chief got most of what he wanted. In late March, he stood up with Mayor John Tory and Alok Mukherjee, the head of the Police Services Board, and triumphantly announced a new carding policy that looks an awful lot like the old carding policy.
What constitutes a “valid public safety purpose” has been broadened to include not only preventing and investigating offences, but also preserving the peace and “the performance of common law duties, including the duty to protect life and property,” whatever that means. The definition is vague enough to cover the kinds of police interactions that caused the outcry about carding in the first place.
My guess? Desmond Cole can expect to be stopped many more times—until we finally put an end to carding.
Would this be a problem if White people had their own country? What are the benefits of mass immigration, multiculturalism and multiracialism, apart from the endless discussions of racism, privilege and equality? Aren’t the privileged people the ones who get to come to White countries and get full citizenship, even though their people had no part in building these civilizations and are seemingly incapable of doing it?
… ok. Do you give your Nazi costume a rest on Halloween, or do you wear it all year long?
I guess that makes the Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Turks, Nigerians etc. SUPER NAZIS, since they all have ethnic homelands and accept no immigration. Or, do you have one rule for White countries and one rule for everyone else?
SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU FUCKING PIGSKIN PIECE OF SHIT. BITCH. your a racist faggot. Dman, your annoying. Wish you said this to me in person.
So, white people have to share their countries with delightful and vibrant individuals like yourself, but other successful countries have no need to do this? Further, why don’t you want to live with your own people? Segregation is awfully good for Whites, we built the greatest societies in the world with no vibrant diversity. Why is it so terrible for blacks?
Come see me anytime you’re free. I can explain it to you. Talking will take too long, and I don’t feel like typing.
In other words, you have no answer for your hypocrisy apart from threats, violent outbursts, and deflection. How enriching, are you a vibrant example of diverse youth? What a welcome addition to a White country you are.
Your name is David right?
Racism exist in canada stop shoving it under the rug and face it .one world one people one love shalom
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