“It happened to me once”: five Regent Park carding stories
“It happened to me once”: five Regent Park carding stories
On January 1, police chief Bill Blair quietly suspended “carding,” the Toronto police practice of routinely stopping, questioning and logging the personal information of people not suspected of any specific crime. Carding has been especially controversial since 2012, when the Star published data showing that black people are far more likely—in some parts of the city as much as ten times more likely—to be stopped than people with lighter skin. Regent Park, with about 75 per cent of its population belonging to one or another visible minority group, is one of downtown Toronto’s most diverse neighbourhoods. We asked people there to tell us about their experiences with random police stops.
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- <strong>Abdul Omar, 25</strong><br /> <br /> “It’s a good thing they stopped carding, because I experience a lot of it, especially in this neighbourhood. I got pulled over once, I gave my ID to them, everything was cool. Five minutes later, I cross the street, I get pulled over again by a different officer. I told them, ‘I just got pulled over recently, like five minutes ago, by a different officer. There’s no point in you guys taking my details down.’ They still took it down, never took my word for it."
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- <strong>Arvin Pallai, 27</strong><br /> <br /> “I’m from Scarborough, and every now and then I come home especially late from working my job. A few times I’ve been targeted just getting off the bus. You know: ‘Hey, where are you going tonight?’ It’s like: ‘Going home.’ I have no problem opening up my bag and showing the officers, like, ‘Hey man, I work security, I have nothing to hide from you guys.’ Usually they back off after that.”
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- <strong>Ruth Cameron, 66</strong><br /> <br /> “It’s happened to my husband, who is an extra in movies and TV. He plays homeless people. He’s got a beard, he walks with a backpack, and he wears the clothes. And he was stopped by the police coming home from a shoot because he looked like a homeless person. He actually brought out the papers from the film shoot showing that he had played a homeless person.”<br /> <br /> "There’s a little muddy area there in between people who may have done something and people who haven’t done something.”
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- <strong>Shereece Hyatt, 31</strong><br /> <br /> “You feel hopeless that you can be stopped at any time. It’s almost like discrediting your citizenship. Like, 'You don’t belong here so I have to check you out.'”
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- <strong>Sylvanus Monroe, 31</strong><br /> <br /> “I think it happened to me once. I used to work for a print company, and I went to pick something up at the depot. They stopped me and asked me for my ID and everything. I didn’t hesitate, I just showed it to them. I asked them, ‘What’s going on?’ And they told me. So I don’t see a problem where an officer would stop you and ask you for ID.”<br /> <br /> "To me, if a cop comes to you and talks to you nicely or whatever, you should just comply with them because at the end of the day you might say something that might get them upset.”
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![](http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https://torontolife.com/city/happened-five-regent-park-carding-stories/&title=“It happened to me once”: five Regent Park carding stories&picture=https://cdn.torontolife.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/regent-park-carding-streeters-2.jpg&description=[caption id="attachment_304304" align="alignnone" width="656"] (Images: Giordano Ciampini)[/caption]
On January 1, police chief Bill Blair quietly suspended "carding," the Toronto police practice of routinely stopping, questioning and logging the personal information of people not suspected of any specific crime. Carding has been especially controversial since 2012, when the Star published data showing that black people are far more likely—in some parts of the city as much as ten times more likely—to be stopped than people with lighter skin. Regent Park, with about 75 per cent of its population belonging to one or another visible minority group, is one of downtown Toronto's most diverse neighbourhoods. We asked people there to tell us about their experiences with random police stops.
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