“It happened to me once”: five Regent Park carding stories

By Chris Bateman | January 12, 2015

By Chris Bateman | 01/12/2015

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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15 thoughts on ““It happened to me once”: five Regent Park carding stories”

I never produce ID except when legally obligated

To Sylvanus: There is something wrong with producing ID for no good reason. The moment you do, and are carded you are “known to police.” And that’s never a good thing. Best just to be polite and refuse.

Yes, because that’s what “known to police” means. Maybe it’s a wash for poor Sylvanus because he might have a buddy who works for the force or a friend of a friend who once met them for drinks after work who works with the police and therefore he was already “known to police”.

I guess under your argument John Tory is known to police as is Sting.

If you care about your neighbourhood then you would have no problem identifying yourself.

And there in lies the problem with society, a deep unwillingness to take responsibility for making it better.

okay two things

1) it’s “therein” pal

2) Please tell me how society is improved by putting a positive obligation on someone walking down the street to randomly produce ID based on the subjective opinion of a public servant

yeah thanks for coming out clown

????? this doesn’t make a lick of sense.

You go ahead and blindly produce your ID for whoever you want. I’m not going to

If your car was broken into at approximately 2AM and 15 minutes before hand the police noticed a man waling in the area, would you not want to know who that person was if only just to find out if they saw something?

What you said makes no sense. “known to police” means they have a criminal record not that police have met them.

I presume you meant “walking” and not “wailing” or “walling” correct?

No Mike, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t because it’s perfectly legal to be out for a walk and the Charter is something we decided to set in stone here in this country which says a man out for a 2am walk doesn’t have to submit to the harassment of lazy cops.

Please let me know what you think they would have seen 15 minutes before the hypothetical break in that the police should have been recording by the way

And you’ve made my point.

no, actually you become “known to police” the moment you are carded. That’s why it’s so controversial and bad.

The point that you are simply desperate to cede the rights that were consolidated into the Charter and affirmed over thousands of court decisions? Sorry not all of us are in such a hurry to create a fascist police state pal.

I don’t go around calling people bud, pal and clown, but, I completely agree with Sub.

If I am walking down the street, and a cop asks me for ID, or wants to search me. Not doing it. They can work for it and get a search warrant. I have something called the right of “freedom of peaceful assembly”. I also have, “….. the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure”. And! I have this little gem too, “….. the right not to be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned”

I will stand my ground and defend my freedom. The fact that so many people are willing to give up their freedom / rights so easily, because “they have nothing to hide” is frightening. Every time one of you people “with nothing to hide” gives up your rights and allow yourself to be searched, you give up my rights, and Sub’s rights, and everyone’s rights.

I do not want to live in a society where, a cop can stop and ask for my papers whenever he / she likes, for whatever reason.

And, lets be perfectly honest here, the odds of me (Look at my profile pic) getting stopped is next to nil. I’m not the ideal person the system is set up to look for. The system is set up to protect me. Which adds another dynamic to this. You want cops stopping people based solely on race, just to check their ID? No.

That’s not the society I want to live in.

I hear you on the Charter issues, I really do.

I’ve been stopped many times, your picture doesn’t look that different than mine would.

And yes, you can make it a Charter issue, that’s what ‘s great about this country. But look at it this way, you can be insulted by a cop asking you for your name or what if you were mugged while walking home one night only to have the officer say to you, “hey ya, I saw that guy”.

Ya, cops aren’t infallable but at the end of the day we pay them to do a job and we can help them with that job or we can hide behind our rights and make it difficult for them.

Also, you have the right to walk away, but all that does is rouse suspicion and give your bored cop something to do.