Jordan
A couple of weeks ago, the Toronto Police Service released its first batch of race based policing data concerning the use of force and strip searches. It also released, at the same time, an apology.
News Clip of Toronto police chief James Ramer
This morning, we released findings detailing the analysis of race based data collected in use of force and strip search interactions. As chief of police and on behalf of the service, I am sorry and I apologize unreservedly.
Jordan
An apology that nobody asked for.
News Clip of Beverly Bain
This has nothing to do with the black community. In fact, the black community never asked for an apology. Neither did I think you were apologizing to the black community. You’re apologizing to your rank and file.
Jordan
The data itself is damning. But it’s not surprising to anyone who has been listening for years to what black Torontonians have been describing in their encounters with police. The story, though, doesn’t begin or end with this data or this apology. The story begins in 2015 with Andrew Loku, and where it ends is still up for debate. We could theoretically be taking the first steps on the road to more equitable policing in Canada’s largest city and beyond. Or we could be left waiting once again for a police force to implement actual change from recommendations. Which will it be?
I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. This is The Big Story. Notisha Massaquoi is an assistant professor in the Department of Health and Society at the University of Toronto. She also led the TPS Board’s ten member anti racism Advisory Panel. Hello, Professor Massaquoi.
Notisha Massaquoi
Hello.
Jordan
Thanks so much for joining us today.
Notisha Massaquoi
Thank you.
Jordan
Why don’t you kind of take us back to the beginning, way before the release of this data a couple of weeks ago, and tell us how the process of gathering it began. What prompted that?
Notisha Massaquoi
It’s a long process, to be honest, and I would say my journey with it began in 2017 with the formation of the Anti Racism Advisory Panel of the Toronto Police Services Board.
Jordan
Was there anything in particular that prompted the formation of that advisory board?
Notisha Massaquoi
It was an external prompt, the inquest around the police shooting and death of Andrew Loku, who was a black man who was having a mental health crisis.
News Clip
Video shows 45 year old Andrew Loku, who suffered from PTSD with a hammer in his hand, walking towards police in his apartment hallway. Seconds after he steps out of frame, he was shot to death by Constable Andrew Doyle, who had only been on scene 21 seconds.
Notisha Massaquoi
They saw a black man in crisis and did not employ any of their de escalation strategies or any of the things that should have happened to get him to medical services. Instead, we end up with a dead black man who was having a mental health crisis. During his inquest, it was determined that unconscious bias kicked in upon arrival for those officers. They saw black men, they went deep into fear mode and the stereotypes that they have of black people, black men in particular, and shot him dead instead of employing the de escalation strategy.
Out of that inquest came very specific recommendations. It was deemed a homicide, and specific recommendations were directed towards the Toronto Police Service as well as the board. One of them was the formation of an anti racism advisory panel that would include community and experts who could address issues of anti-black racism and how it intersects with mental health as well, assisting with the reform that needed to happen at the TPS in terms of anti-black racism. Specifically, we were formed to advise the TPS board on the mechanisms to begin that process of addressing anti-black racism within the service. One of those specific recommendations that came out of that inquest was the collection of race based data to monitor the engagement that the TPS was having with black communities.
Jordan
Can you explain to me what the panel did and what your role was in choosing which data would be collected and how, and sort of starting that process that I guess I would say culminated. But it’s an ongoing process, but that was first revealed to the public a couple of weeks ago.
Notisha Massaquoi
My role started as working with a co chair who was a member of the Toronto Police Services Board. We selected all of the committee members, developed the process, subject matter experts in the areas of mental health, policing, anti-black racism, were also brought to the table. As well as members of the service, who could give us perspective from their side of the experience. What developed was a very lengthy process.
We had many things to do, the collection of race based data, and that policy was just one, and that was the process that I took a lot of ownership and leadership of. It involved communication and consultation with black community leaders, black community organizations. It involved working with the police union, working with those responsible for educating and recruitment of new police officers, consultation with the provincial chiefs of police as well. Because if this was going to be rolled out in Toronto, we know it was going to have a ripple effect across all services in the province. It involved the Human Rights Commission, the Antiracism Directorate. I mean, every level from community all the way up to the highest level of politics had to be consulted so that we could ensure that we were making the correct decision and looking at how we could develop a policy that was going to be impactful.
The other thing that we had to take a look at was, for me, all of the reports. And I had about 40 years of reports, inquiries, requests from the black community to the city of Toronto and the Toronto Police Service in particular, and looking at what those issues were in terms of anti-black racism. And the collection of race based data is very consistently requested over that period, when you look at all of the issues that black people have brought forward to the TPS.
Jordan
Why do you think that is? Why do you think that was at the top of the list?
Notisha Massaquoi
Because when we were giving anecdotal information about how we were experiencing the Toronto Police Service and the level of surveillance, the level of abuse often, it was never believed. It was always dismissed. And no matter what data was brought forward from external to the service, it was always dismissed. It’s inaccurate inflated. It had no credibility because it wasn’t their own data. So part of the push, as the co chair for me was, okay, let’s remove all of the barriers that are in place that you say are restricting your ability to collect this data. And that was our process.
It wasn’t just developing a policy. It was also working with the service to remove all of the barriers. Whether it’s you need a new collection process, you need forms, you need a new I.T. system, you need a department to house this in so that they could collect this data and analyze it. As a community representative, I want every interaction with the Toronto Police Service documented. So why don’t we start with the most pressing issue, which is use of force, right? Let’s get that figured out. And so our policy looked at use of force because it was already something that was monitored and data was being collected. It was just now incorporating race analysis into something that already existed. Use of force is one of the areas of the black community is very adamant. They are overrepresented.
The other piece, which was strip search, came from the side of the service in terms of them adding strip searches, which we’re like, okay, if you think that’s an area that might be a little easier for you to get the process stabilized on, okay, fine, let’s look at those two. So I really want to emphasize, those are the two that we have started with to stabilize the process. The goal is every interaction is going to be monitored in this way through data collection and race based analysis.
Jordan
When you saw this data, was there anything in there that was surprising to you?
Notisha Massaquoi
You know, it’s not that the data was surprising. When you’re on the other side of having the experience as a black person, you know what the data is going to show. What’s surprising to me is that the TPS was surprised, right? So the data absolutely matches the narratives and the qualitative information that we’ve collected from black communities for years.
Jordan
What does it say exactly, just in terms just to set the ground before we continue here, what did we find out?
Notisha Massaquoi
Black communities were over policed in terms of they have more interactions with the police. What you have to understand is that we only make up 9% of the city to be overrepresented in just police engagement period. It lends itself to us to understand what over policing looks like in terms of use of force. We’re more than two times likely to have experienced use of force.
All of our interactions with Toronto police are elevated. All of the negative interactions that have been harmful are amplified.
Jordan
So what happens next, or at least what should happen next? What will the police service be doing with this data, or as a result of it, or at least what do they currently say they will do? Because I think we can probably both agree that the actions will eventually tell the tale.
Notisha Massaquoi
I think what should happen is that we take this data and we socialize this data in the community and then do a significant consultation, the same level of consultation we did to develop a policy to collect the data. I think one of the things that was disappointing in the release of this data and the apology is that it was done so publicly. I think there needed to be a closed door meeting with leaders of black community and black community serving organizations to release the data to them so that they could have a conversation and engage, ask questions. The committee members that actually analyze that data were members of the community as well. So letting people know about the process and then here are the results, and this is what we’re going to do.
But instead, we got this very, I would say shallow media conference and presentation with no significant apology. And the idea that this is really about showing you what systemic racism looks like, it has nothing to do with our individual officers was also the tone of that press conference and the release of the data. You can’t put those two things together. There has to be data collection, release of the data, the magnitude, acknowledging the magnitude of this data, acknowledging the magnitude of the disproportionate experience that black people are having negatively with the TPS, and then what is going to happen to stop those experiences from happening on the ground from individual officers.
Jordan
In terms of data collection, what will continue to happen and what needs to be done in order to get to that place that you described, where records are kept for race based interactions with police? Across every kind of interaction.
Notisha Massaquoi
We have to get to the neighborhood levels, the divisional levels, and then the individual officers. So we also want to look at what neighborhoods are experiencing this more than others so that we understand what’s happening at that level of systemic racism, so that it’s not just this overarching collection of data. Because right now we just have these big numbers. It doesn’t really get into telling us where is this occurring, who is this occurring with? But let’s take a look at the data and see if we can get more refined in the collection of it and the analysis of it.
And we do also have to understand, this is the first iteration of getting a system in place to collect the data and analyze it. So there’s a long way to go. This is step one. What we can say is that the TPS has acknowledged that what black people have been saying for 40, 50 years is true, that we are having disproportionate negative experiences with the TPS. They are not serving and protecting us. We’re both saying the same thing now. So now TPS has to make a decision on how they can use this data to improve their recruitment, their education, their engagement, their monitoring of all of these negative experiences that we’re having as black people, and then they can engage in the elimination of it.
Jordan
Given the work that you’ve done with them guiding this policy, are you optimistic that they’re ready to dig in even more deeply and do the things you just described?
Notisha Massaquoi
You know, they don’t have a choice. This is about what is the right thing to do here. What kind of city do we want to become, Toronto has to become, as the largest city in Canada, the safest place for black people to exist? Almost 60% of the entire black population of the country live in the GTA.
Jordan
Professor Massaquoi, thank you so much for this.
Notisha Massaquoi
Thank you. It’s my pleasure.
Jordan
Professor Notisha Massaquoi of the University of Toronto. That was The Big Story. For more, head to thebigstorypodcast.ca. Hit us up on Twitter at @TheBigStoryFPN. Write to us with email[click here!]. And of course, call us, tell us a story, leave a complaint, ask a question.
We will be taking the long weekend off for Canada Day. There will be a special surprise in your feed tomorrow and next week, we will have a five part series called Interconnected that begins with a look at my shrunken and shrivelled attention span.
Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. Have a safe, happy, healthy Canada Day and we’ll talk on Monday.
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