Group says they were racially profiled for being ticketed while playing basketball

MONTREAL (CityNews) – Six young Black men were fined $11,500 in May 2020 for allegedly not following public health measures at a basketball court in Repentigny, east of Montreal.

The group of four men and two minors claim within the same time frame, a group of white men were only given a warning for the same alleged infraction.

“So there’s a systemic, systematic problem of bias law enforcement in that municipality,” explained Fo Niemi, Co-founder & executive director at CRARR.

“The issues that we’re going to raise is racial profiling, racial discrimination in the application of the law, and its very important to understand that this isn’t the first complaint that we have in front of the Quebec human rights commission,” she added. “We’re now talking about 13, almost 15 cases that we helped local residents file and we’ve been told actually there could be more coming.

VIDEO COURTESY: Lakay Media

Pierre Richard Thomas, President of Lakay Media explained in French; “The young men felt there was more to this than just paying a ticket. It’s what happens behind all of this discrimination and profiling. The way society sees them, especially in Repentigny.”

“Normally when it’s disallowed to play, the net is flipped, but the City put the net at the right place and there were other children playing,” added Thomas.

“There’s a feeling of injustice in their mind that is very present in their mind and this is why we’re trying to accompany them in their defense in front of the court,” said lawyer Me René Saint-Léger.

Twenty-one-year-olds Carley Louis, Nathan Dery, Jonathan Philippe Guerre, Chris Sherma (22), and two minors claim they were respecting public health measures on May 19, 2020. Three days earlier, the Quebec government issued a de-confinement decree that allowed gatherings of up to ten people, but not for organized team sports.

“The rules were changed quite a lot and at the time there was no problem with the mask and also they read in the news that they believed that they could play as long as there was social distancing,” said Neimi.

VIDEO COURTESY: Lakay Media

A spokesperson from the Repentigny police department said fines were give to nine individuals and over 20 were playing basketball at the time.

“Several violations of sanitation regulations were reported that day, in fact the same thing happened to a group of three people that were playing basketball before but this case was not was one of the most visible violation of the sanitary measures because they were 20 people on the court playing basketball and we learned that one of the mothers of the kid had COVID,” explained Lison Ostiguy, Repentigny Police Chief Inspector.

However, Lakay Media who initially helped the men before CRARR became involved, says it receives an average of ten calls a month regarding racial profiling or discrimination within the Repentigny community.

“This is about telling society that it’s enough, it needs to stop,” explained Thomas in French.

Repentigny police say there are efforts being made within the force to help end racial profiling, but claim this case is not discriminatory.