Red Coalition demanding Montreal police review street checks policy

The Red Coalition is demanding the Montreal police (SPVM) “urgently” review the legal framework of their street checks policy.

They point to a recent case which Alain Babineau, Director of Racial Profiling with the Red Coalition says “is another example of a young Black male being stopped by police for no reason at all, except being Black.”

On June 23, 2023 at around 2:30 a.m., Cyrus Senior, 27, says he was stopped by the SPVM and told, it was a very unusual time to be driving.

“Did he really just stop me because of the time of driving? I never knew there was a curfew to driving in Montreal,” he said.

Cyrus is a DJ and was returning from working at a prom that night.

The Red Coalition says the police proceeded to check the plate of the vehicle and saw that it was registered to a woman, his mother.

“That same weekend, I was driving to another party that I was supposed to be playing at and two of my friends were also following and one of them got stopped,” he said. “And honestly, the only reason we have is because he was driving a Mercedes-Benz. We weren’t speeding. We weren’t going through any stop signs, nothing. It was simply the fact that they seen three black males in, I guess, luxury cars.”

There was no ticket issued.

“I shouldn’t be scared to drive past a police car, I shouldn’t be holding my breath,” Senior said. “I shouldn’t be slowing down, even though I’m already driving the speed limit.”

Montreal police (SPVM) released a second report commissioned by the department on street checks and racial profiling just last month It concluded that racialized people are disproportionately targeted by random street checks. The university researchers that put together the report recommended temporarily suspending random police stops.

“It’s the same story that we hear continuously and there’s very, very, very little change from victim number ten two months ago to two weeks ago to a week ago, to what we’re hearing here today,” says Joel DeBellefeuille, founder and chair of the Red Coalition.

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SPVM chief Fady Dagher said in June that he would not announce a moratorium on street checks.

“I don’t want to announce a symbolic measure, I want to solve the problem. So we’re going to maintain this practice and make sure it respects the rights and freedoms of all populations,” he said when the report was released.

In response to that, the Red Coalition has written a letter to Dagher asking that the SPVM immediately amend its street checks policy and provide a legal framework for the practice, as well as require that police officers have “reasonable suspicion in cases where a crime is about to occur or has occurred” before stopping a person to gather information.

“We require the policy to require the police officer to tell the person being stopped why the officer wants their ID, to tell the person being stopped that they can refuse to give an identifying information to offer the person being stopped a receipt even if they refuse to share the information in that receipt, should include the officer’s name, the officer’s badge number, how to contact the Police Ethics Commissioner’s Office,” said Babineau.

Montreal police tell CityNews in a statement that they don’t usually comment on a particular police intervention, in order to prevent any influence on a possible legal, ethical or disciplinary process. They encourage anyone who feels wronged to file a complaint with the SPVM or an independent body. As for street checks, they say Chief Fady Dagher says he wanted to maintain it, calling it an important practice, but he said he wanted to ensure it’s free from bias and that it respects the rights and freedoms of all individuals.

“I feel for anyone who looks like me, sounds like me because we shouldn’t be on strike one without any reason,” said Senior. “We should have the same decency and the same fairness like everybody else, just to be able to do a simple thing like drive to work.”

(Alyssia Rubertucci/CityNews Image)