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| Clown outfits demonstrate lack of pride in the SPVM |
"Premier François Legault said Monday he "stands in solidarity with people who denounce racial violence" — though he denied, once again, that there was a systemic problem in Quebec.I don't know if the Premier honestly believes what he says but frankly, it's a crock of bullshit.
"I think that there is some discrimination in Quebec, but there's no systemic discrimination, no system in Quebec of discrimination," he said, adding "it's a very small minority of the people who are doing some discrimination." Link
Sadly, Quebec remains the most racist province in Canada where discrimination exists on a societal level where minorities, especially blacks are discriminated against by landlords, police, employers and certainly the government and the civil service itself.
Worst of all is the police and specifically the Montreal police which by any standard is a disgraceful organization that very well may be the most racist police force of any major North American City.
That's right, I'm not mincing words.
The Montreal police force is as racist as it comes with officers regularly targetting people of colour, natives and Muslims for 'special' and unfair treatment.
It is an organization stuck in the 1960s built on racial profiling and rough treatment of potential suspects and arrestees.
The SPVM is largely unprofessional, corrupt, racist and downright thuggish, where the lack of pride in themselves and their organization is manifested in its treatment of citizens.
This lack of pride is underlined by the police union desecrating their own uniforms in adopting camo pants in a pay dispute, rendering themselves a laughingstock in the eyes of the public, like sad-sack clowns thoroughly unprofessional and untrustworthy.
And who can forget Montreal's most infamous cop, the egregiously violent, racist and cruel Stéfanie Trudeau, better known by her badge number "728" She was filmed making a violent arrest in a stairwell in east-end Montreal. She was also famously filmed gratuitously pepper-spraying peaceful demonstrators. She was finally fired for many acts of depraved police brutality and racism.
Problems of corruption were so bad that the Chief of the Montreal police was fired and the corps put under trusteeship after charges of gross misconduct and falsifying of evidence and documents were shown to be rampant.
Montreal police have never given up the discredited tactic of 'rousting' or as it's referred to in New York, "Stop and Frisk" or Carding as it is known in the rest of Canada where mostly minorities and particularly Blacks are stopped based on a flimsy excuse like jaywalking, spitting, loud talk and other such nonsense. The idea is to check the unfortunate detainees for outstanding warrants, drugs or perhaps illegal weapons.
New York's 'Stop and Frisk' policy ended in 2013 after the courts intervened and despite whining by politicians and police who claimed that their hands were being tied, the demise of the policy had no effect on the crime rate.
Here's a chart describing the unwarranted stops made by the SPVM.
Now before I continue I'd like to address those who are okay with rousting criminals on contrived grounds as long as honest law-abiding citizens are left alone.
And therein lies the rub.
Many, many minority and coloured law-abiding citizens are constantly stopped and humiliated by this policy which is an affront to their civil rights to be treated equally under the law. It is or should be offensive to all of us who believe in fairness and equality.
While the policy is rightfully on the trash-heap of history in most jurisdictions, it lives on in Montreal where police make unwarranted stops of not only criminals but law-abiding minorities as well.
Let's go back to the death of Fredy Villanueva, the most famous of all rousting incidents gone bad, which led to the death of his brother Danny after cops confronted a group of known miscreants in a city park over the trivial act of dice-playing. The confrontation escalated quickly and the rest is history.
The subsequent outrage over the death didn't rise to the level that we see today in the United States over the death of George Floyd but that's probably because the general public in Quebec was not too disturbed by the police action.
Here' is just a few interesting incidents of racial profiling and the Montreal police.
There are many, many more documented acts of police profiling;
"Following this week’s protest, here is a partial timeline of Montreal police interventions that have raised questions of racial profiling and sparked calls for change."
Months after they complained of being violently arrested by Montreal police for talking "too loud" a biracial couple now has video of the incident as taken by an eyewitness.
Kerwin Clarke was pulled over in Verdun last weekend by Montreal police officers — and he says, for no clear reason.
The Saint-Lambert resident was in the car with his daughter, Quinn, in the back seat when they were stopped.
Two Montreal Alouettes football players said Thursday they are considering filing a racism complaint against Montreal police in connection with an incident on Monday night.
Lateef Martin was walking along Messier Street in Montreal's Plateau neighbourhood around 1:30 a.m. Saturday when he was ticketed for not using the sidewalk.
A black Montreal high school teacher arrested while waiting for takeout food has accused police of racial profiling and abuse.
Montreal police stepped in after the bar tried to book a performance by a group of hip hop musicians.
Police say the event was targetted by street gangs, and even though the show was cancelled, the Department of Alcohol decided to yank the bar's licence unless it agreed to never again host hip hop or rap acts.
Former high school teacher says he was roughed up by two officers in 2010 while waiting for take-out
Bernard’s positive attitude toward the police force changed dramatically last February after he says he was unlawfully arrested, handcuffed and ticketed while working as an Uber driver.
“I know this would not have happened if I was white,” Bernard said in an interview Monday.
The organization Quebec Native Women (QNW) has filed a complaint alleging systemic discrimination and racial profiling by the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM).
How did the Montreal police react to this report?Racial profiling: Montreal police release damning report that reveals 'systemic bias' by its officers
"An independent study commissioned by Montreal's police department reveals that its officers stop people from visible minorities far more frequently than they stop white people.
The study, which focused on a three-year period from 2014 to 2017, found that in Montreal an Indigenous person was 4.6 times more likely to be stopped for a "street check" than a white person, and that a black person was 4.2 times as likely to be stopped. Arab Montrealers were twice as likely to be stopped as white Montrealers. ("Street checks" are interactions with police that do not result in an arrest). "
Montreal police have no plans to end street checks, despite concerns
Recently Montreal police Chief Sylvain Caron told the media that the SPVM is committed to eliminating any practice of racial profiling, but the announcement of this supposed policy has been put off time after time.
It is amazing how out of touch with reality and modern policing techniques Canada's second-largest police remains.
In 2017 the Montreal police adopted a pilot program where officers were outfitted with body cameras but rejected the idea after officers complained that they felt they were being monitored.
I'm not kidding.
Sadly, the Montreal police is a dinosaur organization that has little desire to change its racist culture and because the Quebec public is largely sympathetic, there is little impetus to change."After a year-long trial by 78 officers, the SPVM has concluded body cameras have little impact on interventions, present logistical challenges — and leave most officers who have to wear them feeling as if they're under surveillance.
Not only do police dislike wearing cameras, outfitting all 3,000 patrol officers with them would cost $17.4 million over five years, according to a 215-page report to be presented to Montreal's public safety committee Friday.
"The project did not unequivocally demonstrate that portable cameras promote the transparency of police interventions, strengthen trust between the police and the citizen and ensure the safety of police," says the report, which is already up on the SPVM' website." Link
Next time you hear complaints about police racism and brutality south of the border understand that Montreal's police are right up there with the worst, the saving grace being that the only reason violence is less pronounced here is because criminals are less violent.
“and I hate the English as much as you do.”
ReplyDelete“AND I HATE THE ENGLISH AS MUCH AS YOU DO.”
There is no systematic racism in Quebec ��������
There's negative selection in police recruitment. Recruits who are found to have too much empathy or are too intelligent are weeded out from the police units. This is the case pretty much everywhere these days.
ReplyDeleteNot to mention the level of militarization of the police force these days. Many police precincts have military grade weapons at their disposal.
Events such as riots incited by the controlled media which overplay some events, rent-a-mobs bankrolled by the oligarchs involved in these riots, or things such as organized crime that is allowed to exist to cause discomfort in the law abiding population - it's all there to justify all this police power in the eyes of the public.
I was wondering how long it would take for this issue to come up, but like death and taxes, this certainty finally come into being. I have seen this blog in the past bring up the subject, so what else is new? The Laval police were caught pulling out a man they put in their cruiser by the hair. An RCMP officer whacked a drunken indigenous man with his door. I imagine in both cases, they weren't warranted actions, but all we saw were the incidents themselves, not the lead-up to what caused the incidents.
ReplyDeleteAs soon as Lego opened his mouth re there being no systematic discrimination, you KNOW I snickered and snorted in derision. We've had anti-English legislation going back to 1974 (Bill 22) and even before that, and we've had a slew of language legislation for decades following. Pauline "The Housewife" Marois and her failed Bill 195 identifying what is a suitable Quebecer, and then Bill 21 and the anti-religious symbols being allowed in public. Has the cross yet been removed above the speakers chair in the National Assembly? [Insert snort of derision here].
Quebec IS the land of discrimination against anyone not of their own ilk. They don't give a rat's ass about ANYBODY not of their own kind.
Incidentally, did anyone notice the name of the uniformed killer in Minneapolis? It's CHAUVIN! Perhaps the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree. For those who don't know, The areas that were settled by the French in America were the Great Lakes region, the area along the St. Lawrence River, and the Gulf of Mexico near the mouth of the Mississippi. These territories were part of the colony of New France..
Re the Orange Turd serving at the white house: His grandfather in 1885, Friedrich, emigrated from Kallstadt, Palatinate (then part of the Kingdom of Bavaria). His wife, Elizabeth Christ, was from the same city. The family name was originally Drumpf, changed during the 30 Years' War in the 1600s. Again, one has to wonder if the apple fallen too far from the tree. It took two world wars last century for the Germans to learn to reform...mostly due to the reparations they were forced to pay twice.
A final interesting point is how America is the self-proclaimed most important country on Earth. They believed devoutly they held the moral high ground to put highly profiled German officials on trial after WWII in Nuremberg.
George Floyd's death was nothing new in America, just this time the incident was filmed from start to finish. Originally the solicitor general was going to try Chauvin for third degree murder, a difficult charge on which to convict, and the three other officers who also sat on him or stood around bumping on a log were to be unscathed. Public opinion and the global outcry changed all that. I believe the quarantining from COVID 19 and the lost jobs that have resulted were just enough to tilt the anger of a world already in angst and at full boil. Hopefully this will keep up (although it doesn't tend to if history is a guide), and if so, maybe it will be the only good of COVID 19's otherwise unwelcome arrival.
There is racism in Montreal police? Yes certainly, but more than the US? The country where 1/3 of the black males have done prison time ? Really? And Quebec is more racist than the ROC where there are still natives communities without clean waters?
ReplyDeleteNobody with a sane head believe your usual anti-quebec platitudes, you anglomoron.
Unknown: I see you're cowardly enough not to uniquely identify yourself. That being said, by process of elimination, I imagine your cheap shot is directed my way? Fair enough; however, all you made above were unsubstantiated comments. Where do you get the fraction 1/3? I didn't pertain to water conditions in First Nation communities ("native" is politically incorrect). Neither Canada nor the U.S. hold the moral high ground when it comes to criticizing the lack of human rights in other countries, esp. since the current U.S. president is encouraging, with every fiber of his being, division domestically.
DeleteThink of when the U.S. went over to Germany after WWII in the latter 1940s to conduct trials on crimes against humanity. There were 99 convictions, and within the decade, nobody was imprisoned any longer despite lengthy and life sentences.
BTW, did/do you even live in Quebec? Are you one of their ilk? I have a feeling the answer to at least one of those questions is "yes", so without further comment, you're free to exercise your Section 2 rights in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
As a person of color I am fed up with white people dictating to me whether or not I've been a victim of racism or if I live in a society of systemic racism.
ReplyDeleteApparently racism only exist if and when a white person claims that it's real. This whole attitude is dismissive of people of color and reeks of white privilege and is racist.
So who says public outcry doesn't pay off? Looks like Mayor Plante is looking for rethink now that a report has been promulgated showing there is systemic discrimination. In Quebec, that's a du-u-h-h-h! Cops banging hookers in the driver's seat of their cruisers, intimidating black people in Montreal-North/Ste. Michelle, and that cop interestingly named Trudeau a.k.a. "sept-deux-huit", a fat-assed zealous female officer who was trigger happy with pepper spray years ago. Thankfully she off the scene, but many, many other officers need to be removed too.
ReplyDeleteBest of all was the Chief of the RCMP and her 180º turnaround re racism in the Force. Too many police recruits are not properly vetted and so you have too many bad apples in what could otherwise be a respectable police force.
I can only hope Mayor Plante does more than pay the report lip service. I wouldn't be surprised if she does, but I would be disappointed if lip service was all that is paid to the report.