TORONTO – The violence that followed the police shooting of a young black man in Ferguson, Missouri has resonance for those in Toronto who remember an angry night in May, 1992.
In a spasm of anger that scarred the city, rioters smashed windows and looted stores up and down Yonge Street. It followed a peaceful demonstration that was protesting the police shooting of a black man named Raymond Lawrence, an alleged crack dealer.
Only a few weeks earlier there were scuffles outside a Brampton courthouse after two Peel officers were acquitted of the shooting death of a black teenager, Wade Lawson.
And there were riots on the streets of Los Angeles after officers were cleared of the beating of Rodney King.
Since those days, Toronto police have made high profile efforts to reach out to minority communities but opinions differ on how much has really changed.
“A lot of work has been done in those 22 years in building partnerships,” Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair told Global News. “And I think it far less likely that such a thing can happen.”
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Blair said the Toronto Police service has made serious efforts to recruit more women and minorities, a stark change from when he became an officer 38 years ago.
“In those days they only hired big white guys like me,” he said.
“Through that diversity of perspectives we become more competent, we become more intelligent, smarter in how we police a diverse city.”
Arnold Minors has been on the front lines of the policing debate for two decades and spent some time in the 1990s on the Toronto Police Services Board. While he believes hiring a more diverse police force is necessary and important, he has a far less sanguine appraisal of our progress.
“(We’re) further along in the wrong direction,” he said.
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Minors pointed out that minorities are still being shot and killed by police in the GTA, citing the Sammy Yatim case of 2013 (where an officer is charged with murder) and the shooting of Michael Eligon, who was suffering from mental illness.
There are ongoing complaints by young black men, said Minors, of unequal treatment by police.
“He (Blair) could turn it around tomorrow if he fired the first officer who was found guilty of racial profiling,” he said. “Ferguson, Missouri could just as easily happen in Toronto.”
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In contrast, Blair said he gets calls from colleagues in the United States, asking how to avoid a Ferguson scenario. He believes the police made a crucial mistake in not reaching out to minority communities, long before the shooting of Michael Brown.
“To be trusted, you need to be trustworthy…you can’t make friends in a crisis.”
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