A hearing is underway that will decide if Hamilton’s only black city councillor was subjected to an arbitrary, unjustified and racially motivated street check by a local police officer.
Ward 3 Councillor Matthew Green provided his testimony against Const. Andrew Pfeiffer on Monday, the first day of a Police Services Act hearing that is scheduled to continue over four days.
Green said he was waiting for a bus in the area of Victoria Avenue and Stinson Street in April of 2016 when he felt “targeted” by the officer who rolled down the window of his cruiser and asked him what he was doing there.
Green told the hearing that he was made to feel “like a suspect in my own neighbourhood.”
Defence lawyer Bernard Cummins, in his cross-examination of the councillor, indicated that Const. Pfeiffer will have a different story to tell.
Cummins said his client asked Green “how are you doing?” after spotting him under-dressed for the weather and standing in mud, only to have the question returned to him in a “heightened, aggressive tone” by the councillor who started “thumping” his chest.
Green denied that version of events, calling it “preposterous.”
He also testified that Pfeiffer asked about his well-being, only as a “rehearsed” afterthought, after learning who he was talking to and before driving away.
The officer has plead not guilty to one count of discreditable conduct.
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