“The bottom line here is you do a timely, accurate, open-as-possible investigation and then you tell the truth no matter who it helps or it hurts,” said Calvin Lawrence, a Nova Scotian and retired police officer who was one of the first Black officers to join HRP in 1960.
“If there’s any changes to be made either through individuals or systemic changes, you do it. That’s it.”
Rao sought medical attention for injuries she says were caused by officers using excessive force during her arrest. Her visit to the Halifax emergency department resulted in her being diagnosed with a broken wrist and concussion. She also has severe bruising under one of her eyes.
While she was shopping at Walmart with her two young children, Rao alleges, she was accused of concealing items.
She says she was alarmed when two police officers and several store clerks approached her with the accusation.
Rao says she told them to check her items and that she had nothing to hide before being interrogated by officers, who allegedly asked her personal questions about where she lived and who else she may have been in the store with.
When Rao says she became extremely upset over police ignoring her requests to prove she wasn’t concealing anything, she became hysterical. That’s when she said one of the officers tried to arrest her.
She says she pushed him away because she was holding her daughter’s hand while it happened and ultimately was charged with disturbing the peace, resisting arrest and assaulting an officer.
Police issued an email statement about the incident on Jan. 16.
The statement reads police “aren’t in a position to discuss specifics at this time.”
At approximately 3:30 p.m. on Jan. 15, police say, a report was received of a theft in progress at Mumford’s Walmart in Halifax.
“Officers approached a woman who was believed to have concealed items. She became verbally abusive and was behaving aggressively,” police said.
“The officers then attempted to place the woman under arrest for causing a disturbance. She resisted and assaulted one of the officers.”
Lawrence says racial profiling is a reality the Black community endures on a consistent basis.
“People’s perceptions are their reality — accusations of racial discrimination in the police, in the fire, in the military, on the buses, and there’s a lot more when I was growing up,” he said, when referencing decades of incidences involving systemic racism in Nova Scotia.
“So it is a fact of life for Black people.”
Lawrence says he faced racism from within the police force and the general public when he was an officer.
As a former investigator, he questions why police approached Rao while she was still inside Walmart.
“If a police officer is going to charge someone and there’s an opportunity to get more evidence, why wouldn’t they let her leave the store? Arresting her before not leaving the store leaves room for a great deal of doubt in relation to intent,” Lawrence said.
He also wonders how things escalated to the point of Rao being taken to the ground by several officers, in front of her children.
“The job should be, and always was, to get voluntary compliance through verbal intervention,” Lawrence said.
Lawrence calls the recent Halifax Regional Police apology to the Nova Scotia Black community for years of the discriminatory misuse of street checks ‘symbolic’ and nothing more.
“The change has got to come from the ground up and the attitudes by a significant number of white police officers, for sure, has been a thorn in the side of Black people for years, including myself,” he said.
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