Report on racialized bias by Toronto Police (particular to excessive force)

[SunriseChampion]

As someone who is somewhat street involved (I'm not getting into details except to say that I know some unsavoury characters and hear all too much of their even more unsavoury associates/friends/business "partners"), I don't at all mind saying that Max Sterling is somewhat correct, though deffo exaggerating the point with bogus statistics.

I'd also like to point out yet again that the problem isn't systemic racism, the problem is the war on drugs. This sort of "systemic racism" is a symptom of the war on drugs, just like all these shootings are a symptom of the war on drugs, and all these young men from broken and broke homes joining gangs is a symptom of the war on drugs.

You might think I'm oversimplifying the matter, but I'm not. I don't have statistics except the anecdotal kind from personal involvement and experience, but no poor person starts carrying a gun because the state is racist and won't give them a job. They do so because they need it to keep from getting robbed of their hard-earned drugs money/drugs and need it to eliminate competition and to set and maintain the hierarchy of that particular element of society.

I'm not saying all this nonsense would disappear overnight with the legalisation (propertly, not this marijuana joke of an attempt) of psychotropics as their are other dodgy sources of revenue for desperate/sociopathic/psychopathic/mentally unwell/etc people, but none as frigging easy to make money on as drugs are.

Some drugs have a ROI in the thousands of %. This is why even non-desperate people from non-broken homes who are not poor get into it. It's just too easy to make money.

The whole things needs to stop or this endless yammering about systemic racism and gun violence will keep going in the pointless rhetorical circles and nothing will change.

No one gives a shit though, because for one side "drugs are bad mmmkay" and for the other it's any excuse to blame everyone and anyone else for people's personal failings.

I should also like to add that not all gun crimes are a direct/indirect symptom of the war on drugs, but are instead a self-fuelling of gun violence whereby the risk of gun violence actually increases the incidence of gun violence. Just a word from the streets.

 

[Max Sterling]

The young man killed the other day wasn't black, I don't recall the 'race' of the 15 year old accused having been given out.

As to victims, there certainly are a disproportionate number who are black; but a quick look at the faces of the victims of Toronto's unsolved murders suggest the number is far less than 95%.

Like cmon. If you hear enough of the same stories over so many years and the overwhelming majority of them involve the same people, you'd have to be dumb to not see patterns and MOs and specific behaviors and know that the next incident that is similar will most likely involve them once again.

- 'known to police'
- 'accused has ties to gang activities'
- underage person committing a violent crime
- brazen shooting in broad daylight around many people with the shooter not giving a damn about anyone or anything

You don't have to be a detective to know that all those indicators usually point to one group and one group only. Sure there can always be exceptions, but they are extremely few and far in between especially when all those factors are present in an incident.

I would appreciate you're ceasing from making any further posts until you learn to support your views with evidence.

Your lazy. You make assumptions, you just take for granted that your right, and the facts be damned.

Look stuff up! Confirm your opinions with evidence!

There would be 30 years worth of evidence by now if one group of people didn't get angry and offended and called race based crime data inappropiate and offensive to them and heavily criticizing then police chief Julian Fantino for releasing that data publicly. This is why I can't wait for the new data to be gathered and released to show what we've known for decades now and then see what kind of new excuses people will come up with.

Also unless you purposely avoid watching the nightly news, I don't know how you can hear about the stories and even often see actual video capturing the suspects and not see who's predominately involved in the majority of violent crime and murder cases. And if you think that's anecdotal well if almost every major violent crime in the city involves the same group of people and it happens for decades, then it ceases to become 'anecdotal' anymore doesn't it? Well find out soon enough when data is released and then letes see how people explain away those results.

Also here's a list of all the 44 shooting victims in Toronto in 2019. Search their photos and see if there's info on the suspect as well and then see who's involved most often?

With 292 people shot, 2019 comes to a close as Toronto’s bloodiest year on record for overall gun violence

Accounting for population growth, the rate of gun violence in 2019 far exceeded even 2005, which was called “the year of the gun.”

www.thestar.com

Systemic Racism

includes the policies and practices entrenched in established institutions, which result in the exclusion or promotion of designated groups. It differs from overt discrimination in that no individual intent is necessary. (Toronto Mayor's Committee on Community and Race Relations. Race Relations: Myths and Facts)

Just because one group of people constant cries and complains about 'systemic racism' it doesn't mean that 'systemic racism' actually exists. In fact the only two groups of people who consistently cry about systemic racism are black people and natives who *GASP* color me shocked are surprisingly the two groups with the highest crime and violence rates!

I just find it interesting that in Canada and especially in Toronto/GTA where we never endingly advertise how wonderfully diverse and multicultural our city is that with all the different races/ethnicities that have been living in and around the GTA for decades now that none of all these other minority groups have ever complain about 'systemic racism' even a tiny fraction as often those two other groups have. All these years that I've lived in Toronto I don't think I've ever heard of asian or indians (from india) or most other minorities cry 'The government/justice/police are biased against us ALL THE TIME!!' Nope never happened.

Also here's a link that show that 'systemic racism' isn't a thing:

ELDER: Criminal behaviour, not racism, explains 'racial disparities' in crime stats

A new study on racial disparities in police conduct found that differences in offending by suspects, not racism, explains officers’ responses.

torontosun.com

 

[Max Sterling]

You say groups and then one group. Which is it?

And what is that group? It can't just be skin colour. It's almost certainly also focused on age and gender, and then income, education, family type, ethnicity/country of origin, gang affiliation, etc. If you want play at demographer you can't just go by skin colour, otherwise you’re just lazily applying the superficial.

The group that's most involved in violent crime and murder in the GTA are black males and increasingly they've been starting younger and younger and perhaps we'd have even better data to work with these days if the black community didn't get angry and offended the first time Julian Fantino released some data and all hell broke loose.

As it is anyone who watches the nightly news regularly and see the patterns and every so often video of the suspects could easy make the same conclusion themselves, but of course that would be 'racist' even if you're just commenting on their behavior and keep wishing they would stop messing up the city even for a little while.

Demographics can be a powerful tool, you can drill down to nearly the exact commonalities of the target group and thus keep the bycatch small, but you need to dig. I used to be a customs inspector at Pearson in the 1990s, and we had profiles on who to target, but it wasn't race, but was behaviour and associations.

I agree. This isn't about race/ethnicity and its about behavior, HOWEVER the people who are most often involved in crime and violence disagree and DO make it about race ALL THE TIME. If you try and criticise them on their violent and criminal behavior they will always call you racist instead of acknowledging that their behavior is pretty damn violent and shitty alot of the time.

 

[SunriseChampion]

As I somewhat agree with your premise based on my own experiences and knowledge of crime-involved people and who they tend to be, I'd like to know what you suggest be done about the level of gun violence.

@Max Sterling ?

I know what my prescription is (see my post above), but I have a feeling you'd disagree so I'd like to see your ideas on what to do.

 

[Northern Light]

..... also like to point out yet again that the problem isn't systemic racism, the problem is the war on drugs......

I would venture toward this being somewhat overly simplistic; but, I happen to agree the War on Drugs was a bad idea from day one, and a failure of public policy on a grand scale. I will go further and agree that it has a detrimental effect that is clearly disproportionate on one community, more than on others.

However, I would first say, this is 'systemic' racism. The argument I will make would set aside any issue of intent (though I think that may also have been and still be a factor); but rather I would argue simply that:

a) Visible minorities found to be in possession of moderate quantities of illicit drugs have been far more likely to be charged by police than those who are 'white' over the years. The white kid w/pot has it confiscated and gets told and maybe taken back home; the black kid has been far more likely to be arrested and charged and end up 'in the system' over what at best, is a trivial and non-violent offense.

b) If one group happens, for historical reasons to have suffered greater poverty then it will face the consequences of said poverty disproportionately also. That means, less liklihood of being able to hire a lawyer or mount of a vigorous defense, it means being a victim of over-policing, of less sympathetic officers, crowns, judges and juries. It also means less access to rehab/addiction treatment.

Systemic racism, does not mean someone starting out w/ill intent based on someone's race; that's just run-of-the-mill racism. Systemic racism is a bias of one kind or another in law, or in practice that effects one group (by race/colour) in a disproportionate way.

I think the War on Drugs fits that description perfectly.

But I also think socioeconomics is a factor, other systemic racism issues are at play, and old fashioned racism, both conscious and subconscious have contributed to the problem.

 

[SunriseChampion]

I would venture toward this being somewhat overly simplistic;...

I will concede that I am indeed simplifying things a wee bit.

... but, I happen to agree the War on Drugs was a bad idea from day one, and a failure of public policy on a grand scale. I will go further and agree that it has a detrimental effect that is clearly disproportionate on one community, more than on others.

What community would that be? I'm not sure it can be argued that any one identifiable group of people has been harmed the most by the war on drugs.
You have poor black crack addicts in 70s NYC. Then you have rich white opioid addicts in 2010s BC.

Just two examples of identifiable groups who have been beat down by the lack of sensible policy (and their own choices, I'm not going to pretend otherwise having been there done that, so to speak).

I'm assuming you mean harmed in terms of criminal prosecution. In that case, it's largely dependent on geographical location, isn't it?
I think you may now be oversimplifying things a bit.

a) Visible minorities found to be in possession of moderate quantities of illicit drugs have been far more likely to be charged by police than those who are 'white' over the years. The white kid w/pot has it confiscated and gets told and maybe taken back home; the black kid has been far more likely to be arrested and charged and end up 'in the system' over what at best, is a trivial and non-violent offense.

In my very real experiences with this in south central Scarborough, I can attest that this isn't true. It's much more a function of socioeconomic status than skin colour. In fact, the only person I know from that area who has been able to get away with murder, so to speak, is a visible minority friend. From what I can tell, the police do indeed treat people differently but it's much more based on socioeconomic status than anything else.
Now, whether or not different ethnicities generally attain higher socioeconomic status might be the question.
Trust me, none of me and my friends who have had serious interactions with police got any sort of different treatment based on the level of tan we've genetically been gifted with.

b) If one group happens, for historical reasons to have suffered greater poverty then it will face the consequences of said poverty disproportionately also. That means, less liklihood of being able to hire a lawyer or mount of a vigorous defense, it means being a victim of over-policing, of less sympathetic officers, crowns, judges and juries.

Why would the consequences of historical poverty be disproportionate to the historical poverty experienced?
So, from those same experiences in south central Scarborough I can also attest to the existence of pathetic intergenerational poverty. Some of my friends were lost from the day they were born. Didn't have a chance.
Again, it had nothing to do with skin colour. At least in those environs, this particular beast was an equal opporunity disease of the soul.
Socioeconomic status, not skin colour, is the primary determinant of future success in this case as well.

So, yes, if some people were historically economically disadvantaged the consequences for their progeny would be very real. However, this was never determined by race. The intergenerationally poor white kids who came from places where their ancestors were also held back can't be explained away by systemic racism.

It also means less access to rehab/addiction treatment.

This has nothing at all to do with skin colour and everything to do with the abject poverty of our society's attitudes on mental health.

Systemic racism, does not mean someone starting out w/ill intent based on someone's race; that's just run-of-the-mill racism. Systemic racism is a bias of one kind or another in law, or in practice that effects one group (by race/colour) in a disproportionate way.

I think the War on Drugs fits that description perfectly.

The war on drugs doesn't discriminate. The kid from the wealthy white family who comes from old money dies eating a pill sold as MDMA because drug testing isn't available and product purity isn't regulated is at the same disadvantage as the black kid who gets arrested for posession of 5g of ganj is at the same disadvantage as the alcoholic who is dying from liver failure because they weren't informed about treatments or the dangers of alcohol during their daily trip to the liquour store.

The war on drugs isn't a functional manifestation of systemic racism; it's a functional manifestation of fear, ignorance, and irrational thought (which describes racism as well, har har).

But I also think socioeconomics is a factor, other systemic racism issues are at play, and old fashioned racism, both conscious and subconscious have contributed to the problem.

I won't disagree with that. Alls I'm saying is that a massive contributor (by far the largest single reason for) to the gun violence problem is the result of the war on drugs making the drugs market insanely lucrative. That's it. All this bang bang is over drugs and access to the market for distributing them and reaping the massive profits.
I'm not kidding about ROI of thousands of %.
The numbers can be staggering. Enough to make anyone a bit mental if the need is there.

 

[SunriseChampion]

In any case, the war on drugs tramples the hell out of Section 7 of our Charter and results in more trampling of Section 7 by resulting in all these gun deaths.

 

[SunriseChampion]

Yeah, poor parenting is deffo a massive issue here as well.