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In this article re: street checks, the Delta mayor says policing is handled by the police board. Between 2008 and 2018, 6.1% of Delta street checks were of Indigenous people and 2.5% were of Black people, who make up 2.7% and 0.8% of the population #bcpoli https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/british-columbia/article-vancouver-pushes-to-end-street-checks-amid-demands-to-reform-policing/
The Port Moody mayor says he hasn’t had any complaints about street checks. Between 2008 and 2018, 3.8% of Port Moody street checks were of Indigenous people and 3.4% were of Black people, who make up 2.3% and 0.9% of the population respectively. Stats: https://www.needsmorespikes.com/blog/bc-street-checks
The same article talks about a report VicPD put out to say their own data — which shows they disproportionately street check Black and Indigenous people (see image) — is wrong, and their racist street checks aren’t racist and aren’t street checks. https://vicpd.ca/portfolio-items/victoria-police-departments-use-and-documentation-of-street-checks/ #yyj
To believe #yyj policing isn't racist means ignoring the Indigenous, Black and Muslim people who have shared stories about profiling and surveillance by #yyj police. One of the speakers at the Peace Rally said she has been stopped by police four times during the pandemic.
Here are street check stats from Abbotsford, Central Saanich and New Westminster.
Oak Bay, Saanich and West Vancouver.
The rest of this thread is about #yyj and the VicPD street checks report. Here are excerpts from Michael Regis’s report about experiences with #yyj policing: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/586980d4d2b857fd0d24c5fb/t/5e66c2914e508a20d3488198/1583792788737/Michael+Regis+Report.pdf
VicPD ignores those stories, but they felt they had to defend themselves against data, because as Desmond Cole says, “Statistics have to be brought to bear for white residents … before they will get up and open their mouths.”
So VicPD reviewed their 2017 street checks and they decided, retroactively, that any street check where an officer didn’t “engage with an individual based on an objective observation that they believe is suspicious activity or a suspected crime” wasn’t a street check.
VicPD now says only 297 of its 1,327 street checks in 2017 were street checks. 357 were curfew checks; 274 were “intel”; 162 were “traffic violations”; 65 were “bylaw offences”; 22 were “welfare checks”; 16 were people “known to police”; 6 were “morning wake-ups,” etc.
VicPD’s report includes ethnicity data for its pared down definition of “street checks.” If you take out the “Not Available” numbers, VicPD says 6.3% of its 2017 street checks were of Indigenous people (vs. 5% population) and 1.8% were of Black people (1.4% population).
Compare that to the overall data that showed 9.9% of what VicPD called street checks were of Indigenous people and 2.4% were of Black people. They can say 1,030 of their 2017 street checks weren’t street checks, but those other racist stops/checks still happened.
The limited data available on the biggest category they took out — curfew — shows of 29 VicPD 'street checks' in July 2017 for curfew, 10 (34%) were for Indigenous people. Curfew checks involve recriminalizing people by visiting their homes to follow up on parole conditions.
VicPD’s number twisting rests primarily on racist curfew checks — at people’s homes — and other stops being a different part of a racist policing and judicial system that targets Indigenous and Black people, including working to revoke parole. Okay.
VicPD doesn’t provide a breakdown of how “curfew,” “intel,” “bylaw,” “welfare” and “known to police” stops target Indigenous and Black people. The four times the speaker at the Peace Rally was stopped by VicPD, did VicPD record those as street checks? Did they record them at all?
VicPD also says some of its street checks were actually welfare checks, never mind that in 2018 the database VicPD uses literally added “Check Well-Being” as a type of street check. Image is from West Vancouver PD street check stats.
VicPD’s report also says that if a street check “turns into a criminal charge,” it’s not reported as a street check, erasing stops of Indigenous and Black people that VicPD turns into arrests.
VicPD makes up “fictional” street check examples in their report (their words) as part of their twisted defence of street checks.
Actual street checks feature VicPD questioning people for “suspicious” activities like being poor or homeless, not having a helmet (sorry, those are “bylaw” stops now), and questioning people who are afraid of police.
