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Toronto Police Deny Criminal Profiling Charges
Toronto–Julian Fantino, Toronto’s chief of police, denied allegations that his police force was unfairly profiling known criminals.
"The [Toronto police officers] are just doing their job, and there is no discrimination against criminals within the force," stated Fantino to the media yesterday.
The charges come amidst a huge controversy surrounding the issue of discrimination on the part of the city’s police officers. Fantino assured everyone that "we don’t arrest criminals any more than we arrest innocent, hardworking taxpaying citizens like yourselves."
Many groups disagree. In fact, the Convicts Association of Toronto has stated that they believe that Toronto’s police system needs a complete overhaul. In a statement to the press, a spokesperson for CAT asked "have you ever noticed how it’s always the guilty who are targeted by the cops? It’s never people just standing around. No, they always have to arrest people who look suspicious, or are actually committing a crime at the time."
The statement went on to announce CAT’s intentions to "protest this injustice until something is done. We can not sit idly by any longer while our prisons fill up with murderers, drug dealers and rapists."
According to officer Jim Bronson, "I’m not sure about every other officer, but I know that when I arrest someone, I don’t do it based on whether or not they’re a criminal. When a society starts doing that, it’s called fascism, and it’s wrong."
Toronto citizens, as well as city hall, fear that there will be a violent backlash if something is not done to stop the controversy. Mayor Mel Lastman told the media that he "hopes the situation will be resolved quickly. This is a multicultural city, and it’s great. Just because a few bad cops have prejudices that cause them to arrest shady looking characters doesn’t mean that it’s a widespread problem throughout the city."
Chief Fantino agrees, stating that he "always judges people fairly, and not based on the likelihood that they actually committing a criminal offense. It’s not like there’s this mass conspiracy amongst the officers to arrest people based on race, or something as trivial and impossible as that."
