Human rights body issues 1st racial-profiling ruling

A teenage boy wasthe target of racial profiling when he was detained by security guards in a Montreal metro station in 2002, the Quebec human rights commissionruled Friday.

Marc Arthur Charmant Legros was taking thesubway home from school when a guard wrote him a ticket and physically forced him to leave the station.

The commission says the Montreal transit corporation should pay Legros $15,000 in damages and provide mandatory sensitivity training for its employees.

The Centre for Research Action on Race Relations filed the complaint on behalf of the teenager's family. Executive director Fo Niemi said Friday'sdecision, which marks the first time the commission had heard a racial profiling complaint,sends a strong message to Montreal's security forces.

"It set out the parameters for all our enforcement agencies— police, security guards, even private security— with regard to what you can do and what you cannot do.

"[It tells them] how to stop a person, how to talk to a person, and how you can even detain a person, physically or otherwise," Niemi said.

The transit corporation must respond to the decision, and say if it accepts the terms, by mid-August.It could also appeal the commission's ruling.