'We should not be afraid of them': Forum tackles police street checks

Daisy Daphne During hopes a meeting she organized between police and the African Diaspora Association of the Maritimes will clarify questions around a controversial Halifax Regional Police practice.

A police street check is the practice of recording information police believe holds some value to a future investigation. The driving force behind a street check is suspicious activity and the information is recorded and kept in a database. The details include age, gender, location, reason and ethnicity.

"We should not be afraid of them. When they stop us, we shouldn't be afraid for our lives. We don't want Halifax to be a place where it's the black against the police," said During, chair of the community engagement committee for the association.

'We want to be treated equally'

"We want to be treated equally and we want peace in our community and we want to feel free whenever we move around. We don't want to be stopped, we think, because of our colour," said During.

About 40 people attended the forum with Halifax Regional Police at St. Andrew's Community Centre in Halifax Saturday afternoon.

Godfred Chongatera, the board chair of the diaspora association, said he hears about street checks frequently.

Working together

Part of what led to the forum, Chongatera said, was a CBC investigation into street checks by Halifax Regional Police that revealed black people are three times more likely to be street checked than a white person.

"What we are doing here is to ensure community policing is taken to a different level so that we co-operate with the police and the police co-operate with us," Chongatera said.

"Because I think the only way police can do their work well and the community going about their daily activity is when we work together."

Filing complaints

Const. Amit Parasram, Halifax Regional Police's diversity officer, said community meetings can make a big difference.

"I think if you look at our recent results with our LGBTQ strategies ... I think it would suggest that the ability to have a dialogue with the police department can lead to the type of results communities what to see," he said.

Parasram said when street checks are performed, a lot of the time the checks involve people that police know.

He also said people can ask police why they're being stopped.

Parasram said complaints about police officers can be made to the force's professional standards investigator.