Article Link: https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/1236666–toronto-police-tavis-stop-of-four-teens-ends-in-arrests-captured-on-video
Four Black Teens. Racial Profiling.
Racism.
Incident:
Four teenaged men — three with braces in place to straighten smiles — drape their sprouting frames over chairs in a stuffy second-floor room overlooking a common area in the Neptune Dr. public housing complex, where a police encounter they had went dangerously wrong.
No, they agree, they will never again try to exercise their rights when confronted by police.
On Nov. 21, 2011, the teens — twin brothers, then 15, and two friends, aged 15 and 16 — were walking in the common area, on their way to an after dinner Pathways to Education mentoring session. The much-lauded program helps keep kids in at-risk neighborhoods in school.
The Neptune Dr. housing complex sits within the Lawrence Heights area, one of the city’s 13 designated priority neighborhoods.
In an event that would quickly escalate to punches, a drawn gun, five backup cruisers and first-time arrests, an unmarked police van rolled into the parking area and two uniformed Toronto police officers with the Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy (TAVIS) unit emerged.
The officers, according to police records, were at the Neptune Dr. buildings to enforce the Trespass to Property Act on behalf of the Toronto Community Housing Corporation.
The four teens, all of whom live in the complex, had been stopped and questioned many times before by police. They had also all attended a moot court program, where they learned about their rights.
This encounter came off the rails when one of the teens attempted to exercise those rights and walk away.
Roderick Brereton, a youth worker and conflict management consultant who works in the Lawrence Heights area and knows the four teens well, said there had been noticeable improvement in the relationship between youth, the community and 32 Division police that patrol the area.
The arrests, he said, “pretty much crushes everything that had been built.”
The incident highlights the tension between youth who are constantly being stopped and questioned and Toronto police officers who are using a policing strategy that Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty, in light of recent shootings, guaranteed would receive permanent funding.
It also underscores how police, in each of the city’s 72 patrol zones, disproportionately stop and document black and brown young men, as was explored in Known to police, a Star series earlier this year. Youth interviewed said they are stopped for no reason and feel criminalized.
In this case, all four of the teens are black.
They were each charged with assaulting police, and the young man who did not want to answer police questions was additionally charged with threatening death and assault with intent to resist arrest.
Although the charges against them were eventually withdrawn (in the cases for three of the four teens, a common law peace bond was sworn) they can’t be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
What ensued can be seen but not heard on Toronto Community Housing Corporation security cameras. A shortened version of two of four camera views can be seen on thestar.com.
Moments after the police van pulls into the parking area, the teens exit one of the buildings and the officers, on foot, stop them. After a brief discussion, one of the officers pushes one of the twin brothers away from the three other teens and his partner. The officer punches the twin, pushes him further and the teen then drops to the ground.
Two of the teens make moves to help the twin brother, one of them getting close enough to touch the officer.
The officer then pulls his handgun and points it at the approaching teens, just as the other officer manages to grab hold of both of them and pull them back. He then appears to briefly point the gun at the twin on the ground, radios for backup and then holsters the firearm.
According to police records, that officer, Constable Adam Lourenco, considered the area to be a “high crime area” with drug activity and gun violence.
Post time: Jun-20-2017