According to Montreal Police Chief Fady Dagher, his force sprang into action immediately upon hearing allegations of racist behaviour in the ranks. They launched an investigation and dismantled a night patrol unit, 14 members of which were reassigned and two suspended. Criminal charges are being explored.
But credit for action goes only so far. This is hardly the first time in recent memory that Montreal police have been accused of racism. A 2020 lawsuit related to alleged racial profiling has been wending its way to the Supreme Court. A lawyer hired in 2021 to help the force fight discrimination left after a year, believing he was brought on “basically as a token.”
It’s good that police officers accused of racist behaviour are no longer patrolling their old beat in the borough of Montreal-Nord. And it’s good that the province has assigned an independent observer to monitor the Montreal police investigation, a key step to avoid the impression of bias.
Policing is a difficult job and one that can be dangerous, as driven home by a tragedy last week in Montreal. Constable Mohamed Lamine Benredouane, 34, was fatally shot by a person who had posted an anti-police manifesto.
But police also wield extraordinary authority and must be held to a high standard.
Sixteen Montreal police officers sanctioned over racism allegations
Change is clearly needed within the Montreal police. Many of the officers involved in the current allegations have been on the force only a few years. This hints at the possibility of bigger problems. Is the force recruiting the wrong people? Are they receiving the wrong training? Is there an internal culture leading recruits astray?
Appointing a racialized chief, who was born in Côte d’Ivoire to Lebanese parents, was one step toward changing the culture on the force. But such change is a difficult task.
Some of the allegations are shocking. According to local media reports, officers are accused of taking hair samples of racialized people to keep as trophies. Other allegations are the sort of quotidian bigotry that non-white Montrealers say is routine, including racialized drivers being targeted because of their skin colour.
How common is this behaviour? Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada, who is married to a Black man, told an interviewer that her husband has been pulled over in the last year “at least five or six times — for nothing.”
Data compiled by university researchers in 2019 found Montreal police were twice as likely to stop Arab people as whites, and four times as likely to stop Black and Indigenous people. A 2023 update on the study found the numbers were similar or worse.
New allegations of police racism evidence nothing has changed, Montréal-Nord residents say
Mayor Martinez Ferrada says one part of the answer lies in removing the police power to conduct random stops. The constitutionality of such stops is in fact to be ruled on by the Supreme Court, after lower courts in Quebec found they infringed the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The power to stop any vehicle, without cause, is easy to abuse. If police are using this power to target racialized people, it must be constrained.
Another approach that may be helpful is to accelerate the rollout of body-worn cameras within Montreal’s police force, which the city and province have agreed to do. A 2018 study in the United States found that police officers equipped with these cameras generated fewer complaints and use-of-force reports than those without. However, a 2022 analysis by the U.S. Department of Justice found mixed results.
If these cameras are going to be deployed, wrongful behaviour they record must be handled seriously. Accountability is a key step in changing a culture. Doing so is also crucial to rebuilding public confidence in police.
Chief Dagher said that the patrol unit at the centre of the recent allegations was at odds with the change he was trying to enact. “I think that group decided to marginalize themselves and go against the vision that I propose.”
That suggests a rogue group. However, some Black police employees are warning about efforts in the ranks to identify whistleblowers and say they fear reprisals for speaking out.
Bad behaviour can be contagious. Although police misconduct is often minimized by calling the perpetrators “a few bad apples,” doing so reverses the meaning of the aphorism. The full saying is that “a few bad apples spoil the barrel.”
Chief Dagher must figure out how far the rot has gone. Doing the right thing should be expected, not commendable, on the Montreal police force. In fact, it is the essence of the job.