Nyala
Oumar speaks with Moe Tesfay about his experience of police mistreatment as a veteran and local business owner.
Tom Engel recounts his 20 years as Chair of the Criminal Trial Lawyers Association Policing Committee, and explains the lack of police accountability from our current systems of politics and law.
Tom Engel
If you want to talk about a piece of evidence for defunding, it’s Moe Tesfay. The videos of all these cops, 11-12 cops, descending on that business. Interrupting it. Questioning patrons, going into the kitchen. Taxpayers shouldn’t be paying for that kind of policing. They should be defunded. That whole unit should be wiped out.
Oumar Salifou (Host)
Hi, I’m Oumar Salifou and you are listening to Is This For Real? – Breaking The Blue Wall. A podcast project about anti-Black racism and policing in Edmonton. The voice you heard at the beginning of the show is Tom Engel. We’re living in a moment where some people may be new to the fight against anti-Black and police misconduct. That isn’t the case for everyone though. One Edmonton lawyer has waged a war against bad cops in this city for over 20 years. And that simple fact is actually really weird if you know anything about lawyers in Edmonton. I met up with lawyer Avnish Nanda on the steps in front of my house to talk about Tom Engel.
Oumar
When I was approached for this project by Avnish, we talked about it on Twitter. We figured it out, and Tom’s name came up pretty quickly. And when he came up, you said that this guy is a “really weird guy.” Why did you say that Tom is a weird guy?
Avnish Nanda
Okay, so Tom Engel is this force of nature. He’s this enigma. He’s this misunderstood character that for the longest time, Tom was viewed as a pariah by many in the bar. I remember when I started my career, I was obviously interested in the same things. And you’d have these big firm lawyers and others just talk derisively about Tom. Like “oh that guy, always representing these folks, bringing every sort of argument that he can think of. Stymieing our efforts to push cases along. This stuff is without merit” etc. etc. But as I started practicing this area of law, I began to realize that what Tom does is a public service. And Tom will do this work, often for free, and he’ll see it through to the end. He’s done and seen so much. And when I say he’s weird, I mean that in the sense of how he approaches it. Without Tom Engel, I don’t know what police accountability would look like in Edmonton, let alone Alberta.
Oumar
For this episode, we’re going to explore two stories of how Edmonton police conduct has harmed Black people in our city. We are also going to explore the current rules under the legal system that govern police accountability and oversight in Alberta. There’s only really one person that can break down these ideas for me. So I visited his downtown office a few blocks away from city hall and the provincial court of Alberta.
Tom
Anyway, no video right?
Oumar
No, no.
Tom
I’m just going to get a coffee, are you good?
Oumar
I’m good. Or, if you have any coffee I’d...
Tom
You want coffee? What do you take in it?
Oumar
Just Black is great, thank you.
Tom
I can tell you I got interested in the issue of state abuse, in general, of people who’ve come into contact with the police, with the criminal justice system. Just before 2000, there were a lot of problems that were coming to light in terms of the Edmonton Police Service officers abusing people.
A notorious case, I think there was some Central American immigrants who had been arrested by some police officers and told to face the wall. This wasn’t my case so this is by memory but... face the wall. And what the police did was broke their fingers when their hands were behind their back. And it was a pretty huge scandal. So then we had a Criminal Trial Lawyers Association dinner meeting, and people were talking about Edmonton Police Service officers abusing people and the discussion was we should do something about it.
Oumar
What Tom did about it was form the Criminal Trial Lawyers Association Policing Committee in 2000. He’s still the chair of that committee 20 years later.
Tom
So I just started raising these issues in defense of my clients and brought charter applications and through the policing committee we started getting very interested in policing issues, police governance, what could we do to improve it. We had a media strategy — still do. The public has to be educated about this, because I learned early on that governments won’t respond to these types of concerns when it comes to police officers. Not politically popular unless there’s public pressure to change. When the public gets up in arms about this sort of thing. We’re seeing it right now happening around the world, and it’s happening in Canada as well.
Tom
That’s sort of my career development. The reason why Avnish might have thought it’s “weird” is because there’s not a lot of lawyers who do this kind of work this way. You know, I get calls from people who say “oh my lawyer told me to call you to get your help.”
Why?
“Well, because the cops beat me up.”
I say, “well is this your criminal defense lawyer?”
“Yes.”
I say, “well what’s your criminal defense lawyer doing about it?”
“Well he just told me he doesn’t do that sort of thing. And to call you.”
Well my view is any criminal defense lawyer has to do that sort of thing, because it’s part of defending your client.
Oumar
Why don’t do they do that kind of thing?
Tom
Well I don’t know why they don’t do that sort of thing. I have certain theories, and some lawyers think that it will inhibit their advancement in their career if they start complaining too much about the police. It’s politically unpopular. You might not get appointed as a judge. Because it’s different and they don’t know how to do it? I know I’ve heard some lawyers say “if I piss off the cops, it’s going to be harder to make deals,” because sometimes lawyers will talk to the cops and try to sell a deal before they go to the crown prosecutor. That’s on the day of trial when cops are there.
Oumar
Tom has paid the price before for being a police watchdog. When he began working to defend victims of police misconduct in the early 2000s, the Edmonton Police Service started filing dozens of complaints against Tom to the Alberta Law Society — the governing body that regulates and sets standards for lawyers in Alberta.
Tom
You see a letter come in from the law society, “oh another one! New file!” And I’m pretty sure that over the years it’s well over 30 complaints against me to the law society, initiated by the police. If you look at the history in Canada and elsewhere of what happens if you’re a police critic, this is not novel.
Oumar
If what Tom said about politicians is true, that they only care about public outrage, today’s story about a Black Edmonton business owner should probably make a few politicians care.
The business owner is Moe Tesfay. Moe was born and raised in Ethiopia, and came to Canada almost 30 years ago. In Ethiopia, Moe’s dad was an aircraft technician. So after high school, Moe continued the family tradition in Canada and studied the trade in college. Moe decided to take things a step further, and enlisted in the Canadian air force. He served as a soldier for more than two decades, and deployed in Afghanistan in 2006 and 2011. He retired from his career in the military and opened Nyala — a shisha bar in downtown Edmonton near Chinatown. Shisha, or hookah lounges, are centuries old traditions found in North Africa and the Middle East. These lounges serve as community gathering spaces and hold cultural significance.
I hopped on the bus and went to Nyala to hear Moe’s story myself.
Automated Bus Voice
Stop Requested.
Moe Tesfay
I went to college for aircraft maintenance engineer. I graduated there and joined 1997 the Canadian Air Force. The last 20 years I was Canadian Air Force and Canadian Army. And after that, I started a business retiring from the military.
Oumar
Did you have a specific goal when you came to this country?
Moe
No, when I moved here didn’t have no family. Before I came here I used to live in Italy, Rome for two years. And then I met this Canadian family, they used to live in London, Ontario. They sponsored me, and then I moved down here. So at that time, I had three choices: one, United States, and Australia. But I chose Canada because I heard it is one of the best countries in the world. There you go, I’m here.
Oumar
What was life like after you left the military?
Moe
After I left the military, it was worse than my life I can say. Because I had this experience through my business and the deal with the Edmonton police officers and the Edmonton city.
Moe
In 2015 I had good relations with the Edmonton police. They became more like a friend and a friendly relationship. Then after 2015-2016 it became a more unfriendly relationship. Because when they start abusing all the customers, they start asking about IDs for 50 year olds and 55 year olds — most of the customers are older people — I stepped out and asked them why they are doing this. They said, “that’s our job, so that’s not your business.”
Oumar
What would they do to people? You mentioned they are checking IDs, what else are they doing? How are they making people feel?
Moe
They are checking IDs, they are arresting from inside the bar. They put them in handcuffs and they take them outside and they release them outside. So I asked them “what’s the reason?” and they say “oh this guy isn’t supposed to be in the bar.
Well if he is a criminal so put him in jail. So there is no point so they take him to the bar and release him. It doesn’t make sense. If he thinks this guy is a criminal, then put him in jail, you know? So some of the things they tells you this doesn’t make sense. So that’s why the relationship between me and the police became no more friendly after that.
Oumar
So when things started to become worse, what did you feel like you could do about it?
Moe
What I did is that I emailed to the chief — not the chief, the sergeant. That time the chain of command for that department — the public safety complaints team. I emailed them and said “listen, the police officers, what they are doing is not proper. They are going through all the washroom and the kitchen and they asked all the customer harassment. I need to talk to you guys. That’s not right.”
Then the the sergeant, he respond to me and said we will work together. Then I said okay. I’ve been waiting for that and nothing happened. The abuse and the harassment became more continuous. Then I talked to the lawyer and said “listen, I have some problems.” He said ok we are going to do the first step. Then I told him that I don’t want to complain. I want there to be a mediator just to work with the police. I don’t want to jump direct to the complaint. So I put the offer to talk to the police first then they came back and they said they don’t want to talk to me, and they don’t want to talk to the community. And I get the letter from them and I’m like I’m trying to work with you guys. You are trying to not work with me. So the next day, I posted a complaint.
Oumar
In Alberta the police are ruled by a provincial law called the Police Act. The act is a 60 page document that outlines everything from rules against civilians impersonating the police to the oath that cadets take before becoming cops. It also fully details the protocol that Edmonton Police has to follow for public complaints and disciplinary action against police officers.
Tom
The Police Act, the legislation itself, there is a lot of things right about. One thing right about it is the mechanism for making a complaint. You make the complaint, the chief has to cause it to be investigated, then it gets investigated, then eventually there is a decision being made. If the complainant doesn’t like the decision the complainant can appeal law enforcement review board, which is an independent oversight agency which has no police officers. Then they make a decision, and if you don’t like that decision then you can go to the court of appeal.
The problem is that the investigations are in the hands of police, and it’s only the most serious instances that get investigated by ASIRT. One of the problems with ASIRT, one of the points of disagreement, is that all their investigators are ex-cops or cops who’ve been loaned to ASIRT to investigate.
Oumar
The problem with the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team, or ASIRT, and the Edmonton Police Services’ investigations into police misconduct is that they don’t stop at clear conflicts of interest when cops investigate cops. ASIRT also struggles with a lack of government funding.
Tom
The provincial government is not giving enough money to the Edmonton Police Service to properly run their complaint investigations. It wasn’t high on any government’s agenda. The Progressive Conservatives, the NDP, now the UCP — I don’t think it’s high on their agenda to give more money to police services to run Police Act investigations.
Oumar
If money for police misconduct investigations is the problem, the solution might be found int the Edmonton Police Services’ $356 million budget and how they choose to spend tax money they get every year.
Tom
Divert money from this party or budget to this party or budget. They don’t need a new K9 training facility. They don’t need that. The EPS is winning all kind of awards with their dog training. I got big problems with dogs, by the way. But they win all of these awards, why do they need a new facility? They don’t need that.
Why do they need a new tactical unit? They don’t need that. Why do they need this hospitality unit? What a bizarre name for this. I mean, they weren’t being very hospitable to Moe Tesfay or the customers, right? Why do they need that unit for? Disband them. Take that money, put it somewhere else. We are over-policed that way. So there’s lots of opportunities to divert money into more important things. Like investigating complaints.
Oumar
Now even if these institutions had funding to investigate police misconduct effectively, problems with the police not following their own rules in most cases are obvious to Tom. Because he briefly worked as Moe’s lawyer against the city and the police.
Tom
It was flat out harassment, I think, of his business. It’d be really hard to say it wasn’t flat out racist. They flat out had it in for him. They wanted to shut down his business. And Moe made complaints. I think that the Edmonton Police Service receiving these complaints — well they just ignored them. They didn’t follow the Police Act. They’re required to investigate it. They were supposed to give him notices every 45 days about the status of the investigation. They just ignored it. Didn’t do anything. And I think he wound up accumulating about three or four complaints where they weren’t doing a damn thing. So when I got ahold of that, I obviously demanded that they start investigating these things and they’re still investigating it. Moe had to learn the hard way that there was no reasoning with the particular police officers he was dealing with.
Moe
That complaining didn’t work anything. Then the first thing after I complained was, in two days I got arrested. They start retaliation right away. So they arrest me right in front of the customers outside. They put me in handcuffs, and put me in jail for 24 hours. And then we asked them what’s the reason you have to arrest me and put me in jail? My root is from Africa, my background is from Africa, so I’m a flight risk. So they think I’m going to escape for not even a $5000 charge.
So I’m a business owner at that time. I was military and I owned my own house and building, but still I'm a flight risk for less than $5000 charge. Then the next thing I know, all the tickets start coming up. Every time they come twice in a week — three times a week — sometimes 10 police officers, sometimes up to 20 police officers. You see this area — it looked like a war zone. The whole police office, like three, five patrols. Just unbelievable.
Oumar
Moe took extensive video of all his interaction with police at the bar. Here are a few of those interactions.
In the video you’re hearing, a group of police officers is inspecting Moe’s kitchen and saying that they’re just checking to make sure his business can operate as a restaurant. The video you’re hearing now is Moe talking with police officers about a customer outside his bar.
Police Officer
Just for your records, there’s a guy who’s super hammered and wasted out of his mind.
Police Officer (Background)
He said he’s sick. He’s not sick, he’s drunk.
Police Officer
His friend said he couldn’t handle his Hennessey.
Police Officer (Background)
It’s Hennessey!
Police Officer
Yeah.
Another Voice
He’s sick?
Moe
Until this whole thing happened, there’s nothing, not even a single fight on my bar. But they’ll give excuses — there was a shooting on the other side of 101. “They were shooting outside” and I said did you guys charge? No. Did you guys have anyone under arrest? No. So someone just told them there was a shooting. That’s the excuse they had. So they asked all my neighbours. My neighbours — they didn’t say anything. So everything that was happening in the criminal downtown area they attach it to Nyala.
Oumar
Did they have any evidence or, you know, photos? Anything to prove that people were doing things?
Moe
No, they had zero evidence. “There is someone come from Nyala and shooting outside.” They said “oh someone told them he came from Nyala. Someone told them he came from Nyala and started shooting, and there is another shooting by 109 and that their customer came from Nyala.” So everything when they say Black people is come from Nyala. Because this is original African bar. So I’ve been given almost like $100,000 in tickets for the last three years. So the tickets are unbelievable.
Oumar
It’s important to note that allegations made by the city and the police against Moe rarely were based in hard evidence to justify all the searches, tickets, and efforts to close his business. The media in Edmonton covered Moe’s story and here’s what the city and police had to say. The city claims that they went after Moe because of alleged breaches to business license conditions against Nyala. These license conditions include adding more security and limiting capacity. The city said breaches raise public safety concerns.
Moe represented himself in court and had most of the nearly 60 bylaw tickets against him either dismissed or ruled in his favour. Another incident was brought up by the city as a reason to close down Nyala. The incident happened during a community meeting when a delivery man threatened someone with a gun. Two days after the incident, the police questioned Moe about the gun used in the incident they were now trying to find. The cops charged Moe with obstructing a peace officer and claimed he was lying about knowing the location of the gun. After a five day trial, Moe was acquitted of all charges against him in that case
Police said Moe disregarded safety conditions and wouldn’t comply after receiving tickets. The Edmonton Police said they decided to shut down Moe’s business to avoid “tying up provincial court resources and the financial cost to tax payers in Edmonton to prosecute such a volume of trials.”
Moe
So they couldn’t close me down and then they went to the city, they put all this false allegation about the customer, about me, about the place, about the community. They put too much false allegation to the city and the city train shut down. So they call a press conference and Nyala is completely shut down because of this criminal record. Then they found out that the paperwork — I didn’t receive it. After they gave a press conference, they call all of this media, they paint it like a big gang place they shut down. The next day, it was in two days, the city called me and said “oh yeah because of a mistake you can open your business again.”
What happened after that? Then there was a decision. They said okay we’re going to close it down again but you have to apply to the city councillor and then I said okay so they opened my business within the two days and then they gave me another fourteen days to appeal. So I appealed to the city councillor. So I went to the city councillor and I provided all of my evidence about Nyala. I provided a lot of evidence about the false allegations and all my neighbours were there. All my customers were there. And the city councillor looked at everything and said “no, we’re not going to close this place.” So I won that case.
Oumar
How did you feel personally going through these situations? I can’t imagine how stressful it must have been having to deal with this stuff.
Moe
It destroyed me. I can’t even trust the police anymore. Even if it’s a good police officer, I have that mentality — you don’t trust them. It’s just going to take time, at least to trust one of them. So I feel like most of them are pretty much the same because nobody even stepped up and said “this is not the right thing,” you know? Everybody was supporting each other so 10 police officers, when they came here, one of them should ask “why are we here?” None of them asked that. “Well we go where the crime is.” So what’s a crime? A lot of Black people hanging out. That’s what they think. So I just — I don’t even have words to explain that one.
So I closed down my business because they destroyed all of the business. They gave it a bad name, so the customers started running away so I closed it almost a year ago.
My younger brother used to say “oh the police pulled me over and ask me for ID and everything” and I’d say “no, no that’s your fault. Always the police are right.” That’s what I was thinking for a long time. Always I said that to my younger brother. “Oh the police pulled me over today, they asked me for no reason.” “Nah that’s your fault - police doing their job.” But he’s right. The police don’t do their job. They just profile most young Black people.
Oumar
And when all of this was happening, did you try to get help from city politicians? Did anyone do anything to help you?
Moe
No. The city politician I talked to, the member of parliament, he ignored it. And I talked to the council of my ward — Mckeen. He completely ignored it. I emailed him a couple times, he ignored it. They don’t want to go public with this kind of stuff. They want to hide it.
Oumar
Why do you think they want to hide it?
Moe
Because they want to be good guys. They want to show there is no racism, there is no discrimination in the city. It’s a wall. They just pretend this is a good place. If you go talk to every single African bar, they’ll tell you what they’ve been through with the city. They tell you how they get harassed by the police. It’s not only me. I’m the only one that stepped forward — I don’t care, I didn’t care about the police. I don’t scare. But these guys — they scare a lot. So they don’t want to talk about it. Otherwise, if you ask them they’ve been abused a lot.
Oumar
What inspired you to fight for this originally and keep fighting? You never gave up. You know, you went all the way through every single process and did it yourself when everyone else was too scared to do it. Why?
Moe
I fought for this country. The reason why I fought was for our freedom, you know? It’s a freedom that’s not only for white people, freedom for Black people too. I’m going to fight until the end, until I get justice. But what I want to see is change. This is the time actually. Unfortunately, the murder of George changed a lot of stuff. But tis is a time we don’t have to sit and watch, so we have to make some change. Especially the police department and the city.
Oumar
Do you think they’re listening? Do you think they’re going to change?
Moe
They’ll listen for a week or two weeks, but they’re going to forget it. Because they never listened until now. Why they listen now? Because of George. So how many George has to die to listen to us? They are not going to listen, trust me. They’re just going to say “okay every other city, they’re doing it and we have to do it at the same time.” Then you see within one month, or two months, it’s going to go back the same way.
Oumar
When talking with Moe about his story, I thought about the idea of the model minority. The term is usually used to describe Asian Americans in a stereotypical way and attributes their economic and academic success in American to these stereotypes. The stereotypes around being a model minority include being a polite, law-abiding citizen who simply wants to assimilate into white majority society and succeed in the right way. The term is also used against other races like Black people to compare us to supposedly successful minority groups.
It asks the question, why don’t Black people just become model minorities? And solves community problems by claiming that if Black people just followed the rules like everyone else, they’d be as successful and treated like everyone else.
In some ways, Moe fits into the criteria of a supposed model minority. He served in Canada’s airforce and was deployed to Afghanistan. He came back to Edmonton to open a business for his community. He initially worked with the police and gave them the benefit of the doubt when his relationship with them soured. After hearing it, I believe that Moe’s story basically cancels the idea of the model minority. Because he was still targeted, despite his decisions in life. Individual actions or character don’t matter if you live in a system that refuses to accept you or hold those who harm you accountable for their actions. I think Moe’s story makes that very clear.
Thank you for listening to Is This For Real? I want to thank Tom and Moe for sharing their stories with me. Thank you to everyone who supported this show on Patreon or otherwise. We really wouldn’t be able to do this without you. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns you can reach out to me at oumar@isthisforreal.ca.
