RIP BHM
Black History Month has always been more or less a joke, but it was especially terrible this year. We’re looking back on this especially unfortunate February, from revelations that the Edmonton Police Service owns a plane (!) and is gearing up to purchase yet another, to the Calgary Police killing of community member Latjor Tuel. We also brought back Tom Engel to the show for a great interview about the Police Act, an important piece of legislation that we should all be focusing on ahead of the next provincial election.
Police Killing of Latjor Tuel + the Irony of Black History Month
🎵 Intro Music – “Not Alone” by Melafrique
Oumar
Welcome to this Black History Month edition of the Is This For Real? podcast. February is almost over, and that’s essentially the one month of the year where Black writers like me get given the opportunity to essentially tell stories about Black history. And companies and institutions basically get to give lip service to Black stories that, I’d say, often have to be filtered or edited down to fit within these narratives that are very easy to essentially give.
But it’s put into really stark relief when I see the current situation within the Black community and a lot of the struggles and the violence and the oppression that people face on a regular basis. Whether it’s from the built in employment that comes with living in this country, the mental health outcomes Black folks have to deal with when it comes to living their lives and facing racism, among other things. And also, I think the individual responsibility that’s placed on people for their own problems instead of having a system that uplifts communities and places that at the centre of people’s lives.
So it’s a really stark relief when you have things like the City of Edmonton posting on their Instagram page this quote promoting Black History Month and a museum project, and then the next few slides of the story are essentially this hockey game between the peace officers and the Edmonton Police Association.
So it’s a really stark relief, and it makes it difficult when the police and those organizations have been oppressive towards Black communities for decades. To ignore that fact, and also to ignore the events of the past couple of months, I think highlight police violence in Edmonton as a problem.
We have this award that’s given out by the Kiwanis Club in Edmonton called the “Top Cop Award,” and it’s been found that 2 out of the 5 police officers who received that award were charged with assault and are being investigated right now under ASIRT.
We have a situation with the Edmonton Police owning a plane that was held in secret that we just found out about a few weeks ago. And they’re looking to buy another plane as another big, big ticket purchase. And they explicitly said that this is for surveillance purposes, for some of the work that they do.
But again, the community had no idea that this was actually happening. And we’re also seeing, I think, police doubling down very heavily on this “tough on crime” rhetoric where there is a growing critique of policing coming from different segments of society. It’s not coming from just indigenous and Black people anymore. I think now it’s moving a little bit more into the mainstream of white liberal folks.
So now that that’s happening — the chief of police saying he doesn’t look to social media for any information or facts, articles being written in the Edmonton Journal defending the police shared by a police commissioner — I think the police at least are doubling down. And it’s very difficult and stark to see that happening during Black History Month, and especially when we we’ve had a death in the Black community by the hands of police in Calgary, a shooting that happened recently where a member of the South Sudanese community, Latjor Tuel, was killed by police when he was having a mental health crisis.
And I want to read this post from his stepdaughter that I think does a really good job of explaining the situation and what’s going on with those directly impacted by it. So here’s the post.
I feel like that’s a difficult statement to read in any circumstance. But the fact that it’s 2022 and the fact that we’ve seen everything that we’ve seen since 2020 — it’s really difficult to read statements like that. And I think there’s a lot of pitfalls with taking an individual tragedy like this for a family and trying to use it to advance change in a situation where we already know so clearly all of the problems in our system that led to this happening.
And I think almost all of us know clearly what’s needed to address these problems to ensure that this doesn’t happen to anyone. And no family has to write a statement like this. So I think everything about this is proof of what we already know, which I think makes it even more painful. And which is why I also think the focus can’t be on individual stories to advance change in a system that we already know needs to change, for reasons that are proven by stories like this but already exist without families having to suffer from tragedies like this situation.
And I think it also ultimately rejects this idea of the “Canadian dream” or this idea of a cultural mosaic and immigrants coming here to seek refuge from the trauma and the problems that they had in their home countries. So the victim of this crime was a child soldier in South Sudan. And I think, like many other people who come to Canada, view it as a safe place, a place where they’ll receive help, a place where they can thrive with their families. But I think ultimately the failures of our system in the way it’s designed… it can’t handle the reality that we pat ourselves on the back thinking that we create.
We can’t handle the reality of bringing people into our system where we say that we’re going to rehabilitate them, or help them, or provide them opportunities, when in reality we just have a system that’s racist and that doesn’t necessarily put anything into anyone’s lives except for individual responsibility and really just telling them that they’re on their own. And that ultimately, if things do end up turning for the worse, you have the police come in to, supposedly, de-escalate and make the situation better.
So the original traumas that you have from your previous experiences, whether you come from a country that is struggling through war, if you’ve been a part of that conflict yourself… all those things are amplified when you come and you have to face additional pressures.
And I think also you have to contemplate with this idea that you’ve been sold a myth, a lie essentially, that all of your expectations and everything that this country projected onto itself and onto others actually isn’t true. And that your life is going to be incredibly difficult.
I’ve been working, and I was filming a documentary about the South Sudanese community in Edmonton and Calgary last summer. And we talked to many people in the community and filmed community events and interviews and stories surrounding death, and also joy and prosperity and resilience.
But I think one thing that really stuck with me, and one thing I keep thinking about, is how people from the South Sudanese community explained to me their their disdain for Canada and their deep sorrow and their deep sadness with seeing the reality of their lives and of their children’s lives, and how punitive and how difficult things have been for them versus what they thought it would be. And seeing how devalued their lives are. I think that’s definitely stuck with me.
And it’s hard to come up with answers for these people because I think, like I said before, it seems like especially during Black History Month, we’re more interested in performing and giving lip service and in advancing narratives that ignore the reality that people face in this moment that we live in right now.
In this situation, like a lot of the other high profile murders of Black folks, I think the family is ultimately put in a very difficult situation. And I wish them peace and whatever support they can receive during this difficult time for them. Grieving the death of a loved one and a murder in the public eye, I think is an awful situation, especially I think when it intersects with, like I said, a lot of the other issues that are faced by the Black community. So I wish the family peace in this difficult time, and I hope they can find the support that they need.
What Canada’s Emergencies Act Means for Black + Indigenous Protestors
🎵 Intro Music
So as we continue to talk about cautionary tales around police use of force and violence, the Emergencies Act was just passed today in Canada as we’re talking. And essentially, as a response to the convoy and all of this Freedom Convoy protest, we’re seeing a disturbing increase in police power. And this has been brought on, I think, by this kind of regression in public discourse when it comes to people who are usually liberals calling for, I’d say, military intervention, financial warfare, surveillance, and all these police powers and state powers being reinforced essentially because they don’t agree with the views or the frustration of the protesters and, quite frankly, the kind of brutal tactics and the successful tactics that the protesters have used to have their concerns heard or to go against the state in this specific way.
So in this situation, we have people like journalist Justin Ling, who’s been on the ground in Ottawa covering the protest, essentially praising the police for their restraint against protesters as they started cracking down and clearing the streets.
I think the biggest problem with this is that we know that the police would never have this kind of restraint if the protest was Black and Indigenous people protesting in the same disruptive way, or even in a much less confrontational way. The police would crack down and wouldn’t have this kind of restraint. And using this kind of argument of police using less force as a reason to give them more power is clearly wrong when, like I said, we know that they would use that differently in a different situation.
And I also think this idea that if you’re doing something illegal like the protesters are, or if you’re not participating or supporting what they’re doing, then you have nothing to worry about. And following the law is the utmost kind of standard for not having things happen to you that may be viewed as negative. But I think it’s clear here to see that the fact that we’re giving these tactics and the fact that we’re taking things really lightly — like people’s ability to access their own funds and their bank accounts — the fact that we’re taking this lightly because it’s being done to conservatives, completely ignores the fact that many people have very, very rightful grievances against the state. And by just giving these things away because they’re happening to people that we don’t like is completely shortsighted in realizing that these things are going to come back, three-fold potentially, to hurt people who are trying to have their voice heard against the state or trying to challenge the state in a meaningful way.
So saying things like, “you wouldn’t have to worry if you’re not doing anything that the Freedom Convoy is doing” I think ignores the fact that people like land defenders who are trying to protect Indigenous land or Black people who are trying to uphold their own rights against the state or racism will very easily face this kind of resistance or worse in many cases.
We’re going to be going through some of the more awful takes on the next episode of a Cringe Corner, hopefully going through some of the liberal tweets that we saw about the convoy. And I think, this kind of conversation, this kind of discourse serves to funnel more and more power, more and more resources into the police. And again, in a fashion, like we mentioned before, where it doesn’t necessarily even matter what the performance was. If they show restraint, if they manage things properly, then we give them more funding, we give them more power. If they aren’t able to manage things well, then that’s their argument for why they should again receive more funding to be able to manage things better.
In my own personal life, I actually attended the counter protest in Edmonton that was essentially blocking part of the convoy or basically the entire convoy that was making its way to the legislature. So a couple dozen people essentially stopped, blocked one side of traffic that the convoy was coming towards and then we allowed cars to pass on the other side.
People were holding up signs, some more funny than others. Someone had a sign that said “let the babies nap.” I was holding up a sign that said “honk for communism,” I think that was pretty funny. But what I saw — once we started the protest, a police car came and they honked at us using their louder-than-usual police noise to essentially try to intimidate or get us to disperse.
But I think it was clear from the beginning. From where the police were positioned behind the counter protest, it was clear who the problem was and where the enforcement was going to happen. It wasn’t going to happen towards the people who were given a court injunction. It wasn’t going to happen towards the people who were harassing people in downtown Edmonton consistently.
It was going to happen to the counter protesters! The people who were trying to put an end to what was happening every Saturday in Edmonton. So what began with one police car essentially turned into a paddy wagon. And about 10 or so police officers, and the numbers kept growing, with batons, forming a formation essentially to disperse the counter protesters.
So things just continued to escalate as time went on. Not only were we kind of faced with the convoy, which was also trying to pressure and trying to heckle or yell or do whatever they could to get us to move. But like I said, we saw the police mobilizing quickly in growing numbers, with weapons of violence, batons, to crack down on the counter protest.
Nothing came that far. After an hour or so, the group that we were with decided to leave because the police essentially moved in front of us in an attempt to clear us out. So we weren’t interested in getting arrested or dealing with that kind of violent confrontation. So we decided to leave. The convoy, as planned, made their way to the legislature, continued with whatever you’d consider to be illegal acts.
I think in the personal anecdote, you can kind of see a few things we were kind of talking about when it comes to delegating this power to police in a situation where you could think that they would be using that added power to police or to prevent this kind of protest from a side that I personally don’t agree with or I personally don’t see as valid. But that power wasn’t used to crack down on those people. It was quickly used to intimidate and disperse the counter protest. So I think it’s a small example, but I think it fits within the larger thing — by continuing to think that police are going to side with whoever you think that they should crack down on as a justification for giving them more power is very shortsighted.
And oftentimes, I think at least in my experience in this situation, we see what side the police choose to fall down on. And regardless, I think we know that these violent powers in this kind of enforcement shouldn’t be brought down on anyone for that case.
So this is where we are now. The federal government has passed the Emergencies Act. We have more power given to the RCMP, along with municipal police also being pushed to enforce and being pushed to be given more of this authority to essentially put into place law and order and prevent people from challenging the state. So I think it’s important in this moment to challenge these notions, especially when they come from people who are from liberal backgrounds and who are making these kinds of shortsighted arguments.
Generally, I think it also brings in the larger question of what’s going to be allowable when it comes to charging the state, and what are the future powers of government when it comes to cracking down on dissent? Because I think ultimately the problems that we are faced with that are stemming from the state are still in place.
And I think there will still need to be meaningful challenges to a lot of issues where you’re going to have to confront the state — when it comes to defending land, when it comes to protecting communities against the police, when it comes to a lot of issues. So if we have the Emergencies Act in place now, and if we have a culture that’s so easily able to just hand off more authority, more power to the police, what does that mean for our ability to challenge the systems that we have in place? So I think that’s the larger question that we have to deal with that’s been influenced by the situation that we have today.
Tom Engel: How Alberta’s Police Act Breeds Corruption and Protects Power
I want a place of focus on a piece of legislation today, the Police Act specifically. And to do that, I talked with Tom Engel, who we’ve had on the podcast before. He’s an Edmonton-based lawyer who works as a criminal defense trial lawyer and is very involved in a lot of issues when it comes to police and policing reform.
Tom and I go through a few things when we talk about the Police Act, specifically the changes that we want to see and that he’s pushing for in his work. So things like police investigating police, things like the loophole that allows police officers to retire without facing charges if they choose to leave their jobs. The basic authority in the power that we give police, I think, is really key to understanding and reforming this legislation, and seeing how those changes might impact the way that people not only interact but are policed and face consequences from bad policing.
I feel like this is coming in a moment where it’s not necessarily getting all the attention that it can, because it’s a static piece of legislation that has changes and changes over time. But those changes, I think, are often influenced by the needs of police and the needs of politicians who are trying to get re-elected, not necessarily the needs of people everyday who are interacting with police or have to be policed in the real world.
So yeah, Tom makes a lot of good points. And we’re coming into a provincial election in 2023. So now’s the time really to, I think, look into these things and see what’s possible.
Oumar
So this might be a simple question, but why does the Police Act need to be reformed? And, for listeners who may not know, the last time it was updated was in 2011, and it was introduced in 1988. But in 2022, why does it need to be reformed?
Tom
Well, I’m not the only one who thinks that the Police Act has to be reformed. At the consultative process that I participated in for the CTLA (Criminal Trial Lawyers’ Association) that the government started… In the summer of 2018, the NDP government, the Minister of Justice at that time, Kathleen Ganley, started the review process, and I was invited from the very outset for the CTLA.
And we were involved in a very intensive review process. We had monthly meetings, for example. There were all kinds of stakeholders, all the stakeholders you could imagine who should have been there were there. And then it was very clear that all the stakeholders agreed on the need for drastic reform of the Police Act. And I think it was unanimous that it was agreed that the police should no longer investigate complaints. That’s the giant reform that was recommended.
But then the UCP got elected and they shelved the whole project until George Floyd. And then Minister Doug Schweitzer at the time quickly pulled it off the shelf and put it into action again. And then we were involved in an even more urgent, intensive process. And my understanding is that the final report, which I haven’t seen, was scheduled to go to cabinet in December of last year.
And then cabinet will make a decision. I don’t know exactly what the recommendations are. I’d be shocked if it wasn’t to take investigating the police out of the hands of the police. But there were a lot of other recommendations. For example, a big one would be police having jurisdiction over an officer being washed when the officer retires, which has let people off the hook.
For example, Constable McLoughlin in Calgary who shot and killed Anthony Heffernan. He escaped any responsibility for that. The Alberta Crown Prosecution Service decided not to prosecute him for that which, in my view, was a perverse decision. But we still had the Police Act process. And then he beat that by retiring. So that is something… Lawyers, for example, don’t don’t beat Law Society disciplined by retiring. You still have to go through the disciplinary process unless the Law Society allows you to retire. So that’s an example of an important one. And I’d be shocked if that wasn’t a recommendation. And that one would really shock me if the Minister of Justice and solicitor general didn’t recommend to cabinet that they agree with that. So that’s where it is. And now we’re just waiting for the result.
You know, I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about the RCMP because the RCMP polices a big part of this province. And that, of course, wasn’t under review in the Alberta solicitor general’s review of the Police Act. It has no application. But having said that, I’m kind of torn a little bit on the idea of creating an Alberta police service. Because if they did, they’d be subject to the Police Act. And the Police Act already is much more robust in terms of civilian oversight of the police than the RCMP Act. And successive federal governments have failed to address that for the RCMP.
For example, the civilian oversight body, the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission (CRCC), under the RCMP Act has no decision making power. So all they can do is recommend things… Like if you lose your complaint, if the complaint is dismissed by the RCMP, you can ask the CRCC to review it. And they’ll review it — it takes about three years or more, the delay is disgraceful. But the RCMP commissioner has the power to just disagree with the commission and then nothing is done. So we’ve been advocating at the federal level for the CRCC to be given the same powers as the Law Enforcement Review Board (LERB) under the Police Act. The LERB has the power to, in some circumstances, fire an officer.
Oumar
Has that ever actually happened? Have officers ever been directly fired by the Law Enforcement Review Board?
Tom
What’s happened is… I don’t think they have. I think all that’s come to the LERB have been appeals by officers who’ve been fired at a disciplinary hearing at the level of the police service. But the point is they do have the power.
Oumar
Most of this show’s focus, and I guess a lot of the public focus, at least in Edmonton, has been on our local Edmonton police force. But there’s been the larger conversation now provincially because of Kaycee Madu in the UCP about replacing the RCMP. What do you think the current state of the RCMP is in Alberta when it comes to policing and accountability? There have been a few pretty high profile cases of police brutality, specifically one against an Indigenous chief, I remember that in Fort McMurray.
From your perspective, what would have been the problems and what has been the situation with the RCMP in Alberta?
Tom
Okay. So you talk about the folks in Edmonton, but don’t forget the RCMP police Sherwood Park, St. Albert, Leduc, and Fort Saskatchewan. And this is part of, I guess the metro Edmonton area.
So the RCMP, their investigation of complaints is generally… it’s disgraceful! And I think they do it because they can get away with it. I think they do it that way because they can do it. And there’s no accountability at the top.
Now, the CRCC has been issuing some pretty aggressive criticisms of RCMP investigations recently. But again, they don’t have any power to order things. I have noticed that the CRCC has managed to convince the commissioner of the RCMP to agree with them. And if they do that, then what they recommend will happen because the commissioner will make it happen.
The difference is that for serious injury or death cases for the RCMP, they are subject to the Police Act under section 46.1. And they will be subject to an ASIRT investigation. So that’s different. But the vast majority of complaints against the RCMP are not serious injury or death. And that remains with the RCMP. And the RCMP, in their investigations, they don’t even follow the RCMP Act. This is brazenly “don’t follow it.” And we pointed out to them, you’re not following the act, and they just go ahead.
Oumar
It seems like a weird kind of situation to be in. And it seems like a lot of these situations come down to something that you mentioned a few years ago when we were talking — political will, and how a lot of these things are kind of just left up to the provincial and federal politicians who sometimes either don’t have the will to make it happen, choose to put things on the shelf, like you said, that were already worked on, or just completely ignore this thing like the RCMP.
It kind of seems dangerous to leave all these things neglected to the point where it’s like decades pass and we see just no change on what you said is a pretty egregious disregard for the law.
Tom
Maybe there’d be a little more political will at the level of the federal government and joined in by the RCMP commissioner if, for example, they think “maybe we can tell the Alberta government we’ll reform the whole accountability process.” Does that help keep the RCMP in Alberta? I mean, if I was a commissioner, I’d be behind that for sure. But the George Floyd situation certainly did help develop some political will, nationally and provincially, to reform the police accountability process. And we shouldn’t underestimate that.
Of course, the other big player in this in terms of accountability is the Alberta Crown Prosecution Service, which in my view, is being derelict in its duty to prosecute officers, even when a charge is laid. Like there is a recent example of Kyle Parkhurst, who got his head drilled into a wall while he’s handcuffed. He was lying on the ground and gets picked up, gets his head drilled into a wall, and it’s captured on video.
ASIRT investigates, recommends a criminal charge. The Crown Prosecution Service agrees to prosecute. And then a month later, without giving any reason, the crown drops it. This inspires disrespect for the administration of justice in this province when it comes to accountability for police officers.
Oumar
So I saw a couple of weeks ago, Michael Elliott made a tweet about someone in an organization that you’re working with having “defund the police” or “abolish the police” in their Twitter description, and that being, you know, a point of contention.
So you’ve had your fair share of critics over the years, some of them more credible than others or with more credible claims. From that situation or other situations, what is your takeaway about those critics? And maybe, are there any memorable or even funny moments that you have from those kinds of situations?
Tom
You know, there was a period of time that I had to fend off a complaint to the Law Society about me. I think I was up to about the area of 25 - 30. And they were from the Edmonton Police Service — you know, individual officers, but I’m sure that the union was behind them. And they were basically trying to shut me up to intimidate me into stopping what I do. None of those complaints were upheld. I had to deal with them. And there was the case of a bunch of the EPS officers unlawfully accessing information about me from their police information systems.
And obviously I’m sure they were trying to see if maybe I’d forgotten to appear in traffic court and had a warrant and they’d have the pleasure of arresting me or something like that. Or they could just find something that they could use. I know that the Edmonton Police Service and the Edmonton Police Association are very upset about my Twitter account. Very upset. And you know, I get the impression that they’re very upset that sources of my information come from within the police service. I know they’re very upset about that.
And I remember a letter from the Edmonton Police Association that was published on their Twitter account indicating that I and those who provide me with information have lost their way or something like that. But you have to think, why would somebody within the EPS give me information? You know, why don’t they just raise it with the chief?
Well, it ain’t going to go very well for them as they start raising problems with the chief, because the code of silence is strong within any police organization and it exists in the Edmonton Police Service. And if you make a complaint within the Edmonton Police Service, you’re likely to have a very short career as a police officer.
So they’re whistleblowers. That’s what they are. They’re whistleblowers. And a whistleblower can breach confidence. They’re supposed to keep information confidential that they gain while they’re a police officer, unless there’s a clear public interest in exposing that publicly and they don’t have any other way to effectively deal with it.
So they’re bitching and whining about me exposing information — it’s misplaced. They should be trying to figure out “why are members doing this?” Obviously, they’re not happy with what’s going on. They don’t do anything about that. I’m sure they’d like to track down the whistleblowers and then deal with them. And ASIRT is so overloaded with 46.1 investigations — serious investigations — that they have to turn back some investigations to the EPS to investigate.
They just can’t handle them. They already have a backlog of about 3 years. So they’ve created within the Professional Standards Branch a 46.1 unit. Who do they have working in that unit? A guy by the name of Dave Radmanovich, he didn’t get caught wearing one of those shirts, but he was a member of the same “No Rats” squad. And that code of silence subculture was deeply infused in that squad.
Then he got caught… He got invited to present at the Citizen Police Academy, put on by I think the Edmonton Police Service and the Edmonton Police Commission. They invited Radmanovich to speak. They had all sorts of citizens, they had police commissioners there. And he was talking about how, in policing the inner city, he would have people “ride the lightning.” I think it has something to do with not having to get your hands dirty or something like that. But anyway, he was telling them that he would have the homeless people in that area ride the lightning, which is the taser. So now this guy is in the 46.1 unit. So I tweeted about it and I guess they weren’t happy about that.
I view Mike Elliott and Chief McFee as being a team, and I think there’s pretty strong evidence of that with McFee promoting Elliott to Staff Sergeant while he’s still in office and outside the regular promotion process. So I know Mike Elliott’s criticism of one of the policing committee members being a lawyer who advocates, who is a police abolitionist… He quoted her by saying the interest of the policing committee is to have the best policing possible within Edmonton. He figures this as a contradiction. What she meant by that was hoping to get to the point where you don’t need police. Okay. That’s a pretty idealistic viewpoint.
If she’s on our committee, that doesn’t mean that the chair of the committee, me, has to agree with that. We have very smart lawyers who are knowledgeable on the committee, and they bring different viewpoints. And he seems to think that I should have disallowed it as if I have veto power about who is on a CTLA subcommittee. Even if I had the power, I would not have done it. She’s a valued member of the committee, and it was obvious she would be when she joined the committee. So I just think that kind of criticism is like really reaching. Really reaching for something to criticize me about it.
🎵 Intro Music
Oumar
Thank you for listening to today’s episode of the podcast. It was really nice to speak with Tom again about a lot of these important issues. We’ll be releasing more episodes along with our different kinds of segments, including the Cringe Corner coming soon. Reach out to us on social media or through any other channel if you want to continue the discussion about these important issues or have any feedback or comments. Just reach out and stay in touch.
We’ll be back pretty soon in March with another episode. All the best. Take it easy.
