Take action today: ban street checks now!
- Details
- Published on Monday, 06 July 2020 08:04
- Written by editor
Dear BCCLA supporter,
Police street checks are racist and illegal. Banning them is a necessary step in ending police harm.
Street checks are a discriminatory practice, with daily impact on Indigenous, Black, and low-income communities. Street checks also have no basis in law.
This injustice has gone on for too
long.
We’ve just launched a petition, and we
need you to join us and pressure the Province of BC, City of
Vancouver, and Vancouver Police Board to ban street checks once and
for all.
Will you add your voice now and demand an immediate ban of all street checks in BC?
As Lama Mugabo, Director of Hogan’s Alley Society, states, “The issue of police street checks is fundamentally connected to anti-Black racism and police violence.”
Indigenous and Black people are significantly over-represented in the numbers of street checks conducted by the Vancouver Police Department (VPD). In 2017, 16% of all street checks were of Indigenous people, despite making up... 2% of Vancouver’s population. Black people accounted for 4% of street checks despite making up 1% of the population.
Indigenous women are particularly over-represented, accounting for over one-fifth of all checks of women (21%) in 2016, despite only making up 2% of the population of women in the city.
While there has been much emphasis on street checks in Vancouver, the same pattern emerges in municipal police departments across BC. Data from Abbotsford, Central Saanich, Nelson, New Westminster, Oak Bay, Port Moody, Saanich, and West Vancouver police departments reveal a decade of racial targeting. Street checks are clearly harmful across the province. For years, we have been advocating against street checks, including filing a policy complaint in 2018.
We need radical change, and we need it now.
Both the Vancouver Police Board and the BC government have the jurisdiction to end the police practice of street checks.
Demand that they take immediate action and ban street checks today.
We can no longer let this arbitrary police practice continue. We must act now and demand an end to racist and illegal street checks.
Thank you for being part of the fight,
Harsha Walia (she/her/hers)
Executive Director
P.S. We need you in this fight for radical change. Together, we can end police street checks once and for all. Sign our petition now.
Sign the petition today
