A municipal court judge has concluded Montreal police officers committed racial profiling during a traffic stop in 2021.
“When I was listening to the judgment, I had to try very hard not to shed some tears,” said Kwadwo Yeboah. “It was a very emotional thing for me because the whole thing happened in front of my daughter.”
Yeboah, a lawyer from Laval, Que., was driving his Mercedes with his teenage daughter when he was pulled over near Chinatown because police believed he was using his cell phone.
He soon found himself with his arms twisted behind his back. He was handcuffed and stuffed in a cruiser while officers rummaged through his belongings, accusing him of using a fake driver’s licence. His daughter, 15 at the time, captured some of the arrest on camera.
Yeboah was not using a fake licence. He was ultimately released with a $400 ticket for the alleged phone use. He later filed a complaint with Quebec’s police watchdog, Commissaire à la déontologie policière, and the province’s human rights commission.
The 20-page decision by Judge Marc Alain reveals that one of the officers was wearing a personal body camera that recorded the incident.
The officer shared this footage with colleagues via WhatsApp, but it was not mentioned in her report. Additionally, police gathered surveillance camera footage from a nearby hotel, but this seized footage was never reported.
According to the ruling, the officer with the body camera told the court she chooses to wear one, though not required, because interactions, particularly when dealing with homelessness, mental illness or drug use, “could turn out badly.”
Court documents show the officers used the video evidence as a reference when writing their reports, but there were still inconsistencies in those reports.
The ruling says withholding the video evidence “is a serious miscarriage of justice and an indicator of conscious racial profiling.”
Video evidence unreported for a year, lawyer says
Yeboah said, while detained, he noticed police looking through his phone.
He told them, as a lawyer, that the information on his phone was covered by solicitor-client privilege, and they laughed in reply.
But after officers found his Quebec Bar Association membership card in his wallet, Yeboah said their behaviour changed and he was soon released.
Fernando Belton, Yeboah’s lawyer, said it was particularly condemnable that the police officers went to the hotel the next day to gather further video evidence and then not include it in their report. That video evidence stayed in an officer’s locker for one year, Belton said.
Laval lawyer Kwadwo Yeboah is filing a police complaint after he says he was pulled over and handcuffed after police thought his license was fake, though it turned out to be real. He was still handed a $400 ticket.
Yeboah said this likely happens often and goes unnoticed because not everybody has the means to take on the Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM).
“It’s very hard for you to combat an organization like the SPVM,” he said. “They have a lot of resources. Almost unlimited resources.”
The body camera and hotel surveillance footage was finally discovered during Yeboah’s trial for the cell phone ticket. Police officers brought it to traffic court, he said, but if that ticket had never gone to trial, the video evidence may have never surfaced.
The judge said the officers’ behaviour bordered on fabricating evidence or inducing court error, Yeboah recounted.
“When he said that, it was a good feeling for me, so people can understand these types of things happen,” he said.
Racial profiling is ‘an evil to be eradicated,’ court rules
Racial profiling practised by officers of the peace is “an evil to be eradicated, since it contributes to perpetuating unfair prejudices against racial minorities, cultural, ethnic and social,” the judge wrote in his ruling.
The SPVM declined to comment, but the story has caught the attention of provincial politicians.
The Parti Québécois is asking for clear guidelines when it comes to body cameras.
“There should be a real policy, about having or not body cameras and what are the best practices to use body cameras,” said MNA Pascal Paradis.
On the other hand, the minister responsible for the fight against racism, Christopher Skeete, celebrated the court ruling.
“It’s a message to all cynics out there to people who don’t believe justice is possible,” said Skeete. “The system works.”
Yeboah said he is suing the SPVM and the City of Montreal.
For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians — from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community — check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here.
