Police race profiling allegations: a trial begins in Montreal

In the eighteen months since getting his driver’s license in March 2018, Mr Luamba reported that the police stopped him almost 10 times for no particular reason. He said he was driving a car at about half of the stops and a passenger in someone else’s car at other police stops.

These traffic checks are at the heart of a lawsuit he filed against the governments of Canada and Quebec and began Monday in a courtroom in Montreal.

Mr Luamba, who is a black, said he believed he had been profiled in the race during the traffic stop – none of which resulted in a ticket – and that he was looking for a rule of thumb. common law to declare unconstitutional the fact that Canadian police detain drivers for no reason.

He said he was frustrated and could not understand why he was arrested, despite following the rules and not committing the offense. The 22-year-old added that he was nervous while interacting with police.

The lawyers for Mr. Luamba and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, which has intervening status in the case, told Superior Court Judge Michel Yergeau that the police power to randomly arrest drivers, outside checkpoints driving a drink, is unconstitutional and allows race profiling.

Mike Simeon, representing Mr Luamba, said in his opening arguments that the situation had changed since the Supreme Court of Canada, in a decision in 1990, upheld the power of the police to make random stops. of traffic. Racial profiling is now recognized as a serious problem, he said.

According to him, the arrests violate the right not to be incarcerated and the right to know why one is incarcerated.

The police had no explanation

In some incidents, Mr. Luamba said, police did not tell him why they arrested him until they were ready to release him.

Simeon said black people, especially young black men, are more likely to be targeted for random arrests than other people.

Mr. testified. Luamba said that when he told his friends about the police interactions, his black friends told him they were used to random arrests, while his white friends were stunned at whether how often he was arrested.

Lawyers for the Canadian and Quebec governments argued that the Supreme Court was right to uphold the rule allowing random stops, which they say is an important tool in the fight against drunk driving.

Ian Demers, an attorney representing Canada’s Attorney General, said the federal government knows racial profiling exists and there is a legal way to combat it. The power to make random stops is not intended to enable race profiling, he said.

Mr Luamba testified that he was arrested both while driving and as a passenger in vehicles driven by black friends. Four arrests were included in the first court documents of Mr. Luamba.

Under cross-examination by Quebec government lawyer Michel Déom, Mr. Luamba said that every time he stopped driving, he was in a car owned by someone else or in a rented car. Each time, the police accepted his explanation of why he was driving someone else’s car and abandoned him after a few minutes.

Me Déom asked Mr. Luamba how many times he was stopped while driving a vehicle he owned, and Mr. Luamba said he was stopped three times due to speed. Mr. Luamba will own his own vehicle between August 2020 and August 2021.

The trial, which is expected to last a month, will continue on Tuesday.