Surely society can do better
I am a 63-year-old white mother. I am ashamed and disgusted that a rogue, violent police officer can chase down and blind a person and yet somehow not be convicted of aggravated assault. These vigilante actions are a disgrace. It is also painfully apparent that there was a systemic effort to corrupt and obstruct justice.
All decent police officers and community leaders must condemn such actions that reflect so poorly on the police.
Surely as a society we can do better than this. Janice Walsh, Burlington
Re Dear fellow brown people, we need to have a talk, June 27
Shree Paradkar, thank you for writing this incredibly insightful, rare and blunt piece. As a “successful” brown lawyer, I was unaware of how I may be unconsciously helping the subjugation of other minorities, specifically Black people.
Your article elucidated the important topic of other monitories’ silence (not just white people’s silence) being violence.
You are right: Brown silence is violence.
Thank you for helping me become a better brown person. Neil Gobardhan, Crown counsel, Ministry of the Attorney General
There are two considerations in searching for solutions to how police respond to distress calls from anyone needing help.
First, the steps taken during the recruiting process provide some safeguard that overly aggressive individuals predisposed to violence are identified. (Many seek to join the military or law enforcement and it’s not unusual for such personalities to be identified during psychological questioning and testing during the hiring process.)
Second is an understanding that the preservation of life is of paramount importance at all times.
It’s very clear that these two factors are absent when there is often such haste to shoot a person.
In other countries many lives are not lost during very difficult confrontations, including when violence has already occurred before the police arrive on the scene. Stan Adamson, Etobicoke
I’m not one for defunding police, but it would help to nurture some much needed respect for the police if the association president Mike McCormack would acknowledge that there are issues that need to be addressed, especially in the case of an off-duty officer beating up a young Dafonte Miller causing him to lose his eye.
Would like to be a fly on the wall and hear what that officer has to say about his brutal beating of another person. Would McCormack condone that? Dorothy Low, Richmond Hill
Re Was this the Theriault trial or Miller trial?, June 27
As I read the article by Rosie DiManno, it reminded me of a similar incident that took place in May 2004. A young man, 16, was involved in a relatively minor street scuffle with another group of boys of a different race. He was a student with no criminal involvement and, according to witnesses, no weapon apart from a few rocks. Residents were concerned and called the police for assistance. However, the only officers available were not uniformed. And apparently did not identify themselves.
The officers decided to apprehend Jeffrey Reodica and in the process used some profanity along with aggressive actions, according to witnesses.
Jeffrey tried to get away and in the process one officer shot him three times, at least once in the back.
The officers claimed that he had a knife and they feared for their safety. This claim was never substantiated by witnesses.
Jeffrey died shortly after and the SIU upheld the officers’ claim and right to use their guns and exonerated them.
Jeffrey was not Black, but of a minority race.
Unfortunately, he never got a chance to tell his side of the story.
It just seems that nothing much has changed in the last 16 years.
Some police officers continue to use their guns with no regard for the safety of those to whom they have sworn to serve and protect.
We can only hope that it will get better. Roy Isherwood, Toronto
Protests only serve to bring the elephant of racism out of the room and into the face of the broader community. When the broader community can no longer deny that there are whole groups of people who are considered less valuable, perhaps then, change can start.
There will always be those who believe the colour of one’s skin or their race determine a person’s value. Those people may never change, but their ability to wreak harm on others must be acknowledged and curtailed by the law.
It’s time for the “converted” to show their mettle. Protests are not enough. So called open-minded liberals need to practise what they like to preach. Antoinette Van Veen, Peterborough, Ont.
I am still reeling from the murder of young Sammy Yatim and the fact that police officer James Forcillo was released early, when his conviction and sentencing were already totally inadequate. The other officers involved in Sammy’s murder weren’t even charged.
But the recent decision by Ontario Supreme Court Justice Joseph Di Luca to acquit one of the brothers, Christian Theriault, who brutally assaulted Dafonte Miller and the tap on the hand of off-duty police officer Michael Theriault, who was convicted not of aggravated assault, but merely assault, made me sick to my stomach.
Dafonte Miller was a kid at the time of the assault, 19 years old. Did he deserve a beating that cost him an eye and could have cost him his life if he hadn’t been able to escape long enough to bang at the door of a neighbour and beg for help?
There is no question that Black people are treated unequally by our police and judiciary. That has been proven again and again. It is sickening.
I may be 75, white and privileged, but if someone I loved was in the midst of a mental health crisis, I would not call the police. If I saw someone breaking into my car, I might yell at them to get lost, but I would not call the police and have on my conscience the fate of that person, whether it be a brutal beating or being thrown into a prison system that is also brutal and inhumane.
I just don’t trust the police or the judiciary period!
And that is a shame. Fran Bazos, Newmarket
Send email to lettertoed@thestar.ca; via Web at www.thestar.ca/letters. Include full name, address, phone numbers of sender; only name and city will be published. Letter writers should disclose any personal interest they have in the subject matter. We reserve the right to edit letters, which run 50-150 words.