[URBAN NOTE] "Community activists concerned about TAVIS policing"

[rfmcdonald]

I was first alerted by a Torontoist post about possible neighbourhood concerns about policing in the Sherbourne and Dundas area during WorldPride. Patty Winsa's Toronto Star article goes into greater detail about these concerns.

Toronto police view the area from Wellesley south to Queen, and from Church east to Parliament, as one of the city’s most violent.

Community workers look at the neighbourhood in 51 Division and see marginalized people who need housing and help.

Those divergent views may clash as close to 30 officers with the Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy start sweeping through the area Monday as part of a summer initiative that will last until Sept. 8.

“We think this neighbourhood has a lack of resources, including housing, and these are the issues this community faces. Arresting people isn’t going to solve these socio-economic issues,” said Zoe Dodd, a community worker and volunteer with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty.

At a press conference Monday, the group, along with Jane Finch Action Against Poverty, the Toronto Sex Workers Action Project called “Maggies,” and the Network for the Elimination of Police Violence, said the additional police presence wasn’t welcome and asked for it to end.

“Our biggest problem is that we don’t think policing will solve the issues of this neighbourhood,” said Dodd, and “that over-policing is actually using tactics of harassment, carding and ticketing of people, especially people that are homeless and young men of colour.”

A Star investigation found that on average, TAVIS officers stop, question and document people — called “carding” — at a higher rate than regular officers in any division. Blacks were more likely than whites to be carded by police in each of Toronto’s 70-plus police patrol zones.

Police said the area was targeted because an analysis of crime rates over the years and incidents per square kilometre showed the neighbourhood had among the highest numbers of calls for service regarding shootings, robberies and violence.

“The neighbourhood has been chosen because of its high concentration of violent activity and not because of its racial, ethnic or socioeconomic make-up,” police spokesperson Meaghan Gray said in an email.