Given the recent tide of outrage against anti-vaxxers demonstrating at hospitals, there’s been an increasing amount of discussion on the role of the police in this country; specifically, why the police can’t seem to do anything about anti-vaxx protests, and yet can somehow behave very aggressively towards indigenous activists and homeless encampments.
Ordinary Canadians are increasingly shocked that this one-sided approach to policing is occurring… while LGBTQ+ people, people of colour and above all indigenous communities have been stifling the urge to jump up and down and scream “we told you so.”
I for one welcome the fact that straight white people can see a massive injustice when it parks itself in front of an ambulance bay and blocks traffic and I’m pleased that they’re finally asking why the police are allowed to let one group slide while cracking down hard on others.
This is a critically important discussion. Police in Canada and especially in Ontario have no meaningful oversight of their actions and have a great deal of discretion in how they decide to go about “maintaining law and order.” It’s a situation rife for abuse and injustice, and desperately needs reform. I’ve been writing about that need for a long time now… and sadly I suspect I’ll have to continue to write about it for a long time to come.
Hamilton’s situation is a microcosm of the problems with unaccountable policing combined with a toxic professional culture gets to pick and choose who deserves to be policed and who doesn’t.
Almost exactly two years ago, I wrote a post on this blog called “Police and Trust” in which I responded to then-police chief Eric Girt’s disgraceful remarks on a local radio show where he blamed the victims of fascist violence at Hamilton Pride for his department’s inaction – inaction that we now know was deliberate – and then followed up with a series of homophobic stereotypes to describe that same community. He would later issue an insultingly insincere apology, but he never suffered any professional consequences for his appalling statement, and indeed retired to the praises of the politicians earlier this year.
And the LGBTQ+ community in Hamilton saw it all.
The new police chief, Frank Bergen, was appointed. As deputy police chief, Bergen was instrumental in having prominent Hamilton activist Cedar Hopperton arrested with a false claim that they had been present at the attack on Pride in violation of their parole – a charge which was provably false. In reality, Bergen had Hopperton arrested for a fiery speech shortly after Pride, in which they expressed the outrage and fear that the entire community was feeling. They were arrested and jailed for violating their parole… a “violation” which was nothing more than a trans person exercising their free speech.
And the LGBTQ+ community saw that, too.
In front of City Hall the Yellow Vests and their associated hate groups – including violent white supremacist groups and screaming homophobes – stood week after week while Hamilton cops let them harass and even assault counter-protesters. Hamilton police seemed far more interested in arresting a young gay man for dancing than preventing any violence. Indeed HPS, if not actually colluding with the hate groups, at the very least seemed to be taking advantage of their presence in order to pursue their vendetta against Hamilton’s anarchist community. And the hate groups thanked HPS for it.
And we saw that, too.
Earlier this summer the Hamilton Police Service teamed up with McMaster University and launched a survey for the LGBTQ+ community in the city, looking for information as part of a “first step” to help repair what they called “a strained relationship” with Hamilton’s queer folx.
As a writer, I confess I felt a moment of wry admiration for this monumental understatement. Then the rage washed it away.
Let me be frank: This relationship is not strained, it is broken. Before the 2019 Hamilton Pride attack you could use the word “strained” and not everyone in the room would make a derisive noise. Afterwards… no. There is no more trust in the Hamilton Police Service.
Nor should there be.
It’s been more than two years since the attack on Pride. It’s been more than a year since the independent investigation that placed the blame squarely on the police. And we’re only now taking the “first steps.”
There have been a lot ugly incidents with the Hamilton police, both before and after Pride 2019, most egregiously the 2003 death of Chevranna Abdi, who was dragged by HPS down seven flights of stairs on her face (her death would later be ruled “accidental.”) Then there was the notorious lunging attack against another trans member of our community in February of this very year, which demonstrated yet again the deeply entrenched culture of trans- and homophobia in the HPS.
As an aside, the officer now charged with assault in the infamous lunging video? Constable Ian Millburn, who has a history of similar incidents has also been identified by a number of people at Hamilton Pride as the officer who, when approached about the ongoing violence by the homophobic “street preachers”, sneered that he couldn’t do anything because we didn’t want cops there.
Yeah, a survey and a liaison officer isn’t going to do a damned thing to fix the problem. We’ve been repeatedly assured that it’s a “first step”, but there’s not a lot of faith in the community that HPS is going to bother with any steps after that.
One of the questions on the survey – which I have filled out and which remains available to members of the Hamilton LGBTQ+ community until September 30th – asked what the road forward looks like.
And I had to answer honestly – I don’t know. I genuinely don’t see a way past the mountain of distrust and betrayal that the LGBTQ+ community in Hamilton feels. I have friends in the city, especially trans friends, who will never call the police for any reason simply because they know the police are the greatest danger they will face. I’ve got the enormously privileged position of being white, cis- and male and I would hesitate to get the police involved in any situation unless I could possibly help it.
(For the record while I do consider myself part of Hamilton’s LGBTQ+ community, I live outside HPS’ jurisdiction in Niagara Regional Police Service territory… although the NRPS has recently suffered a blow in public confidence regarding their professionalism, too.)
I simply can’t see a road forward. I wish I could. But what I do know is that any road forward is entirely the responsibility of the Hamilton Police Service. The LGBTQ+ community in Hamilton has been abused enough; it is not on us to change. There can be no rebuilding of broken trust without a massive amount of work on the part of the Hamilton Police Service… and I very much doubt they’ve got the institutional will to make the effort. The systems of homophobia, of transphobia, of racism and classism and casual brutality are just too entrenched in police culture generally – and especially in Hamilton’s police culture – that I genuinely don’t believe anything will change.
The survey? The liaison officer? My personal – and admittedly somewhat cynical – view is that they’re purely performative. I’d love to be proved wrong, but I doubt I will be.
Anyway, if you’re in Hamilton’s LGBTQ+ community and you’re reading this before the 20th of September 2021, I encourage you to go fill out the survey if you haven’t already. And be honest. Be brutally honest, because if I’m doing the Hamilton Police Service an injustice and they’re actually planning on following through then they need to understand how very steep the walls are in the hole they’ve dug for themselves.
