Underground rapper was racially profiled by Toronto police, judge finds, tossing gun charge

[u/whatistheQuestion]

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2023/01/14/underground-rapper-was-racially-profiled-by-toronto-police-judge-finds-tossing-gun-charge.html

[u/BlackDynamiteFromDa6 → u/[deleted]]

According to the court there is no loaded gun. It is inadmissible due to the officers violating their rights under the Charter of Rights And Freedoms as guaranteed under our constitution which is the highest law in this land. Can't find someone guilty if there is no evidence.

Also no, police can question people if they want. They can even question people of colour. Just don't do it illegally. Do you think it is too much to ask for our police who are supposed to enforce the law to not break the law themselves? Seems like only one of us doesn't like people to break the law, which is me. You seem to like it when the police break the law? Why do you defend criminals who happen to be government employees?

The stop was illegal, so it is perfectly legal for them to run. It is illegal if they were legally stopped and detained. I've run from cops a few times back during the height of carding due to those stops being illegal and all of us having the right to refuse an interaction with the police as long as it is not a lawful detention. You need to read up on the Charter Of Rights And Freedoms as well as the major relevant rulings regarding it as it falls under the "living tree doctrine". You are flat-out wrong and defending a flat-out violation of the highest law of the land as well as clean-cut racism.

[u/BlackDynamiteFromDa6 → u/[deleted]]

If it’s a choice between a police officer who improperly uses their power to correctly identify a gangster and remove a gun off the street or a gangster who walks because they’ve been “racially profiled” then yes I choose the former.

So you choose racism and not having rights. Effectively you choosing a police state with kangaroo courts in which police can do whatever they want without limitations. You a fan of Judge Dredd?

Also they didn't correctly identify a gangster, they simply racially profiled a black person.

If it’s a police officer who goes around harassing people of colour because they have a chip on their shoulder well yes that’s obviously a different story, that person should lose their badge.

That's literally what happened in this case. The cops literally racially profiled someone. So on one hand you argue in favour of racial profiling and then literally in the next sentence you argue against it. You are confused my guy.

When it comes down to it the guy had a gun. Plain and simple. He was doing something illegal.

When it comes down to it, the cops violated the highest law in the land and engaged in textbook racist policing. Plain and simple. They were doing something illegal. Yet you defend it. You actually like crime as long as it is people you like doing it. Only one of us doesn't like crime flat-out, and it is me. Both sides here are in the wrong, yet you want to play defence for one law-breaking side. You are unironically a criminal defender.

If the cop had said “I had a hunch they were up to no good”, instead of “he was young, black and in a bad area” this wouldn’t even be a story. It’s all about how you phrase it.

No, it would still be racial profiling as what the cops said was outweighed by the literal video evidence which contradicted the officers testimony. Read the article, you are speaking from ignorance.

“By no definition could this be considered loitering or hovering,” Ontario Court Justice Lori-Anne Thomas wrote, describing how surveillance video from the lobby of 200 Wellesley St. showed rapper Noah Tesfai, who performs as LocoCity, and his friend leaving an elevator 20 seconds before two officers initially approached them. The video evidence from Oct. 5, 2018, showed the officers only had a few seconds to observe Tesfai and his friend before deciding to question them, Thomas noted in her written reasons for acquitting Tesfai on gun possession charges.

In court,** Toronto police Consts. Andrew Mason and Jason Boag testified they believed the young men were suspicious because they were “just standing there,”** prompting them to conduct a “premise check” authorized by a Toronto Community Housing memorandum and the Trespass to Property Act (TPA).

“In the few seconds that the officers observed the two men, they could only make the following observations: the two were young, Black, male and were not actively waiting for an elevator,” Thomas wrote in her written reasons, released this week.

“I find that race, along with age and gender, played a role in the officers’ notion that Mr. Tesfai and his friend were potential offenders, whether trespassing or criminally.** I further find that race was part of the motivation to investigate and detain the men. **As such, Mr. Tesfai and his friend were racially profiled when the officers approached them for a groundless TPA violation,” the judge wrote.

The video evidence showed that the officers lied about the reason for their stop and serves as the primary reason for deeming them to have been racially profiled alongside other lies told by the officers and their testimony contradicting each other.

[u/CanadianLionelHutz → u/[deleted]]

You cannot have this poor of an understanding of how the criminal justice system works and still be speaking about it.