The Use of Force by the Toronto Police Service

In terms of police use of force that resulted in civilian death, from 2000-2006 Black people were involved in 46.6% of all cases. While the Black use of force death rate (3.36 per 100,000) during this period was 6.3 times higher than the white rate, and 33.6 times greater than the rate for other racial minorities. This percentage increased from 46.6% to 61.5% in 2013-2017. During this period the Black use of force death rate (3.34/100,000) was 11.3 times greater than the rate for other racial minorities. With respect to police shootings, they found that Black Torontonians were much more likely to die as the result of police use of force than people from other racial backgrounds. Here, Black Torontonians were found to be over-represented in SIU investigations as between 2000-2006, Black Torontonians represented 77.8% of all TPS shooting deaths, and between 2013 and 2017, they represented 70% of all TPS police shooting deaths.

In most use of force cases the police documented that the civilian’s behaviour played a decisive role, as they resisted arrest or threatened or assaulted the police officer. But it’s reported that in a small number of these cases, police used force because the civilian was attempting to flee. From 2013-2017, 54.4% of TPS use of force cases involved civilian threats or assaults against the police; 29.6% involved people resisting arrest; and 7.2% were related to people trying to escape police apprehension. If we take the accounts of the police in SIU files are as truthful, this would suggest that most of the people involved in TPS use of force cases were threatening or aggressive.

The Arming of Civilians Involved in Use of Force Cases

Between 2000 and 2006, white and Black people involved in police use of force investigations were more likely to be unarmed, but between races, white people were more likely to be unarmed compared to Black people (74.4% in contrast to 54.5%). For those that were armed, Black Torontonians were more likely than white people to possess a gun (24.2% compared to 7%) or a knife (15.2% vs. 4.7%). This changed in 2013 to 2017 where Black Torontonians were slightly more likely to be unarmed than their white counterparts (66.7 % compared to 63.6%). Compared to white people during this period, Black people were slightly more likely to possess a gun (8.3% vs. 3.6%) or a knife (16.7% compared to 14.7%). But overall, white people were more likely to be in possession of other types of weapons than Black people (18.2% compared to 8.3%). In this case, although Black people were more unlikely to be unarmed, when they were armed, they possessed a more lethal weapon.

The Disparities in Deaths as a Result of Toronto Police Shootings

In cases where TPS decided to discharge their firearm, the study suggests that people often possessed a weapon. More specifically, SIU investigations data indicates that people possessed weapons in nearly 90% of all police shooting cases. In reference to the limited number of police shootings, from 2013 to 2017, white people were slightly more likely to be in possession of a firearm than their Black counterparts (20% vs. 11.1%). But interestingly, the study suggests that white people were more likely to survive TPS police shootings, even when they possessed a weapon and used it to attack or threaten the police. This is demonstrated in the period between 2013 and 2017 where white people were shot by TPS officers on 10 occasions. Only two of these 10 shootings resulted in death. In both cases, the police were threatened by the white civilian with a firearm. In four separate shooting cases, the white suspects had either shot at the police (two cases), threatened the police with a gun (one case), or fired at another civilian (one case).

The case for Black people is quite different; the data indicates that Black people never survive police shootings when they threatened or attacked the police. Nine Black people were shot between 2013 and 2017 by the TPS, seven of which resulted in a fatality. Of the survivors, one was unarmed, and the other threatened a civilian with a knife. Of the seven fatality cases, one involved a civilian shooting at police officers, two cases involved gun threats to the police, two involved alterative weapon threats to the police, and two involved other weapons threats against people. It seems as if the differences in these shootings signals racial bias. Being that white suspects were behaving similarly to Black suspects in terms of threatening behaviour, our assumption would be that the numbers should be more equal. And I consider this to be true. But the ideas of should and can it be more equal is difficult to say. The context, officers, and posture of the suspect and police involved all matter in this scenario. Nonetheless, a pattern in a small sample size has been identified where Black people are killed under similar circumstances where white people are not.

Conclusion

From this study the researchers concluded that Black Torontonians are over-represented in police use of force and shooting cases. In turn, they suggest this indicated large disparities that couldn’t be explained by the higher offending thesis, which suggests that Black people in these communities commit more crime due to their economic conditions, leading to greater policing and more Black-police interactions. The suggestion is that these findings were more aligned with the implicit bias thesis which speaks to racial discrimination practices in the TPS.

I find this study to be useful in conveying a picture about use of force on Black people. Although, in the same breath, I find the use of the population benchmark in every metric of evaluation to be problematic as at large, disparity is not indicative of discrimination. It can be. But this isn’t always the case. Because Black people represent a smaller amount of the population, in absolute numbers and in terms of interactions, it’s possible that the numbers are higher for white people. But using 100,000 as the denominator fails to acknowledge that the Black population in Toronto is just roughly over 200,000. Thus, greater policing will certainly lead to greater representation of Black people in these metrics due to the density of Black people in high crime areas. 

Some may say this is indicative of over-policing Black bodies, and in some cases I agree. Joined with over-policing are discriminatory practices where police tend to target Black people that look or dress a certain way, even when there aren’t any grounds to do so. Others may say that high crime in these neighbourhoods is indicative of neglect from the government, which I certainly agree with. Nonetheless, the problem is this assessment may present an inaccurate picture of use of force, and as such, I call for a study that uses the number of interactions with the police to properly assess if discrimination exists.

More research should be done into the use of force for TPS. From the available data, there seems to be an eagerness to use force against Black bodies, and in terms of lethal force, an intent to shoot to kill, leading to no Black civilian to survive their shooting. In this case, there needs to be more discretion and value placed on Black bodies, and until then, we will continue to say Black Lives Matter.

For more information, the full report can be accessed here.

Interested in learning more about Black experiences? Check out these resources related to the subject:

• New OHRC report confirms Black people disproportionately arrested, charged, subjected to use of force by Toronto police | Ontario Human Rights Commission
• Special Investigations Unit — Public Reports (siu.on.ca)