A veteran York Regional Police officer who spent three decades with the service says policing has a nepotism problem that disadvantages Black officers looking to be promoted.
In an interview with CBC Toronto’s Dwight Drummond, retired supt. Keith Merith said Black officers have to fight a battle against a system where opportunities are often given to friends and family members of high-ranking police officers.
Merith spoke in the interview about the disciplinary case of Toronto police Supt. Stacy Clarke, who pleaded guilty in 2023 to giving confidential information to six Black constables ahead of promotional job interviews.
Clarke, the first Black female officer to reach that rank at the Toronto Police Service, said at her hearing that she felt “invisible” advocating for her Black mentees, while her lawyer argued she was acting out of desperation to counteract anti-Black systemic racism.
“What Stacey alluded to is real,” Merith told Drummond. “How many diverse candidates or diverse members are in the homicide units, in the robbery units, in the sexual assault units?”
The former officer detailed his three decades in policing in a recently-published memoir, A Darker Shade of Blue. Though Merith wrote that he loved being a police officer, he argues police forces remains complicit in the abuse of Black people.