A Toronto man, caught with a loaded gun in the downtown Entertainment District, was recently acquitted by a judge who found he had been racially profiled by police, a decision his lawyer says shows front-line officers are still engaging in the pernicious practice that courts have sought to eliminate for more than two decades.
“It’s really a systemic issue in policing, the refusal to accept this happens,” Toronto defence lawyer Kim Schofield said in an interview. “On the one hand, the TPS (Toronto Police Service) acknowledges systemic racism is a thing, and yet we don’t see any change in the way front-line officers,” operate when they’re doing proactive policing.