Toronto police Supt. Stacy Clarke helped six Black members of the Toronto police service cheat in their promotional interviews as a “desperate act of equalization,” her lawyer said Monday, describing an attempt to level the playing field in a police force where structural racism still holds Black cops back.
In his opening address at Clarke’s high-profile disciplinary hearing, Joseph Markson said Clarke — the first Black female superintendent in Toronto police’s 180-year history — feels “fervent remorse” for her misconduct, which included texting pictures of the answers to interview questions to six Black protégés vying for a higher rank.
But this was misconduct “rooted in real despair, in real hurt and in real pain,” born of both fighting and experiencing systemic racism in policing throughout her career, Markson said.
“As the first Black female superintendent in the history of the Toronto Police Service, Supt. Clark has been running uphill, against the wind, for 26 years,” Markson said.
Community members, Clarke supporters and notable policing figures — including former Toronto chief Mark Saunders, the force’s first Black police chief — packed every seat in the Toronto police headquarters auditorium the the first day of Clarke’s sentencing hearing Monday. The sheer number of attendees, some coming by bus from the Jamaican Community Centre, prompted the move to the larger venue from the usual tribunal office.
Clarke’s disciplinary case has attracted attention since January 2022, when the trailblazing cop was charged with multiple counts of professional misconduct for helping six officers cheat in their attempt to become sergeants. In September, Clarke pleaded guilty to seven counts of professional misconduct under Ontario’s police legislation, an admission likely to result in a significant demotion.
Police prosecutor Scott Hutchison said Clarke’s serious misconduct might reasonably warrant her dismissal but stated he won’t be arguing for that; Chief Myron Demkiw has said he still believes Clarke has value to the force. Instead, Hutchison asked hearing officer Robin McElary-Downer, a retired South Simcoe Police deputy chief, to knock Clarke down two ranks for a year (to staff sergeant), then down one for another year (to inspector), then force her to re-apply for her superintendent rank.
Markson asked for a demotion of one rank for one year or 18 months, and that Clarke be automatically reinstated to superintendent.
As part of his opening statement, Markson read out an explanatory statement written by Clarke in early 2022, just as the promotional scandal Clarke set off was rocking the force, prompting a service-wide freeze on promotions. In it, she wrote about carrying “the weight and loneliness of being the only woman of colour in the entire senior management team.”
“I’ve had to prove myself over and over to all the naysayers and doubters who believe my ascent through the ranks is solely due to the colour of my skin. I’ve had to jump through hoops that were created just for me,” she said.
She was involved in the force’s promotional process in the fall of 2020 — as a crisis in trust was rocking policing across North America, after the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. She attempted to be an ally for Black candidates, but felt her advocacy was falling on “deaf ears,” she wrote, and that they didn’t stand a fair chance.
“My own history and experience of racial inequity compounded this feeling and I felt invisible in this space,” Clarke wrote.
“I decided that if the opportunity presented itself, I would assist the candidates and make a desperate effort to level the playing field.”
Saunders, who served as Toronto’s first Black police chief from 2015 to 2020, briefly took the stand Monday as a character witness for Clarke, telling the tribunal she was an “excellent” police leader who excelled at everything she did.
Asked if he understood the seriousness of Clarke’s misconduct, Saunders said he did — “absolutely, and I think, more importantly, Supt. Clark understands the weight of this too,” he said, noting she’d pleaded guilty at the tribunal.
But it was not the Clarke he knew, Saunders said.
“This is totally out of character by any stretch of the imagination,” he said.
Quipping that he was glad he was not in the hearing officer’s chair, Saunders offered the opinion that Clarke still had much to give the police force. He noted her misconduct was not done to benefit herself, and was not as serious as other kinds of police misconduct, including the type that can physically harm a member of the public.
“I think she should return,” he said.
More to come.