Photo courtesy CBC
Errol Burke was wrongfully arrested while buying milk at a Montreal convenience store in 2017. The officers involved have been found guilty of racial profiling.(Rowan Kennedy/CBC)
The flip side of who protects the police is who protects citizens from being racially profiled?
"Errol Burke was getting milk at his local Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce convenience store on Feb. 18, 2017, when the officers wrestled him to the ground, searched and handcuffed him.
"I'm relieved and I'm elated at the fact that the [police] ethics committee is looking at me as someone who's truthful and that I have credibility," Burke said at a news conference Sunday outside the store on Décarie Boulevard."
"The officers, Constables Pierre Auger and Jean-Philippe Théorêt, were looking for a suspect described as a Black 18-year-old man whose height was 1.85 metres, whereas Burke stands at 1.70 metres and was 54 years old at the time of the intervention. Burke and the suspect were also wearing different styles of clothing."
"What struck us back when [Burke] first contacted us is this phenomenon of jumping on any Black person that they could find at the time even if the suspect description just does not match his profile," Niemi said.