By Arthur White
Vice News
Nigel Barriffe, a teacher at Toronto’s Greenholme Junior Middle School, hears the same story every month. This time, a grade eight student was on his way home from basketball practice. A police officer stopped him and asked him what he was up to.
“He felt like he was only picked on because he was black,” Barriffe told VICE News. “He felt helpless.”
The police call interactions like that “community engagement,” but the practice more commonly known as “carding” has been a longstanding source of friction between police and black Torontonians, who say they’re disproportionately targeted.
This Sunday, in a watershed moment in the saga, Toronto Mayor John Tory announced he will move to cancel carding, arguing that it had “eroded public trust” and that the city should “start fresh.”
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