A Toronto man who says he was denied a police ride-along for being randomly stopped and carded has filed a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario.
George Knia Singh, a law school graduate, said that when he was a student, he was denied a ride-along with Toronto police that he had requested as part of his criminal law class.
Singh, who says he was turned away despite having no criminal record, is alleging police discrimination in his application with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario.
In an interview with CTV News Channel on Tuesday, Singh described the incident, in which he was told in an email that he would not be allowed to do a ride-along with police.
“It was upsetting when I got the email stating that I was denied the ride-along,” said Singh, who now works as a student-at-law at a firm in southern Ontario.
Singh said he was given the option to phone the police, which he did “right away.”
“We started speaking about allegations and I said, ‘Those are totally false, you can see in the notes they are false.’”
Singh said the cops then brought previous “driving contacts” with police, to which Singh said that police target and stop him “all the time” because “I’m black.”
“Anytime I challenged their reason, they ended up giving me another reason,” Singh said. “Until I finally complained.”
Singh said his professors at Osgoode Hall law school asked to speak with police but were denied that request as well.
Singh said when he finally reached the unit commander, he was told that he was denied the ride-along “because I associate with criminals, which is totally inaccurate.”
The incident Singh thinks police are referring to dates back to 2008, when he was stopped by police after leaving a recording studio with some youths he was working with at the time.
Singh said the youth he was driving had previous run-ins with police.
“Years later now, when this (police) check is going forward, they would see that I was stopped in the company of other people and those people may have had criminal records,” Singh said. “That seems to be the basis of their denial.”
Toronto police spokesperson Meaghan Gray said she can’t comment on specific cases but says when ride-along requests come in, police divisions do criminal record checks.
“Results that include one or more community engagements would not preclude someone from a ride-along,” she said in an email to CTVNews.ca. “However, someone with past or current criminal involvement with the police and/or someone who has past or current association to persons known to police would be reasons why a request would be denied.”
Singh, who also unsuccessfully vied this month for the Liberal nomination in a provincial by-election in Scarborough-Rouge River, said he wants to see the police correct “their data retention because data like this should not be kept.
“Anything that is collected in a non-criminal encounter that is not part of a criminal investigation should be purged from the system.”
He said his case is a perfect example where “an innocent person, someone who is trying to do good in the community, is being denied opportunities to advance, or to experience or to learn.”
Singh said he hopes police “really” take a look at their procedures and combat carding.
“Every civilian should be treated equally,” he said.
