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Fall, 2002
Police and teenagers
It was a dark and windy night…..when Jutta Mason went to the park to put away the sandpit play-shovels on Thursday September 12, at about 10.30 p.m. The wind was rather warm, but there were only a few people in the park - Carol Kidd walking her dog Oscar, and two young guys and one girl sitting at a picnic table, quietly talking. And there was a police car with search lights mounted on top, driving all over the park grass in slow loops and circles. When their lights picked out the three teenagers, the police drove over and pulled out their note pads. Jutta cycled over. During the years she's been involved in the park, Jutta has often seen the police asking teenagers for their i.d., when they're just sitting at a table and talking. Canadian law does not permit police to stop persons who are not engaged in any illegal activity, and ask them to identify themselves, unless a person fits a description for a police manhunt. Sitting on a bench at the park in a group is not an illegal activity. But if you're a teenager, you may be questioned.
People who came to Canada as immigrants from police states are often a bit sensitive about civil rights. Jutta, whose family left Germany ten years after time when civil rights were cancelled (that is, during the period between 1933 and 1945), gets worried about police stretching the law by asking for names when there has been no offense. And so whenever she sees this happening, she cycles over and just watches, as a citizen.
The two officers took down all the teenagers' names and addresses and consulted their mobile i.d. computer for possible criminal links. Jutta said that she felt it was not proper for police to take names when there was no offense. One officer told her to go to law school and then come and talk to them again. He then asked whether Jutta might have stolen the bike she was riding.
The other officer, with less temper, explained that they were merely following the orders of their staff sergeant from Fourteen Division. He said that the order to question young or suspicious-looking people had come because of residents' complaints about how dangerous our park is.
This sounds like a generic excuse. Our park seems remarkably safe. But if the officers are being ordered to drive around the park and take names by the staff sergeant, what are they to do? They have follow those orders.
But here's an idea: could these officers be diverted to a more pressing neighbourhood problem? Last year, two residents went door to door and collected a large number of signatures asking for action on dangerous driving. Some St.Mary's students and their friends, during lunch and after school, were racing and doing car stunts on Gladstone and Havelock streets and around the park. There was a meeting with the school and police, but no follow-up. St.Mary's principal Tony DeSousa submitted license numbers of the dangerous drivers and pledged to go to court if necessary, but the police took no action on these numbers. A promised poster from police, outlining the possible civil and criminal penalties for the drivers, never materialized. After four follow-up requests, we stopped asking. The problem has not improved this fall (and the people who circulated the petition finally gave up, put their house up for sale, and moved away). Could the police divert some of their considerable manpower to this pressing neighbourhood issue, and away from tracking down teenagers sitting in the park?
Residents who would like to recommend this alternative course of action to our police force, can call Fourteen Division Superintendent Paul Gottschalk at 416/808-1414. And residents who would like to reassure Staff Sgt. Glenn Holt of the Community Response Division about safety concerns at our park, and remind him about civil rights concerns, can reach him at 416/808-1500. It's good for the police to get community responses from citizens; it keeps them in touch.