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posted October 26, 2005
Community Dialog: Relations with the Police
posted October 26, 2005
Position: Against "Attacking" the Police
Enough is enough Jutta,
Please end your seemingless endless proselytizing against the police and open your eyes and your mind. Every situation you describe in your slanted, self-serving "articles" serves only to report your perception of the world (which apparently only extends to the boundries of Dufferin Grove park) and the "injustice" that you witness. What all of your articles and their accompanying tirades from the converted lack is a sense of context, the context of the greater neighbourhood, the city, and society in general.
Have you spoken to the administration at the nearby school to see what particular problems they have with some of the "youth" that frequent the park and prey upon their students? Have you spoken with the mall administration and the security staff to talk about how people intent on commiting crime within the mall often use the park either as a rallying place or a route of escape? Have you actually spoken with any of the officers who patrol the park and ask them why they take their vehicles through it?
If you and your accolites are so quick to find deficiencies in the conduct of police when in your park (ie: Illegal Searches) then perhaps you should take a look at your own actions and subject them to such close scrutiny. You were quick to congratulate yourself on your conduct with your boisterous "gang girls" - did you ever stop and question wether you had the right to intervene at all? You claim that you led them from the park..by what right or authority? Stop beating the drum of your own self-righteousness for a minute and try to open a sincere dialogue with Police - the results might amaze you.
I'll submit this e-mail in the hope that you'll reproduce it. I sincerely doubt that you will as not only are the self-appointed "editor" of the Friends of Dufferin Grove Newlsetter you also seem to be its chief censor.
A long time resident.
Tim Trotter
posted October 26, 2005
Position: Unfairness to youth won't work
Thank you Mr.Trotter. If you look at other parts of the web site, you will note that we post any letters we get. Yours will most certainly be posted.
In answer to your questions, yes, I and others have spoken at length with police, mall, and school staff over the years. They all have tough problems to deal with, and they also create problems. For instance, the school has brought many difficulties into this area since they changed over from being a primary school in 1984. Perhaps you are on the staff there? I have heard that several school staff have recently asked some youth who sit at the basketball court to leave the park, on the grounds that they are leading the St.Mary's students astray. No need to look that far, though. As a long-time resident upwind of the school, I daily see groups of students in St.Mary's uniforms refuelling with marijuana between classes, along the laneway north of the school (behind my house). They seem to have a very efficient distribution system all their own. Other students race their cars along the streets in a dangerous manner and will one day hit a pedestrian. Some have fights inside the rink change house. Many others distribute litter all along the route between their school and the fast-food places, and make the air ring with curses.
However they are young and many of them will get over this phase. in the meantime, it's important for the grown-ups, like me and you, to try and be both resolute and fair. Sounds like you might want to scuttle the "fair." Frustration with the difficulties all around us can make us want to cut to the chase and just get rid of people who make the difficulties. Those people who are right out in the open and obvious, like the black and coloured youth who sit idle in the park, might seem like the easiest place to begin. But targeting them is unfair, and unfairness doesn't work in the long run.
As for the wannabe "gangster girls" who came to the park and wanted to beat up a another girl -- as you know, if they had done that at the school they attend, they would have been expelled. There is a fairly broad social consensus that threatening to attack someone, and trying to provoke a fight, are not acceptable behaviours. Since these girls picked the park as an alternative site for their violence, I would hope that any adult witnessing this would try to intervene. This could mean getting them to leave the area (in this case the park) if they wouldn't respond to a request to stop. Would you have preferred me to just let the group attack the girl they were after? You recall, the park staff did call the police. But the police coming an hour later doesn't address the problem.
My hunch is that, if you had been there, you would have tried to stop them as well.
If you would like to have a more detailed conversation about these important issues, I'd be happy to have a cup of coffee whenever you choose.
Jutta Mason