Latest news with #racialprofiling
CBC
12 hours ago
- CBC
Quebec's police ethics tribunal orders suspension of 2 officers for racial profiling
Quebec's police ethics administrative tribunal has ordered the suspension of two officers for racially profiling a Black man in 2019 while he was driving in Terrebonne, Que., north of Montreal. The decisions published on June 23 and July 16 are rare instances in which the Tribunal administratif de déontologie policière imposed sanctions on an officer following a complaint. Justice Benoit McMahon ordered a 14-day suspension without pay of officers Vincent-Anthony Cléroux-Mastracchio and Charles Ballard for "committing actions based on the race and colour of" Pierre Marcel Monsanto. In 2023, Monsanto filed 15 complaints against Terrebonne police for stopping him without valid reason between 2018 and 2021 and issuing him more than $6,000 in fines. Fourteen of those stops were made within 11 months. Quebec's Human Rights and Youth Rights Commission is seeking $205,000 in damages on Monsanto's behalf. In addition to being suspended, Cléroux-Mastracchio has been ordered to successfully complete 19 hours of training about racial profiling, offered by the École nationale de police de Québec, while Ballard was ordered to complete eight hours. "The tribunal concluded that Mr. Monsanto's race or colour had influenced officer Cléroux-Mastracchio's decision to intervene, after analyzing the circumstances of the interception, and that a white man would not have received the same treatment," McMahon's July 16 decision reads. McMahon says "sanctions are not imposed for the purpose of punishment" or only to protect the public; they are meant to discourage police officers from repeating offences and "serve as an example for other police officers who might be tempted to commit similar acts." Monsanto, who still lives in Terrebonne, said in an interview on Monday that while he is pleased by the decisions, he is "always on alert." "Considering everything that's happened, my name is probably on a blacklist," he said. "I don't know… I always think there might be some kind of retaliation." He says that once his situation allows it, he won't hesitate to leave Terrebonne. Fo Niemi, executive director of the Center for Research-Action on Race Relations (CRARR), who has been supporting Monsanto with his cases, says the two decisions are "very significant," particularly because they involve a municipality outside the island of Montreal. "The tribunal uses in these decisions very strong language to condemn racial profiling and to say how much not only is it an assault on Black citizens' and Black drivers' rights, but also how racial profiling undermines police credibility and the trust between the police and the community," Niemi said. Racial profiling often happens 'unconsciously,' judge says Monsanto filmed the interventions of Ballard and Cléroux-Mastracchio when they each stopped him while he was driving a car registered under his spouse's name. Neither of the officers fined him during the interventions. Ballard intercepted Monsanto in March 2019 after their vehicles were facing each other at a red light in Terrebonne, according to the decision. Since the vehicles were heading in opposite directions, Ballard made a U-turn and turned on his sirens to reach Monsanto. Ballard told Monsanto that he intervened because the driver's car was registered under a woman's name, the decision says. When Monsanto provided his driver's licence and relevant documents, the officer accompanying Ballard found that everything was in order. "The tribunal concluded that the U-turn made by officer Ballard to catch up with Mr. Monsanto and the inconsistency between the reasons he gave at the hearing to justify the driver's stop and the actions he took during his intervention constituted evidence of racial profiling in this case," the June 23 decision says. In July 2019, Cléroux-Mastracchio stopped Monsanto at an intersection that police were increasingly monitoring due to drivers not making a mandatory stop. It is located less than a kilometre from Monsanto's home. After Monsanto stopped and turned the corner, he saw Cléroux-Mastracchio's cruiser approach him, the decision says. The officer learned that two other driver's licences were linked to the vehicle Monsanto was driving besides that of the owner. One of the licences belonged to another man and had been cancelled. The ruling says Cléroux-Mastracchio stopped Monsanto and asked to see his licence and registration documents. After Monsanto provided them, the officer told him to lower his window. Because Monsanto didn't react, Cléroux-Mastracchio asked him to confirm his address and his connection to the vehicle — questions the driver ignored, according to the decision. Cléroux-Mastracchio conducted more checks before he released Monsanto and told him that greater co-operation would be "appreciated" if he is intercepted again, the decision reads. "The phenomenon of racial profiling is complex and often occurs unconsciously," the July 16 ruling says. "It involves the discretion of police officers during so-called random stops, a combination that often leads to racial profiling."
South China Morning Post
4 days ago
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
US House looks to revive China Initiative to ‘maintain America's competitive edge'
The US House is poised to advance a key spending bill that could revive the controversial ' China Initiative ' – a programme that unfairly targeted Chinese-American researchers, derailed careers and devastated lives long after it was ended in 2022. The Fiscal Year 2026 Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies (CJS) appropriations bill does not name the programme directly, but language in the accompanying report calls for its re-establishment to 'maintain America's competitive edge' and 'counter China's malign ambitions to steal American research'. A scheduled committee meeting to debate the bill was cancelled on Wednesday, but experts said the provision was likely to remain as the legislation moved towards the Senate. 04:26 Chinese-American scientists fear US racial profiling Chinese-American scientists fear US racial profiling Originally launched in 2018 to combat alleged economic espionage, the China Initiative was widely criticised as racially biased and ineffective. The Department of Justice officially shut it down following a series of failed prosecutions and mounting backlash from the scientific community. 'As a victim of the past China Initiative, I am disheartened by ongoing efforts in Congress to reinstate the misguided programme,' said Gang Chen , a mechanical engineer at MIT who was arrested in 2021 before all charges were dropped. 'It is not only discriminatory, but also harms America's ability to attract top global talent – ultimately weakening, not strengthening, our national security,' he said in a statement released by the Asian American Scholar Forum, a US-based non-profit organisation that advocates for academic belonging and equity in Asian-American and Pacific Islander communities. Chen is among more than 1,000 US researchers and university staff led by Stanford physicists Steven Kivelson and Peter Michelson in signing a letter that urged lawmakers to remove the provision. The letter, dated July 22, warned that reviving the initiative would deter talent, damage innovation and inadvertently advance China's own recruitment efforts.
The Independent
21-07-2025
- The Independent
Moment police break black driver's window and punch him in face for not having headlights on
This is the moment a black driver in Florida had his window broken and was punched in the face after police pulled him over for not having his headlights on in the daytime. The incident - shared by William McNeil Jr in a now-viral video - took place at 4.17pm on Feb 19 this year. After being pulled over by the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, the 22-year-old can be seen speaking to officers who tell him he was stopped for driving without headlights in 'inclement weather.' McNeil asks to speak to a supervisor before his window is broken and he is punched at least twice in the face before being dragged to the floor out of sight. The sheriff's office has launched an investigation. McNeil spent two days in jail after being charged with resisting an officer without violence and driving on a suspended license.
Yahoo
19-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
ICE Barbie Has Epic Meltdown Over Reporter's Question
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem strictly denied allegations of ICE's racial profiling Friday during a press briefing in Nashville, Tennessee. While taking questions, a member of the press confronted the DHS leader. 'ICE operations are taking place predominately in Latino communities...' the reporter said before Noem interrupted. 'I wouldn't say that's true, I would say that the media has highlighted operations like that, but we have operations ongoing throughout the country every single day in communities everywhere, so I would not say that anyone could show that they're highlighted in Hispanic communities,' Noem said. When the same unidentified reporter told Noem that Latino audiences are 'fearful,' due to recent ICE raids targeting people 'based on their skin color,' Noem chalked up the allegations to another one of the media's false narratives. 'That is absolutely false and don't you dare ever say that again,' she snapped. Noem's fury comes as a contradiction to White House border czar Tom Homan's statements that 'physical appearances' serve as a valid approach for detention. 'People need to understand, ICE officers and Border Patrol don't need probable cause to walk up to somebody, briefly detain them, and question them,' he said on Fox & Friends. The department head clarified that every single ICE raid is based on investigations that have 'reasonable suspicion.' As Noem denied allegations, four posters displaying arrested men graced the backdrop of the press conference listing their crimes along with their ethnicities: 'Salvadoran,' 'Venezuelan,' 'Guatemalan,' and 'Iraqi'. During the press conference, Noem shared that since the Trump administration took office, over 300,000 'criminals and illegal aliens' have been arrested. 'I'm so proud of this office and the agents that work here,' Noem said. '...We're going against the worst of the worst every single day, get the murderers, the rapists, the child pedophiles and pornographers off the of our streets and out of this country.' Noem also spoke about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland father who was deported by mistake, calling him 'a monster' that needs to stand trial. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
14-07-2025
- Yahoo
The messy aftermath of an immigration sweep in Pacoima
The 54-year-old woman was splayed on the sidewalk with her shirt half-raised, unconscious. Nearby, federal immigration agents stood guard as people screamed at them. Arturo Hermosillo, a U.S. citizen, was in his work van, recording it all when an agent ordered him to back up to make room for an ambulance that was en route for the woman. As he was reversing, he said, another agent started banging on his window and side view mirror, pushing it in. He couldn't see behind him and felt a bump. Hermosillo opened his door to tell the agents he couldn't move. But not long after, they dragged him out of his van. 'I told them I didn't do anything illegal,' he said. Hermosillo was arrested and sent to the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown L.A. The woman, who later said she had fainted while an agent bear-hugged her to the point she struggled to breathe, underwent heart surgery at a Providence Holy Cross Medical Center. A doctor told her she had suffered a heart attack. The immigration sweep on June 19, just outside a Lowe's Home Improvement store, is one of many that have taken place in Southern California and encapsulates the chaotic methods employed to detain people over the last month. A federal judge on Friday ruled that there was sufficient evidence that agents were using racial profiling to target people and ordered a halt to the indiscriminate sweeps, saying they violated the 4th Amendment. Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin said in an email response to The Times that a person 'rammed his vehicle into a law enforcement vehicle' during the June 19 operation. 'CBP Agents were also assaulted during the operation and verbally harassed ... despite this, CBP arrested 30 illegal aliens in Hollywood and 9 illegal aliens in San Fernando and Pacoima," she wrote. The Times sought clarification as to which operation involved the ramming of the federal vehicle, but neither McLaughlin nor the agency responded to the follow-up question. Eyewitness videos, as well as interviews with Hermosillo and the 54-year-old woman, tell a different story and underscore the public's outrage and criticism of the immigration sweeps. Matilde, who declined to give her last name because of her immigration status, said she was selling tamales by the entrance of the parking lot shared by Lowe's and other businesses when the 54-year-old got word that federal immigration agents were in the area. Matilde got nervous and began taking down her stand. She was about to put her umbrella away when a white car with tinted windows pulled up. 'I saw two agents get out,' she said in a phone interview. 'I didn't run.' She said the agent that ran to her never identified himself, provided a warrant or requested documentation of her immigration status. Instead, she said, he grabbed her from behind. 'I could feel his vest against my ear,' said Matilde, who is about 5 feet tall. 'I told him I couldn't breathe.' A second agent showed up to grab her hands to handcuff her. She said as they tried to do that one of the agents unintentionally lifted her shirt, exposing her bra. She reached to pull her shirt down and the agents used more force as if she were resisting. What happened next is something Matilde can't fully recall. 'I don't know if I fainted or if they threw me down,' she said. But she woke up on the ground and started to plea with agents. 'I told them: I can't breathe, I can't breathe and that my chest hurts,' she said. 'But they didn't listen. They ignored me.' She said she looked up at the tree where she had a framed picture of the Virgin Mary and began to pray: 'Virgin Mary, please help me, don't abandon me. I don't want to die.' She said a third agent came and told her he was a paramedic, asking her if she had any medical conditions. She told him she suffered from high blood pressure and diabetes and that her chest was hurting. He took her pulse before the agents dialed 911. She said the agents left her on the ground. Videos taken by people at the scene and shared on social media show Matilde on the ground, unconscious and surrounded by agents. In another video, firefighters are caring for her while a small crowd shame the agents for hurting the woman, especially those agents who appear to be Latinos. 'You have Latino blood,' one woman yelled at the agents in Spanish. 'Does it feel good doing this?' another woman screamed out. As paramedics arrived to transport Matilde to the hospital, three federal agents were trying to drag Hermosillo out of his van. A video shows an agent pulling on Hermosillo's leg to drag him out. A second agent tries to do the same before trying to snatch Hermosillo's arm but loses his grip and falls down. A third agent with a vest that reads "medic" joins in shortly after. "Dude, let him go!" a woman screams in the background. "Oh my God, why [do] you guys act like animals?" the woman recording the video says. "What has he done?" a man screams out at agents trying to keep people back. The video shows the three agents struggling to pull Hermosillo out. Once he's out of the van, he is shoeless on one foot and is pushed down to the hot ground so they can handcuff him. "What's your name?" the woman recording yells out to Hermosillo, who responds with his name. "Tell us where you're from so we can get you out of jail. Where are you from? What's your address? We want to call your family," people call out. In another video, Hermosillo is seen being placed in the back of a white van, screaming: "Fight back, fight back." "We're going to fight for you!" a woman shouts back to him. Once in custody, he said agents accused him of obstruction and took him to the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown L.A. There, he said, the agents mocked him. 'They were saying things like I was never going to get out and that I better lawyer up,' he said. When one agent told him he didn't understand why the public was making a big deal of the immigration sweeps, he got angry. "It's because you guys are Nazis," Hermosillo said he told the agent. He said they continued to tell him he would be in prison for nearly a decade. Hermosillo told the agents he was fine with that. "I was like, they're not going to break me," he said. "I'm going to continue my education in here; I'm going to continue organizing in here." He said that after some time, Homeland Security agents showed up to speak to him. 'They told me, 'You were never arrested. You're just being detained, but you can't leave L.A. County for six months to a year,' and that they were going to proceed with the offense but that they were letting me go.' He said he signed release documents. 'They let me out in the street with no shoe, no phone,' he said. 'I had nothing with me because it was in the vehicle.' Hermosillo said he recorded the incident but declined to provide it to The Times as part of his defense against the federal government. "You know the difference between them and us," he said. "It's that our struggle comes from love, and all they have is hate. "My struggle is for the love of my people." Once Matilde was placed on a gurney and moved into an ambulance, she was taken three miles to Providence Holy Cross Medical Center. There, she said, doctors treated her partially blocked arteries in the heart, telling her she had suffered a minor heart attack. "The doctor said I was lucky they weren't too clogged up or else they would have needed to do open heart surgery," she said. She stayed in the hospital for five days and was prescribed heart medication as well as medication for anxiety, which she developed after the June 19 incident. 'At night I can't sleep because I have nightmares," she said. The anxiety creeps up on her. Sometimes, she said, she can feel the agent's breath when he held her tightly. She said she has bruises on her legs, arms and belly and has been unable to do much, even cook. It's not the America Matilde envisioned when she came to the U.S. 29 years ago. She and her husband came for work and a steady income. They wanted to send money back home so her husband's parents, who were bouncing from one relative's home to another, could have their own place. They also wanted to raise a family, but in a country that provided better opportunities. She said her 28-year-old daughter is a nurse assistant, and her 15-year-old son wants to go to college to become a structural engineer. "We both suffered from our sacrifice," she said. "But we wanted a better future for our kids. "We wanted things just to be better." Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
