HALIFAX—As a 30-year-old Black man, DeRico Symonds is part of a minority group that is exposed to police street checks more than any other demographic in Halifax.

The undesirable distinction was made clear by a report released earlier this week; overall, Black people are checked by Halifax police nearly six times more than white people, and Black men between the ages of 15 and 34 are the most vulnerable of all.

“I know several people who are affected by this. I've been affected by this. So it really hit home,” Symonds told the Star of his reaction to the report.

The immediate response of the Police Board of Commissioners and the province was to stick to the status quo, so, on Saturday, Symonds lead about 100 people through the streets of Halifax, calling for an end to the practice.

“It just has to be a complete ban,” Symonds told a crowd inside the Halifax North Library before the march began.

He told the Star that he wanted to engage and inform the people most directly impacted by police street checks, so the gathering at the library featured youth from the Black community who discussed what they’d like to see happen to address the issue.

The room erupted over a call for an apology from Premier Stephen McNeil, and there were murmurs of assent over a suggestion that the community needs more information about their rights in interactions with police.

After the meeting, the crowd started its march down Gottingen St. chanting “no justice, no peace, no racist police.”

About 100 people paused outside the headquarters of Halifax Regional Police and then carried on in the direction of downtown.

The rally came three days after the release of a street check report by Toronto criminologist Scot Wortley, which showed that between 2006 and 2017, Halifax police targeted Black people for street checks nearly six times more than they did white people.

The report found that Black men were particularly vulnerable to street checks and that Black people were the only racial group stopped by police more than average. White, Asian and Indigenous people were all under-represented in police street check data.

Wortley relied on 12 years’ worth of police data, a variety of consultations and interviews with the Black community and the police force, and an online survey that was open to all Halifax residents.

He also investigated the utility of the practice, concluding that “overall, street checks have only a small role to play in police investigation and likely have only a small impact on crimes rates.”

Wortley, in his report, pointed to the human rights complaint of Kirk Johnson against Halifax Regional Police as the genesis of the current public dialogue on street checks.

Johnson’s complaint — based on a 1998 incident in which his vehicle was unjustly towed — lead to a tribunal that ended in 2003 by recommending a study on how race factors into traffic stops. Wortley said that study seemingly never happened.

“Kirk Johnson was not the first, nor the last, African-Nova Scotian to make serious allegation concerning racially biased policing in Halifax,” said Wortley in his report.

“I hope that the research produced in this inquiry sheds light on the complexity of the issue of police-race relations and contribute to policies that can bring about meaningful change.”

Wortley laid out two paths for police and government: a ban or regulation.

Nova Scotia Justice Minister Mark Furey said he found Wortley’s findings “alarming” and promised to deliver a plan to address street checks by mid-May.

Symonds said he wants to see Furey engage with Black youth in his deliberation.

“Young people can really take the reins and they need to be trusted to make decisions and provide solutions to things such as street checks,” he said.

The justice minister said he’s invited the African Nova Scotian Decade for People of African Descent Coalition to work with him, but, for Symonds, that isn’t enough.

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“Absolute respect for all of the current Black organizations and folks that are involved, but we need young people at the table."

While Furey consults and contemplates a next step, the Black community — backed by both opposition parties at the Nova Scotia legislature — continue to call for a moratorium on the practice, but the province says no.

On the day the report came out, Furey said he would direct police to stop using street checks in quota systems and for performance evaluation, although none were doing so.

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