As activists and members of the public crammed into the Toronto police auditorium and into an overflow room, the Toronto police board met Thursday amidst raucous chants and calls for board members to resign — including over the divisive question of police officer presence in some city high schools.

Toronto police’s three dozen School Resource Officers (SROs) are poised to return to class alongside students in the coming weeks, something vocal members of the public gallery denounced as the civilian board opted to keep cops in schools during a proposed yearlong review.

Police Chief Mark Saunders presented a plan to the board to have Ryerson University perform an $80,000 review of the nearly decade-old program, following recent heated controversy over the presence of armed, uniform officers in schools.

Despite a board motion in June to conduct a review by year’s end, Saunders’ proposed Ryerson review would not be completed for another academic school year.

Critics of the program, which was instituted after the 2007 school shooting death of Jordan Manners, say the presence of police in schools has a significant detrimental effect on students and must be halted immediately.

Opponents say racialized youth in particular feel harassed and surveilled, that the involvement of police creates a “school to prison pipeline,” and that undocumented students are threatened by officers inquiring about their citizenship status, in contravention of both Toronto school boards’ “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy.

Proponents, meanwhile, say the officers make a positive impact coaching basketball, co-ordinating extracurricular events, and preventing incidents between students.

Gita Madan, with the group Education Not Incarceration, criticized the police participation in a process intended to be arms-length. She noted Chief Mark Saunders, board chair Andy Pringle and another board member will form a steering committee to oversee the review.

“To be clear, this is not an independent review, as you state. This is police investigating police. And everyone in this room knows what happens when you have police evaluating police,” Madan said in a deputation to the board.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Saunders said the goal of the SRO program is relationship-building, not enforcement — “my men and women don’t go in there lurking the hallways, looking to apprehend people,” he said.

The chief said he would “refocus” with his officers before they go back into the schools next month — “all eyes are on them” — and stress that they should not be conducting immigration status checks, though he denied that has been happening outside of a criminal investigation.

Asked about the increasingly adversarial nature of the board meetings — recent months have seen frequent disruptions and shouting matches between the public and board members — Saunders said: “You know, just because you scream loud doesn’t mean you’re accurate.”

Mayor John Tory, too, commented on recent divisiveness.

“It is certainly an awkward position and one I find very puzzling when people will come to a meeting and absolutely no point of view, no perspective other than their own is acceptable to them. And they question the legitimacy of reviewing something — you should ‘just abolish it.’”

In the wake of raucous meetings, armed Toronto police officers have been stationed inside the police auditorium and outside its doors. As of last month, members of the public have also had to pass through security to enter police headquarters at 40 College St., undergoing a bag search and metal detector.

“What you are seeing in this room today,” activist and freelance journalist Desmond Cole said in a deputation to the board, “is the militarization of a public space so that you and I will not come here and talk about police in our schools.”

Some members of the public attending Thursday’s meeting held up signs saying “We’re here for Dafonte,” in reference to the severe beating of Black teen Dafonte Miller.

Miller, 19, suffered severe facial injuries after he was allegedly beaten by off-duty Toronto police officer Michael Theriault and his brother, Christian, during the December 2016 incident. The brothers are now charged with aggravated assault, assault with a weapon and public mischief.

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The Special Investigations Unit (SIU), which probes deaths and serious injuries involving police, was not notified until months later — and then only by Miller’s lawyer — prompting accusations of a deliberate coverup by police to protect the Theriault brothers, whose father is a long-time Toronto police officer.

Saunders has denied allegations of a coverup.

Madan, one of the speakers against the SRO program, said what happened to Miller is “directly related to why we refuse the presence of police officers in our schools.”

“It is this context in which the SRO program exists. It does not exist in a bubble separate from what’s going on in the street.”

Wendy Gillis can be reached at wgillis@thestar.ca

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