Mayor Valérie Plante and the director of Police Department of the City of Montreal Sylvain Caron are showing more and more openness to the deployment of body cameras on Montreal police officers. This technology can certainly be useful to prevent police blunders and reduce profiling, but it must be tagged to protect privacy, qualify organizations in Montreal-North.
“The technology has improved, we are there,” says Slim Hammami of the Multicultural Café-jeunesse organization. It’s not just for racial profiling, but to prevent all police abuse ”.
Mr. Hammami, like many others, however, does not believe that these cameras are a “silver bullet” to abusive police interventions. Cassandra Exumé, General Coordinator of Hoodstock, expresses her concerns about this measure.
“I still have some unease because it increases surveillance, it can be stressful for the population. It has to be relevant for both sides ”.
The debate on the implementation of body cameras in the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) has intensified since the controversial arrests of Mamadi Camara and Kwado D. Yeboah.
Mr. Yeboah, a lawyer for the Bar of Montreal, had filed a complaint with the police ethics commissioner and the Human Rights Commission following his controversial arrest in January. The latter had confided his concerns to Metro newspaper.
“The police must have limited control over the cameras, otherwise, they might as well not have any at all,” he said.
Supervise use
Toronto, New York, London, Calgary, Chicago and Los Angeles currently use Axon’s surveillance cameras for their police services. Elements of this technology allow governments some freedom in their use of cameras, but also in the use of data storage.
“Governments have a choice for certain features, such as the means of activating cameras and the recording time before and after activation. Also, it is up to the police to determine their data sharing policy, ”says Axon’s managing director in America, Vishal Dhir.
Usually, cameras are activated manually. This can also be done automatically when a policeman takes his weapon out of its holster or triggers the sirens of his car, for example.
Supervising the use of this technology is crucial for Marie-Livia Beaugé, founder of the Montreal-North Legal Clinic. Like Mr. Yeboah, she believes that the use of cameras and the storage of data should be marked out within restrictive laws for police officers.
“Ideally, the data should be managed by an entity completely independent from the SPVM. The police must have very clear indications as to the control they have of the cameras. It should not be a tool that worries the community more ”.
«Solution miracle»?
We should not expect racial profiling to be completely stopped with the implementation of body cameras, warns Guy Ryan, retired inspector of the SPVM. Although imperfect, the initiative seemed to him interesting for all parties.
“When people are being watched, it interferes with freedom. But here we could see if the interventions are justified, if there was use of excessive force for example. On the other hand, the reaction of the population is likely to be better ”.
Thursday, the director of the SPVM Sylvain Caron declared in a press briefing in Rivière-des-Prairies that the police department needed “technological means” to fight against “emerging” crime.
The official opposition to city hall once again urges the Plante administration to equip Montreal police officers with portable cameras from January 2021. A motion to this effect drafted by Abdelhaq Sari, councilor of Ensemble Montreal in Montreal -North, will be debated on February 24 at a municipal council meeting.
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