NEWS RELEASE
NIAGARA REGION ANTI-RACISM ASSOCIATION
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The Niagara Region Anti-Racism Association (NRARA) said today’s Niagara Police Service Board’s launching of a community consultation process for implementing body cameras is long overdue. NRARA pointed out this discredits the Police’s past excuse that they need a provincial mandate, when almost all major Ontario police forces are implementing them without one and now Niagara is too, as one of the last.
At St. Catharines City Council and Niagara Regional Council meetings in August, 2020 then Police Chief Bryan MacColluch told Councillors they needed to wait for a mandate from the province before getting body cameras. The majority of Councillors believed the police over racialized residents who asked for accountability.
Herman Omilgoituk, an Inuk man who testified to Niagara Regional Council at its special meeting on August 13, 2020 about how a Niagara Region Police officer fractured his rib, added, “The police really need body cams because without proof every SIU report goes nowhere.” His complaint with the SIU (Special Investigations Unit) was dismissed for “no grounds in the evidence,” because it came down to his word against the police officer’s.
NRARA Executive Committee member Saleh Waziruddin explained, “Niagara Police can have body cams without a provincial mandate after all. That’s not what they told us in 2020. The St. Catharines and Niagara Regional Councillors who voted against recommending body cams shouldn’t have believed them. Police and their supporters pat themselves on the back for a lack of confirmed complaints, but that’s only because residents are not believed. Body cameras will make it possible to hold police accountable at long last.”
The Niagara Region Anti-Racism Association was founded in 2018 on the principle that antiracism should be BIPOC-led. It campaigns on police reforms, municipal anti-racism committees, employment equity, provides anti-racism workshops, and supports individuals under racist attacks.
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