The Black Man Beat out the Brown Boy

http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/20...chief.html

Quote: By: Betsy Powell City Hall Bureau, Jennifer Pagliaro City Hall reporter, Published on Fri Mar 27 2015

When Peter Sloly and Mark Saunders became cops in the ‘80s, the then-named Metropolitan Toronto Police Force was filled with tall, broad-shouldered white men of similar backgrounds and interests.

Sloly and Saunders shared similarities of their own.

Saunders was born in England in 1962 to Jamaican parents; Sloly four years later in Kingston, Jamaica.

Both were young boys when their families moved to Canada and settled in the Toronto area, where they finished school and signed on as police cadets in the country’s largest city.

The two rose rapidly up the ranks and today are both deputy police chiefs and candidates to replace Toronto Chief Bill Blair, who steps down next month.

As the selection process enters the final stages, the prevailing view in policing and political circles is that sometime this spring, Toronto’s police chief will be someone other than a white male — a first for this city — and in all likelihood it will be either Sloly, 48, or Saunders, 52.

“The sides have been drawn up, basically,” says retired Toronto police inspector David McLeod.

The selection of either Saunders or Sloly will send a strong message in a city where almost half of the population identifies as part of a visible minority, says criminologist Akwasi Owusu-Bempah.

“I don’t think having a black chief is the magic bullet to solving the service’s community relations and engagement problems.

“Nevertheless it would have a symbolic value,” by showing Torontonians that the offices of power are open to non-whites, he said. “It might also signal a change to affected communities and increase their willingness to engage with the police in a more positive manner.”

[size=14pt]the new police chief of the city of Toronto[/size]


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toro...e24168683/

Quote:Toronto’s new police chief used one of his first public appearances since getting the job to caution the black community that policy changes won’t happen overnight, and that he isn’t considering getting rid of the controversial practice known as carding.

The practice, in which officers stop people who aren’t suspected of a crime and take down their personal information, has drawn much anger from the black community, which complains it has been disproportionately affected.

Many black community leaders said they didn’t know Mark Saunders well when he was named the first black chief of Canada’s largest police force. But they got a better sense of his policing plans on Wednesday when he spoke at the African Canadian Summit in North York.

“Abolishing [carding] is not the way in which we are going to say ‘Everything’s going to be better,’” Chief Saunders said to reporters after his speech, just four days into his new job.

The chief instead promised incremental change, especially around officer training. Repeating a pledge he made after his appointment last week, he said he would sit down for extensive talks with community leaders.

Of the final candidates for the top job, Chief Saunders was widely seen as one of the more traditional options, less likely to bring in drastic reform.