WRPS

[dtkvictim]

Please provide the real data to support your statement.

https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-...-year.html

I could be wrong, but I don't think he was questioning the only part of your post that was believable at face value, and I think you knew that.

[Rainrider22]

You are sourcing media ? I am out , not getting involved in that conversation. I will gladly meet in person over coffee and talk about the truth.

[danbrotherston]

You are sourcing media ?  I am out , not getting involved in that conversation.  I will gladly meet in person over coffee and talk about the truth.

"Please provide data"...

"Okay, here you go"...

"I am out, not getting involved in that conversation"...

If you didn't want data, you shouldn't have asked for it....I mean, really.

[ijmorlan]

You are sourcing media ?  I am out , not getting involved in that conversation.  I will gladly meet in person over coffee and talk about the truth.

The Truth Is Out There

[tomh009]

You are sourcing media ?  I am out , not getting involved in that conversation.  I will gladly meet in person over coffee and talk about the truth.

If you didn't want data, you shouldn't have asked for it....I mean, really.

My guess is that they are talking about two different things, although both relate to WRPS.

[danbrotherston]

If you didn't want data, you shouldn't have asked for it....I mean, really.

My guess is that they are talking about two different things, although both relate to WRPS.

That's a generous interpretation....

[nms]

The Waterloo Region Police Services Board posted a statement from Chief Larkin in June 2020 that acknowledged that they have work to do. He said, in part:

First, on behalf of the Waterloo Regional Police Service, I want to acknowledge that racism exists in our Region and in our country and that Black, Indigenous and other racialized communities have suffered, and continue to suffer, from systemic discrimination and bias in our society.

We recognize and acknowledge that policing is perceived and experienced by racialized communities as an institution that embodies this systemic discrimination and bias. We also recognize that these communities believe, based on their felt experiences and histories, that Police Services in our Region, in Canada, and throughout the world, exercise their powers of enforcement in a manner that results in the disproportionate treatment of those who are poor, Black, Indigenous or People of Color.

I'm sure that there others out there who may have more concrete data on the matter.  The tricky part is that I'm not sure what public data is available beyond the "use of force" data listed above.  If someone from the BIPOC community has a negative experience that does not result in a "use of force" nor an arrest, that data may not be publicly available.

[ac3r]

WRPS is finally getting rid of that wretched "diversity cruiser" they thought would have been a great success: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener...-1.5982122

Edit: insideWaterloo has published a poem by local poet Teneile Williams on the topic:

[danbrotherston]

WRPS is finally getting rid of that wretched "diversity cruiser" they thought would have been a great success: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener...-1.5982122

They are, but they aren't actually solving their problems, or even acknowledging there are problems. Their statement was very on point.

"We're sorry that some were offended"...I.e., they don't think they did anything wrong, and are annoyed that people don't like their cruiser.

"We're cancelling the project [good] and will continue our diversity project as before." I.e., they are cancelling because of public pressure, but don't acknowledge that it was a mistake, nor do they question or change the process that led them to make that non-mistake.

They aren't ready for change, and that isn't even remotely a surprise, and why should they, nobody has made it clear to them that change is coming or necessary. Our electeds have utterly failed to do so. Not even one voted against the budget...

[Coke6pk]

Is cancelling this project a victory?

I'm not a visible minority, so I am speaking from a position of not-true-understanding - I acknowledge this.

There was a time that the LGBQT+ community was persecuted by the police services. Relationships were far from good. Police services have worked on those relationships, and one small token was the PRIDE cruiser that was part of our traffic branch. Did the cruiser solve any issues, no... but it was a public acknowledgement that the service valued that community. Are LGBTQ+ relationships with the police perfect? I doubt it... but its a more welcoming service now than it was then.

This cruiser (to me) is the same. Does it solve any wrongs? Hell no. Is it a small step towards a change that is in process.

[danbrotherston]

Is cancelling this project a victory?

I'm not a visible minority, so I am speaking from a position of not-true-understanding - I acknowledge this.

There was a time that the LGBQT+ community was persecuted by the police services.  Relationships were far from good.  Police services have worked on those relationships, and one small token was the PRIDE cruiser that was part of our traffic branch.  Did the cruiser solve any issues, no... but it was a public acknowledgement that the service valued that community.  Are LGBTQ+ relationships with the police perfect?  I doubt it... but its a more welcoming service now than it was then.

This cruiser (to me) is the same.  Does it solve any wrongs?  Hell no.  Is it a small step towards a change that is in process.

Yes, it is a victory.

"Did the cruiser solve any issues, no"...So by definition it isn't a solution ot anything.

For one, we, unlike the police, should listen to the communities which are the victims of police bias. They are telling us unequicably that this cruiser is a bad idea.

It respresents more spending by the police, more proof their budget is over inflated, more money that should have gone into actual resources to help our community.

It's a bandaid for cancer, the cruiser is there because the police have bias problems, instead of solving those problems they put this cruiser together? Why? So WHITE people (those who aren't the target of police violence) feel better? Certainly it doesn't help those communities.

To me, this cruiser shows how big the problem is, the police pretend they are engaging with the community, but still thought this was a good idea, it's clear they either aren't consulting, or aren't listening to the communities that their bias already makes them more likely to harm.

For bonus point, the art is done in the style of a local activist artist, but who did not actually get to do the work (and if she was asked, she would have explained why it was a bad idea), in fact, nobody knows who did the work, or how much they were paid.

Even worse, the cancellation statement confirms all this. Their statement "We're sorry that people were offended"... and "This is being cancelled, but we'll continue..." They aren't even looking at why this failed, why people are upset, why they apparently didn't know people would be upset. They're sorry that people don't like it, but begrudingly will stop doing it, but won't change anything else.

I don't know much about the history of police in Pride, but given that they were excluded from the parade in the past, I'm guessing not all LGBTQ community feel good about police, but even if they did, the pride cruiser is something that we're seeing in the late 2010s, and if I understand correctly, that's decades after it came to light the harm the police did to the LGBTQ community. I suspect a pride cruiser would not have been well received in the 80s and 90s.

Ultimately, the thing that bugs me the most about this is this is money that could have been spent in our community on things which might actually solve our problems. Instead the police are siphoning away the plurality of our budget and leaving us without needed services. In a time when major crimes are at historic lows, but which police are being asked to take over more and more duties in our community as a result of disinvestment in our social supports, and using that to justify an ever inflating budget.

[jamincan]

Is cancelling this project a victory?

I'm not a visible minority, so I am speaking from a position of not-true-understanding - I acknowledge this.

There was a time that the LGBQT+ community was persecuted by the police services.  Relationships were far from good.  Police services have worked on those relationships, and one small token was the PRIDE cruiser that was part of our traffic branch.  Did the cruiser solve any issues, no... but it was a public acknowledgement that the service valued that community.  Are LGBTQ+ relationships with the police perfect?  I doubt it... but its a more welcoming service now than it was then.

This cruiser (to me) is the same.  Does it solve any wrongs?  Hell no.  Is it a small step towards a change that is in process.

There is an really important distinction in that the Pride cruiser was not just performative; it reflected changes that were already taken within WRPS specifically to improve how it engages with LGBTQ+ people, and those were visible and noticeable changes.

A painted cruiser doesn't fix anything. Instead it is a symbol of values and a commitment to them. Displaying a symbol without doing the tough work to demonstrate those values is going to garner criticism. The most generous interpretation is that WRPS simply put the cart before the horse - rolling out this "culture" cruiser prematurely doesn't mean they aren't working on more substantive change. The more cynical interpretation is that they view the problem more as a PR issue than a systemic one.

As a gay man, I personally have real mixed feeling still about seeing Toronto Police march at Toronto Pride due to the history it has with LGBTQ+ people, even if in the moment I really really like seeing them there. Slapping a rainbow sticker onto a policer cruiser doesn't suddenly make you an ally.

[ijmorlan]

For bonus point, the art is done in the style of a local activist artist, but who did not actually get to do the work (and if she was asked, she would have explained why it was a bad idea), in fact, nobody knows who did the work, or how much they were paid.

I didn’t even think about the art contract. This actually raises a pretty significant point on its own, entirely separate from all the other issues you’ve raised: shouldn’t they be proud of whom they chose to do the artwork? And I don’t really care if the amount paid is part of the press release, but it absolutely should be available to the public by looking in a financial transparency report somewhere.

Of course if the art was done by a white guy whose family roots extend to when the Angles met the Saxons …

[ac3r]

Another reason why this design was problematic was because they used a very, very similar artistic design that the local black artist Trisha Abe uses when painting murals throughout the region, many of which are focused on illustrating diversity. She wrote an article last Wednesday for insideWaterloo about this, explaining how when the WRPS vehicle hit the streets, many people familiar with her work began asking her if she was the one responsible for the design of the WRPS cruiser: https://insidewaterloo.ca/op-ed-art-heal...sers-dont/

[plam]

As a gay man, I personally have real mixed feeling still about seeing Toronto Police march at Toronto Pride due to the history it has with LGBTQ+ people, even if in the moment I really really like seeing them there. Slapping a rainbow sticker onto a policer cruiser doesn't suddenly make you an ally.

As it turns out this is a very live issue in Auckland, so much so that they were going to have two pride parades this year (similarly named) due to fracturing over the police in uniform question. One of the parades got postponed by a covid outbreak but the other one went on as scheduled I think.