Sound Police Work versus Racial Profiling

There is little doubt but that Ottawa's current chief of police is the best of the lot that we've had in a long while. It was rumoured that he is in line to be tapped as the new head of the RCMP. He appears to have the requisite background experience. And there is little doubt that he knows policing backward and forward. Besides, how can anyone fail but to be impressed by a big burly man who exemplifies the best in police work confessing that earwigs give him the creeps?

That aside, he knows when to convey his belief as a professional in his field when his men have acquitted themselves well, and when to cast doubt on the perceptions of a judge who has in her turn cast doubt on the quality, forthright declaration of experienced technique, and denouncing of the blight of racial stereotyping in a display of acquired wisdom battling left-wing political correct righteousness.

So, in actual fact, according to Chief Vern White, there is reason to be proud of the manner in which Constable Robin Perrie conducted himself using deductive reasoning as his guide when he pulled over two young black men, Loik St-Louis, 24, and Jordan Noel, 22, in downtown Ottawa at night, in an area known to be used by drug dealers.

They were driving a 1997 Cadillac DeVille, evasively looked past the policeman in their view eliciting his attention and when the constable ran a check on the vehicle plate, discovered it to be owned by an older woman. Concerned it may have been taken without permission as in 'stolen', he called in for back-up, and when the car was searched a drug scale, marijuana and cocaine were found along with a substantial amount of cash.

That could be said to represent an Eureka! moment, the apprehension of drug peddlers But the two young men denied knowledge of the drugs' ownership, and suggested during the court hearing that the drugs were planted in the car by the very police who searched it. And because Ontario court Justice Dianne Nicholas was so devoted to the idea of being outraged at her perception of 'racial profiling', Const. Ferrie was roundly berated and the prosecution withdrew.

Police Chief White rendered his opinion that his officer had comported himself well, carrying out "good police work". "People can disagree or agree with the behaviours but (Ferrie) identified the behaviours that concerned him. He did a behaviour-based investigation that's supported or corroborated by what he finds. I find it challenging to get from there to 'this is racial profiling'. I have no idea how you end up there", he commented.

Mind, police can sometimes come a cropper when they rely on clues that turn out, after all, not to be the red-hot clues they interpret them as. As when, for example, Ottawa police tactical unit officers tracked a bank robber via a GPS signal which they took to having emanated from a bag of stolen cash, tracing it to a nearby home. Only to discover that it was the homeowner's portable telephone that was signalling.

Ottawa police surround a home on Aster Street as they search for a suspect in a bank robbery Friday, July 8, 2011.

That can be embarrassing. But it was police doing their work in response to a perceived signal that might, after all, have led them to the presence of the bank robber, though it did not. This was police relying on electronic devices to give them the heads-up on the presence of a criminal. In the other instance, it was a policeman relying on informed experience leading to a hunch. Sometimes human intelligence trumps artificial intelligence.

It's without doubt that the enthusiasm that greeted the news that the Ontario Police Services Board has renewed Ottawa police Chief Vern White's contract to June 2015 was completely genuine. The Ottawa police may run into problems from time to time, with a public perception occasionally based on the reality of the occasional officer overstepping the bounds of authority, but under Chief White's guidance and responsibility the public remains confident.

It's the troubling aspect of how the courts perceive their mission in weighing evidence put before them through the professional conduct of police, coming to the unwarranted conclusion that as a result of imputed behavioural misdemeanors, that evidence is to be set aside that should concern us. The police doing their professional best and the courts insisting on leniency based on political correctness.

And never the twain shall collaborate.