Pardon Me?  Repeat That, Please...?

"How many white women do you stop ... just because they are driving a car?"  Ontario Court Justice Dianne Nicholas

Can this possibly mean that Ottawa has a judge who is completely unaware and out of touch with reality, yet sits on the Bench, discharging the sum total of her wisdom in adjudicating criminal charges against those who run afoul of the law, and we are to maintain perfect trust in the capabilities of such individuals?

White women driving Cadillacs through crime-prone areas of the city are not known to commit criminal acts in such numbers that they support the assumption that white women can be unpredictably prone to serious anti-social acts of illicit activity and the commission of violence.  Whereas, experience has amply demonstrated that young, black males have earned that reputation.

So when Constable Robin Ferrie noticed Loik St-Louis, 24 and his friend, Jordan Noel, 22, driving along Rideau Street on August 10, 2010 in Mr. Noel's mother's 1997 Cadillac DeVille, refusing to make eye contact, Constable Ferrie's experience with law-breakers kicked into action, and he approached the two men at a traffic stop.

That stop, and the back-up of another two police constables, Scott Handler and Nicolas Benard, resulted in a search of the vehicle where 13 grams of marijuana, five grams of crack cocaine and a drug scale were discovered within the interior.  Which led to charges.  Since withdrawn as a result of Justice Nicholas's scathing observation at a June 23 preliminary hearing.

Which must have utterly thrilled Messrs. St-Louis and Noel, who have screamed !!racial profiling!! before and since.  Which has led Mr. Noel to sue the Ottawa Police Services Board for $95,000 along with legal costs. His statement of claim is heartbreaking: Mr. Noel has experienced emotional and psychological suffering, stress, anxiety, depression and sleeplessness.

And that's not all, poor dear.  Since that dreadful occasion when he was summarily apprehended, his mother's vehicle searched and he and his friend charged with illegal possession of prohibited drugs for the purpose of trafficking (one assumes) he has felt anxious and unsafe around police, and now distrusts people in power.

Imagine that.

That's Mr. Noel's come-back to the humiliation and suffering he was forced to undergo.  For his part, Mr. St-Louis feels similarly entitled to pay-back, slapping the three constables involved in the degrading experience, along with the Ottawa Police Services Board with a $95,000 lawsuit.  He, like his friend Mr. Noel, was utterly devastated by the unfair judgement call that called into question their integrity, their honesty, the utter and complete innocence.

"The actions of Const. Ferrie were callous and high-handed and taken without regard to the impact that they would have on Saint-Louis.  The actions of Const.Ferrie in using racial profiling serve to undermine the public's confidence in police officers and the administration of justice", reads the plaint lodged on behalf of Mr. St-Louis.  "Saint-Louis no longer feels safe in the presence of police officers and instead feels threatened and harassed by their behaviour."

Indeed, he must.  Life is so unfair.

Oddly enough, most people reading of the affair, feel a loss of confidence in officiating justices' interpretations and judgement calls in casting aspersions where none belong, and excusing the deviously wayward behaviour of those charged with obvious offences.