Cadillac

By Dan Laxer
The Suburban

A 15-year-old boy in Dollard des Ormeaux was approached by police, told to put his hands out and drop what he was holding which, at the time, was his phone, his keys, and bag of birthday cards.å

It was his birthday.

According to a spokesperson from the SPVM, the officers stopped Jadon Squires because they believed his behaviour to be suspicious.

The boy’s father, Jason Squires, had just started his car in the driveway of his home when Jadon was walking home from just down the street.

Squires had walked away from his car for a moment, and returned to see the police interacting with his son. They asked him why he appeared to be running from the car. Jason insisted he’d done nothing wrong. His father told the officers that the car – a Cadillac – was his. He says they didn’t believe him, and ran the license plate to confirm ownership. Once they ascertained that Squires was telling the truth, they left the scene.

Both Squires and Fo Niemi of the Center for Reseach-Action on Race Relations wondered whether to what extent racial profiling played a role in the police officers’ actions. Racial profiling has been cited in the courts when a police intervention that started off as simple escalates. If racial profiling was an issue here, Niemi suggested, then police need to approach the family and make amends for any breach of trust that may have occurred as a result.

In Quebec, the court system, right up to the Quebec Court of Appeal, has ruled that racial profiling is a problem in the province, something that Premier Francois Legault refuses to accept.

As far as the Squires family is concerned, the experience has left them shaken, and they may yet decide to file a complaint with the police.

The SPVM says it is looking into the matter to ascertain what happened and why. n