Montreal Women Talk About Profiling

I used to work in a halfway house for recently released felons, and I’ve had a few encounters with police officers, most of them not very pleasant.

2014 in Montreal/ Saint Léonard. I called the police because I was homeless at the age of 20 and needed help. They came but I wasn’t treated as expected. They picked me up, ignored me the whole time in the car and sang together, they stopped to see friends and they all started dancing and singing and making jokes while I was in the back seat scared for my life.

2022, Berri UQAM metro, Montreal police. I called 911 because someone seemed to be overdosing on the street. They were dismissive and unhelpful.

2022, Concordia School, private security, asked for directions. Security was generally helpful.

I usually tell the police that they are doing something illegal and that I have photographic or video proof. I tell them to stop doing the illegal thing because I will be forced to give the evidence to their boss or make a citizen’s arrest on them. They usually stop doing the illegal thing. Anything from them parking on sidewalks to things like them deliberately using pepper spray on literal children (4 year olds) during a peaceful women’s protest a few years ago or them beating up peaceful local homeless people. The only time the police are decent is when I have to call them for friends who have loud neighbors (live music at 3am) when students/worker friends are trying to sleep and are too afraid to talk to the police, so I volunteer to do it for them. My interactions with the police are usually peaceful because I take advantage of being a white, well-dressed, well-spoken woman; they tend to be nicer to people like me. It’s easier for me to be a shield for minorities like filming them beating up homeless indigenous people, they usually stop when I start filming live (& the STM police). French police are often rude and dismissive to me when I start speaking English, but when I switch to French and they realize I am Quebecois, they are suddenly nicer to me.

2020, Laval, August, it was my brother’s birthday, there was a noise complaint (which was odd because it was a small party with mostly family) and the officers who came were very rude and aggressive towards my family and my brother’s friends.

As a teenager, I had many encounters and all of them were negative. Trauma and inappropriate use of force and authority.

They forced me out of my apartment after I was the victim of domestic violence. Centre-Sud.

2012 I was on a terrasse when the Carré-Rouge manifestant ran away in my street, they used gas on the whole street. I had nothing to cover my mouth, my clothes were useless. I suffocated until a random stranger let me breathe in his shirt. I had nothing to do with the manifestation, yet I was deprived of the need to breathe.