What Is It?

• Author: David M. Tanovich
• Pages: 9-30

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What Is It?

a rite of passage

In the early morning hours of October 22, 1993, Dwight

Drummond, a popular Citytv assignment editor, and his friend,

Ron Allen, were driving home in Drummond’s blue Volkswagen

Passat. They were young Black men and about to experience,

as Drummond would later call it, a “rite of passage”— an un-

warranted encounter with the police. This time, the stakes were

particularly high. Before they knew it, their vehicle was boxed in

by two police cruisers near the intersection of Dundas and Sher-

bourne streets in Toronto. With the off‌icers assuming a defensive

position behind their vehicles, one of the off‌icers used his loud-

speaker to order Drummond and Allen to raise their hands and

exit the vehicle. A high-risk take-down had begun. The two men

were ordered to take three steps back, go down on their knees, and

lie on their stomachs with their arms stretched out. As Allen was

exiting, one off‌icer thought he heard a metal sound, reinforcing

his opinion that there was a gun in the vehicle. This assumption

immediately made a tense situation even more tense.1 With one of

the off‌icers “covering” Drummond and then Allen, two other of-

f‌icers approached and handcuffed them. They were searched and

part one: understanding racial profiling

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placed in the crui ser.2 When no gun was found, the off‌icers let

them go. What was a routine ride home from work and a meeting

of friends suddenly escalated into a situation where Drummond

and Allen faced the very real possibility of joining the many other

young Black men who have been shot by the Toronto police under

troubling circumstances.3

Drummond f‌iled a complaint with the police against the two

off‌icers who had initiated the take-down. Allen refused to do so

because he felt the “outcome was predetermined”

4—a sentiment

shared by many in the Black community. As Cecil Foster, one

of Canada’s most h ighly regarded writers on race relations, put

it in his book A Place Called Heaven: The Meaning of Being Black

in Canada, “the complaint would amount to a case of the word

of a black man against a white policeman, and everyone knew

the like ly outcome.”5 The complaint was dismissed.6 Deputy Chief

Robert Kerr was troubled by the incident and intervened. He took

the unusual step of having the off‌icers charged with discreditable

conduct under the Police Services Act.7 Kerr’s decision sparked a

controversy at 51 Division, where the off‌icers worked.8 On Janu-

ary 26, 1995, Constable Craig Bromell, who would later become

president of the Toronto Police Association, advised his superiors

that the division’s f‌ifty off‌icers would not be going on patrol that

day and that the station doors would be locked. For the next eight

hours, Toronto witnessed the f‌irst police strike in its history.9

Why were Drummond and Allen singled out? At their disci-

plinary hearing, t he off‌icers testif‌ied that there had been two 911

calls reporting gunshots in the area. Although they were in that

neighbourhood, the off‌icers had not heard any gunshots.10 They

felt that Drummond and Allen were acting suspiciously. When

their vehicle passed the off‌icers’ cruiser, it appeared to slow and,

as Drummond put it, “we broke the unwritten rule and made eye

contact.”11 The off‌icers felt that the men were looking at them “in-

tently” and as if they were going to “bolt.” They also saw Allen

bending down to put something under his seat, as if to hide it.12

What they likely thought was a gun turned out to be chicken that