Thursday April 28, 2016
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday April 28, 2016
Matt Green says police carded him in ‘confrontational’ incident
Hamilton’s first black city councillor and vocal critic of controversial carding practices, says he was carded by Hamilton police in an increasingly “confrontational” interaction Tuesday afternoon.
“For those of you who think police carding is over. I was just arbitrarily stopped/questioned by @HamiltonPolice as a City Clr in my own city,” Matthew Green tweeted from his official Twitter account at 3:24 p.m.
The Ward 3 councillor told The Spectator the incident occurred while he was waiting for a bus at Stinson Street and Victoria Avenue South.
He says he was arbitrarily “stopped and questioned,” with no apparent connection to a crime.
“I was not detained. I had no intention of leaving the area, as I was waiting for a bus,” said Green.
In a media release Wednesday morning, Green issued the text of a complaint to police. See the Scribd document below.
His tweet unleashed a hailstorm of social media activity, both sympathetic and critical of his experience. By 7 p.m., his tweet had been retweeted 240 times. Green posted the same message again on both his personal and public Facebook page.
The councillor, whose family traces its routes back to the first African slaves to come to Canada, has been a vocal critic of carding in Hamilton. He hosted a town-hall meeting in September to discuss the issue.
In an article published before the event, Green said, “any time citizens are stopped and questioned without wrongdoing, it makes them question their belonging.”
When the province made the announcement that changes to prohibit random carding were on the horizon in October, Green said he was encouraged “Minister Naqvi had the courage to open up this conversation and do the right thing.”
Green declined to reveal further details of the incident to The Spectator Tuesday afternoon in an effort not “to jeopardize the formal complaint process.”
But Wednesday morning, in an interview with CBC Toronto’s ‘Metro Morning’, Green detailed his interaction with police. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)