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Cops Get Heavy With Me And I still Don’t Know Why

Last Sunday, I was pulled over by cops three times – by the sameofficers – and I have no idea why.

I was driving on Bathurst going north from St. Clair and noticedthree police cars on the right side of the road up ahead, theirpresence bringing traffic to a snail-like crawl.

In a hurry to visit my mother at her retirement home – where shewaits all day for me even when I tell her I won’t be there til 4 pm -I avoided the hassle by turning right off Bathurst and sneaking northvia one of the side streets in Forest Hill.

Emerging back on to Bathurst just above the spot where the policewere stationed, I considered myself positively brilliant until allthree police cars roared up on my right in the inside lane andstopped. I immediately broke in the left lane and waited for a signalfrom them. They signalled me to drive through.

Which I did and then the same thing happened – they pulled up infront of me on my right. I stopped again the officer got out of hisand pointed directly at me, glaring furiously, and then pointed infront of the three police cars. I dutifully pulled over.

Two of the cars roared up on my left and then pulled over in front ofme and parked the cars, lights blazing while a third remained behindme.

I looked at my partner beside me in the front seat. “Did I doanything wrong?” It seemed not. I pulled out my license anddocumentation and waited.

Suddenly the two police cruisers in front of me drove off and afterabout another 10 seconds the car behind me sped away. Nocommunication, no signal, no “sorry, wrong car,” no nothing, just abunch of abusive cops making a mistake and not being accountable for one second.

We just sat there for about a minute, incredulous. I had the feelingof being messed with that hundreds of racially profiled Torontoniansexperience all the time. I’m a white woman with grey hair and so itmade me wonder. If that was my experience in that moment, imagine how much worse it would have been, how ugly it would have felt had I been a young, black male?

Scary.

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