Abdirahman Abdi, a Somali man in Ottawa, is dead, after witnesses say he was beaten by cops.
There’s been a lot of attention on police violence against Black people in the U.S. lately. But Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Toronto, says Canada’s policing style has a lot of the same problems as the American system when it comes to dealing with racialized populations.
Karmen James Omeasoo, a rapper who performs under the name Hellnback, talks about some of the troubles Indigenous men face with the Winnipeg police and the RCMP.
Christien Levien, a criminal lawyer at Wiley and Levien, talks about how his own bad experience with police as a teenager led him to creating the app LegalSwipe to help others stand up to cops.
The song featured in the show is Hellnback’s “Caught Up,” produced by Stomp.
Read Akwasi’s piece in the Globe and Mail, A Hard Truth: Canada’s policing style is very similar to the U.S.
