BURST
The Vancouver police board has been ordered to pay $25,000 to a woman arrested during a 2020 traffic stop after the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal found that race was a factor in how she was treated by police.
Tribunal member Laila Said found that police subjected Safiya Elshazly, who is Black, to “unfounded, heightened scrutiny” and “denigrating comments and accusations” and that the encounter escalated rapidly and needlessly.
“I find it more probable than not that the stereotype that Black people are prone to criminal behaviour influenced the officers’ behaviour,” Said said in a decision released last week.
Shortly before midnight on Dec. 1, 2020, Elshazly was one of six passengers in a car travelling from a birthday dinner to her home.
Police pulled the vehicle over after noticing the extra passenger, an offence under the Motor Vehicle Act.
An officer identified in the decision as Const. Cheng asked Elshazly, who was seated in the back, for identification. She said she did not have any, but repeatedly offered to provide her name and other information so police could verify her identity, the decision said.
The encounter escalated over the next 40 seconds, with Cheng accusing Elshazly of obstruction and placing her under arrest. Elshazly was handcuffed with her arms behind her back.
Another officer who responded to the incident, identified as Const. Bokenfohr, was captured on recordings telling Elshazly, “You are one drunk lady,” and telling her to stay put and not to “run off.”
The incident ended after the extra passenger, who was seated on Elshazly’s lap, offered to retrieve Elshazly’s identification from her phone. The handcuffs were removed and Cheng issued her a ticket for failing to wear a seatbelt — a charge Elshazly later successfully challenged in provincial court.
At the tribunal hearing in October, officers testified that when someone does not have physical identification, police ask for their name, date of birth, address and other information to search the police database. Said ruled that Elshazly’s repeated offers to provide that information were ignored.
She also described the officer’s comments about Elshazly being intoxicated and running away as “unnecessary” and “provocative,” saying they were made “offhandedly with a veneer of denigration and without any measure of true concern.”
Elshazly told the officer at the time that she was sober. She testified she does not drink alcohol for religious reasons and found being called drunk “extremely offensive.”
The lawyer for the Vancouver police board argued the arrest was because of Elshazly’s behaviour, not her race. In his report, Cheng described her as rude and belligerent and accused her of making racist comments about his ethnicity.
Said rejected that characterization, noting the officers acknowledged during cross-examination that Elshazly’s behaviour was not overly aggressive and she did not run or yell.
She also found there was no evidence that Elshazly made racist comments. Rather, she said Elshazly called the officer racist while protesting her arrest and asked “Do you speak English?” after officers ignoring her repeated offers to provide information.
The tribunal said officers imposed harsher consequences on Elshazly when their “expectation of docility and compliance from a Black woman was not met” and that the situation did not justify the escalation.
“Ms. Elshazly says regardless of whether she had a seatbelt on, nothing about a seatbelt inquiry alone should ever justify the level of force, hostility, or criminalization that followed that night,” wrote Said. “I agree … The police officers did not need to escalate the situation when they had the training and tools available to them to de-escalate the encounter.”
Said found the injury to Elshazly’s dignity was significant and ordered the Vancouver police board to pay Elshazly $25,000. It was also ordered to pay $1,400 to replace Elshazly’s iPhone, which was dropped during the arrest.