Police don't protect us

Ottawa prides itself on being a safe city, and it may be instinctive to think of police as part of what makes our city so "safe". But the reality is, police do not protect all of us. There are numerous cases of police officers in Ottawa targeting marginalized communities (through racial profiling, use of excessive force, aggressive police presence in certain communities or at demonstrations led by marginalized groups) as well as being perpetrators of crime themselves. It's not an issue of a few bad apples: in the case following the death of Abdirahman Abdi, huge numbers of police wore wristbands in support of their fellow police officer who had murdered another human being. The police system itself is woven from policies and practises which target marginalized groups and the toxic culture within the OPS allows for officers to act on unchecked racism without recourse, such as in the case of Abdirahman Abdi. I urge you to consider ways in which the Ottawa Police Services budget might be better spent on people who are trained in things like de-escalation and dealing with mental health crises. It appears that everyone on the Community Safety and Well-Being board is white. I urge you to consider that your experiences and views on the police may not actually be representative of all Ottawans. Please listen to calls to redistribute OPS's funding towards emergency response methods which will better serve Ottawa's marginalized communities.