I am a part of this coalition called the Justice for Abdirahman Coalition. We've been doing work for almost three years now, and a lot of that work has been towards creating more transparency and accountability with our police services.
One of the things we found with our communities is that you can't have someone who is within the police service as the person that marginalized and vulnerable communities are dealing with.
A lot of times one of the recommendations that we've made as a group is to create a civilian group whose composition would be members of the community, members who have been impacted by police interactions negatively, individuals who have done research in this field, individuals who are young black men who have faced discrimination and racial profiling with the police service. This council or this entity would really have a neutral and objective role and responsibility. It would allow the communities that are affected by these hate crimes to feel more comfortable in coming up to them. These would be advocates, such as myself, individuals you can relate to, you can connect with, who you know will not use the information you've given them against you.
A lot of times members of our community feel as though there will be a reprisal. They feel as though the police service has access to their information. They know their address and their licence plate numbers and things like this, so there is a fear in going to police services. A council or a committee made up of members of the community—grassroots organizations, really—would be the stakeholders and would be the ones reaching out to communities to say, “I can be your advocate. I can be your liaison, and you can trust me.” That neutral party would be the hand that would hold the community and the police and relay that information.
Inadvertently what it does is create that trust between the community and the police if they see that this body, as a neutral body, is able to play that advocacy role and balance role. I think that would start to create some of that trust between the police and the community that's not currently there.