Policing or punishment? Students face unconstitutional stops and bloated fines

On the night of Aug. 30, I was walking alone near Victoria Park when, all of a sudden, I saw a police officer running toward me.

“Hey, stop right there!”

I was holding a closed Gatorade bottle in my hand, and he demanded I hand it over and tell him what was inside. Having spent the past summer working for a criminal defence lawyer, I had become familiar with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and quickly asserted, under Section 8, I had the right to not be arbitrarily detained or unreasonably searched. In response, he attempted to justify the search by accusing me of hiding the bottle, despite the fact it had been openly in my hand the entire time.

After some back-and-forth, during which I remained steadfast in the contention that my Charter rights were being violated, he eventually gave up and offered to let me go if I could prove I was of legal drinking age. While I was tempted to continue protesting my baseless detention, I was duly frightened by the officer’s capacity to lie, and his blatant contempt for the Charter. I ultimately complied.

I walked away feeling deeply unsettled. I had not caused any harm to the community, nor had I been behaving in a manner that warranted any suspicion, yet I had still been arbitrarily detained and questioned. I thought my own encounter was disturbing, but upon trading stories with only a small group of people, I realized what had happened to me was only the tip of the iceberg of unconstitutional policing within the Queen’s community.

One peer shared with me how, last September, she was walking down a dark street, holding an opened can of Smirnoff Ice, when a police car pulled her over. She wasn’t intoxicated, was unaware of open container laws, and was compliant throughout the entire process. Under subsection 41(1) of the Liquor Licence and Control Act, the set fine for “having liquor in open container in unauthorized place” in Ontario is $100. Despite being the perfect candidate for a lower-end fine, using buffed-up powers provided to the Kingston Police by the University District Safety Initiative, she was given a fine of $500.

Her story isn’t an isolated incident, with 295 students being charged for open liquor over the course of only one weekend in September of 2023. Students aren’t a high-income or high-savings population, there’s no rationale for deviating from the standard $100 deterrent in such a sizeable manner. For many students, a $500 fine could be the difference between whether or not they can pay their tuition, rent, or grocery bill.  This fact shouldn’t render students exempt from the law, but it should absolutely be considered before deliberately handing out maximum fines, ones which are rarely seen outside of Kingston, for an offense that doesn’t by itself pose any inherent danger to society.

A second friend told me an even more disturbing story. She had been walking down Earl St. when an unmarked black car slowly began driving beside her. Understandably frightened, my friend started running, dropping an opened can of beer in the process. A man emerged from the car and began to chase her, never identifying himself as police. It was only when my friend finally stopped and turned around she realized he was a police officer.

The officer, with the help of his partner, seized her phone and ordered her into the police car. The officers looked up her name, and upon realizing she had previously completed a vulnerable sector check for her career, told her she would never be able to get a job in her field, she would be kicked out of university, and she would “spend the night rotting” in a jail cell.

After driving around, one officer decided she had “learned her lesson,” and they would only be giving her a citation. His partner disagreed, seemingly angered by the fact that, during the ride, my friend had asked “[if they] get pleasure out of doing this.” Ultimately, they only wrote her a ticket for open alcohol. The officers dropped her off farther from home than they had detained her, and she was left to walk home in the dark, terrified.

One doesn’t require advanced legal training to recognize the horrifying level of police misconduct evident in my friend’s story. The officers repeatedly violated her Charter rights, most prominently her Section 8 right to not have her property unreasonably seized, her Section 9 right to not be arbitrarily detained, and her Section 12 right to not be subject to cruel or unusual treatment.

My friend had the case necessary to file a significant lawsuit against the Kingston Police department. Instead, however, she filed a formal complaint asking only that the officers offer a mediated apology for their overreach and unethical conduct. Over a year has ed since this incident, and to this day she has received no answer or reparations regarding her complaint.

While this complete lack of response or reparation of any kind should be shocking, it is part of a larger pattern. There’s a history within the Kingston Police department of failing to adequately penalize officers for their misconduct. One Kingston Police constable, over the past two decades, has been charged with uttering threats while off-duty, striking a suspect with his police cruiser, assault, forcible confinement, criminal harassment, and mischief. In 2008, he even pleaded guilty to making a death threat against his ex-fiance.  A second officer was charged with dangerous driving, criminal negligence, attempting to obstruct justice, and common assault, the last to which he ultimately pleaded guilty. Not only are these two officers still employed by the Kingston Police department, but they’re the two highest paid constables on the force.

How can the Kingston Police defend using such heavy disciplinary techniques against Queen’s students when they consistently fail to discipline their own officers? How are students meant to feel safe in their community knowing the police meant to protect them can get away with harming their fellow community ?

I will make no attempt to deny that, unfortunately, some Queen’s students can occasionally act in a rowdy and irresponsible manner. Such actions are undoubtedly reprehensible. This fact, however, does not justify stripping the greater Queen’s community of their Charter rights, nor does it justify granting Kingston officers elements of impunity. It doesn’t provide a justification for the over-policing, bloated fines, and intimidation tactics indiscriminately utilized against Queen’s students.

There are times of the year when police cars lurk around every corner of the student district, and it begins to feel like a high-crime area within a totalitarian state, rather than a university town in a democratic Canada. Students have come to fear the Kingston Police, viewing them as an organization not focused on serving and protecting, but rather intent on punishing students for their presence.

Even when in unsafe situations, students are often apprehensive to call the police out of fear they will be fined for public intoxication or underage drinking. Students of colour are especially susceptible to such concerns due to patterns of systemic racism found in policing across Canada. A police force that doesnt have the trust of the community cannot be effective.

The vast majority of Queen’s students don’t pose any threat to the community, and only wish to receive an education while occasionally partaking in peaceful fun. It’s absurd to suggest that deterrence and safety cannot be accomplished through less excessive and indiscriminate means. While maintaining the peace and safety of both Queen’s University and the greater Kingston community is a complex and important task, sacrificing the security and financial well-being of hundreds of Queen’s students every year isn’t an effective nor ethical solution.

Society isn’t being bettered by giving a $500 fine to a quiet, compliant 19-year-old holding a Smirnoff Ice. The Kingston community isn’t made any safer by shoving a teenage girl in the back of a police car and threatening her with a criminal record, all for the minor offense of open liquor. The safety and well-being of both the Queen’s community and the greater Kingston community can be mutually ensured, and one need not be sacrificed for the other.

Therefore, I call on the Kingston Police to train their officers in a way that better emphasizes the ineffability of the Charter, and the humanity of those they swore to serve and protect. It’s the job of a university to protect its students, which is why Queen’s University must take a more active role in protecting their students from police misconduct and inflated fines. It’s imperative Queen’s demand the renegotiation of the University District Safety Initiative in order to ensure the protection of their students, and guarantee the policing of the Queen’s community is approached in a more just, reasonable, and constitutional way.

Students deserve to feel safe on campus, not fear those that are meant to protect them.

Yael is a third-year Political Studies and History student.

 

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