RCMP ‘disappointed’ by talk that race a factor in quiet Rideau Hall arrest
Posted July 10, 2020 6:14 pm.
Last Updated July 11, 2020 9:01 am.
OTTAWA — The commissioner of the RCMP and the head of its union are objecting to the idea that the man accused of crashing into the grounds of Rideau Hall would have been treated differently if he wasn’t white.
Commissioner Brenda Lucki and Brian Sauve of the National Police Federation say in a joint statement Friday night that it damages an “important national dialogue with all stakeholders seeking solutions to societal issues.”
“To suggest a more violent conclusion would have been inevitable if the suspect was of another race is speculative and disheartening to the responding officers, their families, and all partners who helped successfully and professionally resolve this threat,” the statement reads. “This creates an abstract and negative distraction.”
The Mounties have said the suspect was armed and threatening Prime Minister Justin Trudeau but was arrested peacefully after Mounties talked him down for more than an hour and a half on the morning of July 2.
Military reservist and Manitoba businessman Corey Hurren faces 22 charges.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is the most prominent person who has suggested the incident would have had a worse ending if Hurren weren’t white.
The incident at Rideau Hall followed weeks of stories about police officers treating people of colour, especially Indigenous people, harshly, to the point of killing them.
Lucki and Sauve say in their statement that the RCMP resolve the vast majority of crises without violence because of their commitment to using as little force as possible.
