News 1. Premier calls for criminal investigation of cops “Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil wants police acts in the Glen Assoun wrongful conviction case referred to the Serious Incident Response Team (SIRT) for a possible criminal investigation,” I reported yesterday: At a post-cabinet meeting scrum with reporters [Thursday], I had the following exchange with McNeil: […]
Halifax refuses to reveal source of mysterious motion defining defunding police
Halifax is refusing to reveal the source of a controversial motion around defunding the police that was added to a Board of Police Commissioners agenda at the 11th hour this summer. At the board’s July 9 meeting, municipal staff brought forward a motion aimed at defining the concept of defunding the police: That the Halifax […]
Black people die; corporations get rich
New policing technologies like body cameras don't help Black people; they're just another way to enrich corporations and police departments preying on Black people
CBC reports that the Truro police have started wearing body cameras. Truro Police Chief Dave MacNeil suggests the cameras are “partially a response to the global Black Lives Matter protests and partially to take advantage of improving technology.” The Truro police have been supplied with WatchGuard cameras. WatchGuard is owned by Motorola Solutions. In 2019, […]
August 1 is Emancipation Day, but are Black people truly free?
We are a collective of incarcerated Black people – political prisoners held hostage by the state – and our supporters on the outside who are making this statement on Emancipation Day. On August 1, African people across the globe celebrate Emancipation Day. This marks the day the Abolition of Slavery Act was passed freeing enslaved […]
Not satire: Halifax police board to consider appointing committee to define defunding
At a meeting where it was expected to debate defunding the police, Halifax’s police board voted to debate appointing a committee to define defunding the police — at its next meeting. The board of police commissioners had a lengthy agenda for its meeting on Thursday, but after starting more than half an hour later due […]
Take this volunteer “job” and shove it
Morning File, Thursday, July 2, 2020
News 1. The casino crapshoot Rob Csernyik has an incredible investigative piece on the casinos in Nova Scotia and how locals, not high-rolling tourists, became the big spenders. Csernyik looks back before the first casino opened by ITT Sheraton in the summer of 1995. A poll from 1993 showed that 57.7 respondents were against the […]
Calling police when someone is suffering a mental health crisis can have horrific consequences; what is the alternative?
In February 2014, Mohammed Eshaq fell to his death from the 10th-floor balcony of his South End Halifax apartment. Eshaq lived with schizophrenia, and was an in-patient at the Nova Scotia Hospital’s Simpson Landing at the time. He left on a 15-minute pass and didn’t go back, instead taking transit to his parents’ place. They […]