Black people made up 41 per cent of RCMP street checks around Halifax

In the first 10 months of 2016, 41 per cent of street checks done by the RCMP around Halifaxinvolved subjects who officers identified as black.

The information comes from a report prepared by RCMP crime analyst Sheila Serfas.

It was posted on the website of the Halifax Board of Police Commissioners following a discussion Monday about similar statistics compiled by the Halifax Regional Police.

Checks in African Nova Scotian communities

Of the 1,246 street checks mentioned in the report, 299(24 per cent)involved women, 944 (76 per cent) involved men, with threesubjects of unknown gender.

It said 509 of those street checks involved subjects identified as black.

The report also indicated44 per centof thestreet checks were conducted in the predominantly African-Nova Scotian communities of East Preston, North Preston and Cherry Brook.

The report appearedto link the high number of street checks in those communities to a series of shootings that took place around the Halifax municipalitylast year.

"There would have been a significant need for intelligence during this time as there were no charges on the file or subjects in custody," the report said.

It addedthat four of the shootings were linked to the community of North Prestonand the RCMP reacted with"a significant increase in manpower in the Preston zone to curb violence."

RCMPnot commenting on report

Board chairSteve Craig requested theRCMPsubmit their statistics.

"It's important that our citizens know that they're being well-served," said Craig, who is Halifax's deputy mayor and thecouncillorfor LowerSackville.

"I'm looking forward to ... better understanding what the data is telling us, and what we're going to do about it and make any changes as required."

Nova ScotiaRCMPdeclined to comment on the report Wednesday.

Other data analyzed

Of the 509 street checks involving subjects identified as black, 440 were done inEast and North Preston and Cherry Brook.Of the 509,205 happened between April 1 and July 31, 2016.

The RCMP also analyzed data from 25,322 street checks from fiscal years 2006 to 2016, which showed a lower percentage of checks involving black subjects.

During thatperiod, 81 per centinvolved white subjects, 12 per centblack subjects, fiveper centunknown, and the balance Arab/West Asian, Aboriginal, East/Southeast Asian, South Asian and other.

The visible minority categories originate with Statistics Canadaand were adopted by the Versadex Records Management System used by police to record street checks.

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