Saskatoon group continues call to end police carding, questions police budget

A rally in Saskatoon calledforthe city's police service to end carding and scaleback government funding for law enforcement.

Tuesday marked the International Day Against Police Brutality, and a group of about 40 gathered at Pleasant Hill Park in Saskatoon to share stories of how they've been mistreated by police through carding; an investigativetactic that allows police officers to randomly stop, question, and document individuals when no criminal offense has been committed.

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Eileen Bear told her story about walking along 20th Street at 10 a.m., when a police car pulled up beside her. She saidan officer asking for her identification saying she matched the description of someone police were looking for.

"He followed me and asked for my name.I asked him what he wanted and he wanted to search me," Bear said. "I just got out of the shower and I had a toque and a hoodie on and I was going to knitting class, and I feel like he racially profiled me."

Bear said she sees these incidents happening all the time around the Pleasant Hill neighbourhood and she feels police are abusing their authority.

Sheila Tataquason recalled a time where she was bitten and mauled by a police dog.

"I got bitten on the side of my stomach and we were falsely arrested and I've been fighting this," she said. "We were not resisting arrest, I was just laying there waiting for the officer to get the dog off of me."

A complaint has been filed with the board of police commissioners but no resolution has come about. Tataquason said this experience caused her a lot of anxiety towards police in Saskatoon and she doesn't want something like this to happen to anyone else.

Funding model for police needs a shake up

Rally organizer Kota Kimura said carding remains a big issue in Saskatoon, but he's also hoping to win the ear of politicians to change the way law enforcement agencies are funded.

"We have four demands in light of International Day Against Police Brutality.First one is to end carding the second is to smash police racism," Kimura said.

"More importantly there are some structural issues we want to address. We believe police are getting a disproportionate amount of money, they're getting millions of dollars from the City of Saskatoon when many community organizations and social programs are getting their funding cut and some services are facing closures."