In the cause of maintaining public order, we give police officers extraordinary powers. We authorize them to make arrests, carry firearms and use force when necessary. In exchange, we ask them to exercise those powers with restraint, probity and, above all, impartiality, treating everyone the same and doing no one special favours.
That is what makes the case of Stacy Clarke so troubling.
Ms. Clarke joined the Toronto Police Service in 1998 and enjoyed what a disciplinary tribunal has called a “stellar” career. She rose steadily through the ranks until, in 2021, she reached the rank of superintendent, three rungs below chief of police, becoming the first Black woman to hold that title.
But only 10 months later she committed a terrible error of judgment. While sitting on a panel to consider promotions within the service, she took pictures of confidential questions prepared for candidates, then texted them to six Black officers she was mentoring and who were preparing to take the demanding exam for elevation to sergeant.
She insists she acted with the best of motives: to level the playing field, which she saw as tilted against the six officers because of systemic racial bias. This week, the disciplinary tribunal rightly rejected that excuse. Adjudicator Robin McElary-Downer, the former police chief for southern Ontario’s South Simcoe region, said there is “no room in policing for noble-cause corruption.”
The disciplinary tribunal handed Ms. Clarke a temporary demotion, taking her down one level from superintendent to inspector. Her defenders called that too harsh. In fact, the tribunal was too easy on Ms. Clarke. The prosecutor in the case had called for her to be demoted two levels to the rank of staff sergeant for one year. Even that would have been a mild penalty for what she did. A more fitting punishment would be to remove her from any kind of leadership role. As it is, she will be able to reapply for promotion to her old rank as superintendent in just 24 months.
Hers was more than a momentary slip-up. Ms. Clarke has admitted that she had decided in advance to help the officers if she got the opportunity. When she texted them the photos of the exam questions, she used an app with an automatic-delete option to hide her tracks. She asked one of the officers to delete the questions from his phone just to be sure. So she knew very well what she was doing was wrong.
Ms. Clarke personally coached one of the officers, a close family friend. She even brought him to her home to conduct trial interviews. Then she sat on his interview panel, saying nothing about the flagrant conflict of interest.
Ms. McElary-Downer called her behaviour “inexcusable.” Ms. Clarke “led six very junior-ranking officers into a scheme of cheating,” leaving her fingerprints “forever etched on their damaged careers.”
Ms. McElary-Downer continued: “As a mentor, as a senior ranking officer, it was her duty, her moral and ethical obligation, to lead by example and demonstrate honesty and integrity above reproach. Rather, she led by modelling corrupt behaviour and unfortunately, they followed.”
Even if she did not act for personal gain, the adjudicator said, her conduct fell “far below the standard expected of a police officer.” Ms. Clarke effectively admitted as much when she pleaded guilty last fall to a series of violations of the Police Services Act, among them discreditable conduct and breach of confidence.
She is lucky she was not dismissed from the force altogether. That she will be allowed to continue in the senior role of inspector is difficult to understand.
Police, quite obviously, exist to enforce the rules. When they themselves break those rules, however pure their motives, it undermines public confidence that the law will be applied fairly and evenly. That takes us into dangerous waters. If people start doubting the police, they are less likely to report crime and more likely to take justice into their own hands.
Those who campaign for racial justice know this better than anyone. It is strange to see some of them making a hero of Ms. Clarke.