The two men whose deaths have put Ottawa’s police force in the spotlight were individuals, with distinct lives.
Abdirahman Abdi was 37, an immigrant from Somalia who had been in Canada just eight years. Sadly, few other details are available about the man, who died outside his home after an interaction with police in June, 2016. On Monday, Constable Daniel Montsion pled not guilty to charges of manslaughter, aggravated assault and assault with a weapon.
Greg Ritchie’s family has shared more about the 30-year-old, who was Ojibwa, a member of Saugeen First Nation. Mr. Ritchie had just moved to Ottawa with his brother and sister-in-law from Kitchener, where he was known for tending sacred fires.
Mr. Ritchie died after his own interaction with police last Thursday. The Special Investigations Unit is still determining how he ended up shot and killed after encountering two officers, Thanh Tran and Daniel Vincelette, at Elmvale Mall.
The men were people, not statistics, but their lives had tragic similarities and vulnerabilities. They both had mental-health issues, which increased their likelihood of encountering police. One was black and the other Indigenous, the two racial groups for whom police interactions are fatal far out of proportion to their numbers in the population.
And the negative attention focused on the Ottawa Police Service is entirely deserved, given its history of disrespectful incidents. In 2017 alone, it issued an apology after a police sergeant made a number of racist remarks in the wake of the death of acclaimed Inuit artist Annie Pootoogook – the scene of which was investigated by a staff member under his supervision – and made another after multiple officers donned wristbands “in support" of Constable Montsion.
But these fine details are part of a larger picture, one in which this country’s graves are continually being filled with brown-skinned bodies that met violent deaths. Each separate grief leaves those who care in a constant state of mourning. Examined together, they reveal an institutional indifference that makes that burden worse.
This was painfully clear last week, even before Mr. Ritchie’s death. Monday marked the two-year anniversary of the day Alexandre Bissonnette killed six men and injured 19 others by opening fire in a Quebec City mosque.
Days after, Quebec premier François Legault had the gall to deny the existence of Islamophobia in his province – comments he later walked back, after much criticism – while showing a complete lack of interest in designating a day to honour the mosque victims. This is gross, but also unsurprising. Mr. Legault has an inclination for xenophobic rhetoric, from his efforts to ban public employees from wearing religious symbols while defending the crucifix as “cultural,” to his desire to welcome European newcomers despite a pledge to reduce immigration as a whole.
Last Tuesday, Bruce McArthur pleaded guilty to eight counts of killing gay Toronto men, six of them from South Asian or Middle Eastern backgrounds. (Like Mr. Ritchie in Ottawa, one of the two white men killed was particularly vulnerable because of a history of homelessness.)
Many still have questions about how racism factored into the excruciating years it took police to even admit marginalized communities were being targeted by a serial killer. But others keep dismissing the need for accountability, insisting that uniformed officers belong in Pride, the annual celebration of LGBTQ resilience.
Last week also saw the Miawpukek Mi’kamawey Mawi’omi First Nation in Newfoundland begin mourning Chantal John, a young mother allegedly killed by her ex-boyfriend. The inescapable background to these stories are legions of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, an issue that seized the public consciousness a few years ago, only to largely fade out of the mainstream.
It’s tempting to deny that these deaths are connected, that allegedly abusive exes have nothing to do with mass murderers, who in turn have nothing to do with over-reactive police. But the victims clearly share a link – variegating shades of brown skin – which makes it necessary to consider their deaths as a whole.
Violence toward Indigenous and black people is as old as this country, while the rise of Islamophobia is relatively new. What’s been steady throughout is the drive to make certain bodies powerless, allowing those who mean harm to locate vulnerability, and exploit it.
On Monday, attention was rightfully focused on Ottawa, where there is fresh grief for Mr. Ritchie, and a chance for justice for Mr. Abdi. Any honest person in this country will also take the time to step back and reckon with the bigger picture.