DNA canvassing of migrant workers in sex assault case not racial profiling: report
TORONTO — A police watchdog has found that provincial officers were not racially profiling when they asked more than 100 migrant workers of colour to provide DNA samples following a sexual assault in an Ontario farming community.
But the province’s chief human rights commissioner says the head of the Office of the Independent Police Review Director got the definition of racial profiling wrong, and the officers’ actions in this case were discriminatory.
Gerry McNeilly, the OIRPD head who looked into the incident, released his report at a news conference Tuesday morning, in which he called the officers’ conduct “professional,” evoking cries of “shame” from the crowd.
McNeilly used the incident as an example of why the OPP should create policy on DNA canvassing, and included in the report a list of recommendations for such a policy. He said that all “similarly situated” police forces Canada-wide should create a canvassing policy based on his recommendations.