Montreal mayor calls for end to random police checks amid racial profiling investigation

Montreal’s mayor has called for a halt to random police checks as the city’s police force grapples with an internal investigation into racism and racial profiling by 16 officers. Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada told reporters last week that her husband, who is Black, has been repeatedly stopped by police while driving. “Like many other Black people in our city and the racialized people this happens too many times,” she said. The checks have happened at least five times within the last year for “no reason at all”, she said. Those revelations followed a late-night press conference from the city’s police chief to announce that more than a dozen officers had been reassigned or relocated while investigators investigate claims that officers – most of whom are young men with less than five years on the force – disproportionately targeted Black and Arab residents. Two more officers have been suspended and two cases have submitted to Quebec’s director of criminal and penal prosecutions to determine whether criminal charges should be laid. “I was extremely surprised. I didn’t think it was possible in 2026. This is how deeply, deeply hurt I am,” police chief Fady Dagher said, describing the officers as “tarnishing our uniform”. Those officers are accused of cutting pieces of dreadlocks from people during police stops, as well as issuing tickets to people solely on the basis of their ethnic background. …