City expert speaks on challenges of policing Black youth
By Lethbridge Herald on May 31, 2025.
Alexandra Noad
Lethbridge Herald
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
A criminal justice instructor at Lethbridge Polytechnic did his doctoral dissertation on the policing of Black youth in both Calgary and Lethbridge, and spoke about his findings at the Galt Museum on Thursday evening.
Ibrahim Turay interviewed several Black youths about their encounters with police between 2019 and 2023 and found several instances where the police used more force or targeted them because of their skin colour.
One example of this was a Muslim who was accused of drunk driving, even though it is against Muslim laws to consume alcohol and he was a designated driver for his friends at a bar. Turay says it wasn’t the officers responding to a drunk driver call, but rather how they responded to the call, that was concerning.
“(The officers) thought it wasn’t necessary for them to be at that level of confrontational in the interactions.”
Turay said there were a total of five officers responding to the incident.
Another example he cited was police responding to a domestic violence call and knocking on the door, adamant that the emergency call came from the house, even though everyone was asleep. Officers later found out the call was in fact not from the occupants of the house, but from someone else in the neighborhood. But instead of checking the rest of the neighborhood, the police just left.
Turay said through his studies, he found Black females are more likely fearful of interactions with law enforcement.
“Most of the female participants were more fearful of their safety when they’re interacting with police than the male participants in my study overall.”
One thing Turay emphasised was officers need to let Black youth know of their rights as soon as they introduce themselves.
“If you are a police officer interacting with the Black youth, let them know what their rights are at the very beginning of that initial interaction.”
While his dissertation focused on police encounters, Turay believes everyone has a part to play in keeping Black youth safe. He also believes that there is no such thing as “colour blindness” and recognizing that Black people have a different view of the world because of the systems in place is crucial in fighting stereotypes.
“It’s not just the skin colour,” he said. “If we only focus on the skin colour, we’re going to miss experiences of Black women within society and even within Black communities.”
The Galt Museum will be hosting a youth workshop on June 11 from 3:30-5 p.m. where Turay and an LPS constable will answer questions on what they should do when they encounter a police officer.
15-14
Racism in any form is destroying our country and has impacted our society, as does many other divisive groups.
I always cringe when I hear ‘expert’, perhaps from the wave of so called experts in the drug crisis, which are far from.
I would hope, in this case this person is an expert, since he is education our future law enforcement members.
Lethbridge does have a growing Black population, as it does a growing Muslim population, which I believe can be good for our city, but you cannot compare Lethbridge to Calgary! Sorry, that is where you lose me!
I personally know that our LPS has strived to not use race in any of their actions or decisions and they are well trained in preventing this. There will always be complaints and there may be a few mistakes, but I will state that they are also human and none of us are perfect, although extreme steps are taken to prevent any racism. This is because Lethbridge has the largest Indigenous reserve right next door with 3 others within 2 hours and we are heavily impacted by crime from those communities.
Those extreme efforts to deal fairly with our Indigenous neighbours involved special training and that training would include all races.
Some of the Black community came from areas of conflict where police could not be trusted and I wonder if you have considered this in your observations as well?
Something that has always troubled me is that there are some police in the US that are clearly racist, but many think police in Canada are the same. They are not!
I also want to be clear that in many places, the people committing crimes can be from a specific race or group and are repeat offenders, so it may appear they are being singled out, but in fact they are the ones committing the crimes.
Perhaps if you viewed my CCTV footage of what occurs overnight around our business, you would see supporting evidence or surveilled downtown overnight when it is the criminals peek activity time.
I will state that I agree that just pulling some over because of their race, is wrong! I agree, but I doubt you will find that in our LPS, especially with our Downtown Police Unit, who I deal with personally often.
Criminal activity downtown is perpetrated by all races, but some are more prevalent and we cannot handcuff police from doing their jobs just because we are afraid to offend someone!
I trust our LPS after several years of seeing change in their department with the current drug crisis and pressures from the federal government and local Indigenous, that racism is not a factor in arrests of stopping someone to investigate a crime.
My business has been financially impacted by the drug crisis and police must be allowed to do their jobs if we are ever going to bring change.