When the blue and reds began flashing in his rear-view, there was no problem with Kirk Johnson’s insurance or his sobriety or his speed. He was black. That was the problem, Nova Scotia’s Human Rights Commission would later concur
Kirk Johnson, former Olympic boxer and professional heavyweight fighter, following a workout at the City of Lakes Boxing Club in Dartmouth, N.S. on April 2, 2019.A 1990′s Olympic boxer, Kirk Johnson, is now pushing 50 and does not want to be back in the newspaper, on the radio or on TV.
“I knew right away what it was. And I knew right then that it was a situation I needed to bring some light to,” the boxer said in a recent interview. The analysis of police data from a 12-year span between 2006 and 2017, published in a report by the criminologist Scot Wortley, showed the equivalent of two street checks for every black person residing in the Halifax area. There was only one street check for every three white people.
“I’m disappointed that it took five long years for justice to be served,” Mr. Johnson told one outlet at the time. “It is closure just to know the system didn’t really let me down.”The rights commission’s order that police collect street-check data and analyze it for racial bias fell by the wayside for more than a dozen years. Although police collected the data, no analysis was done until media inquired about it in 2016.
That recommendation was not taken, nor has a decision on the future of street checks been made. Nova Scotia Justice Minister Mark Furey, a former RCMP officer who also owns the human rights file, promised action the same day that the independent street check report was released. But he asked for more time – and more reporting from various stakeholders, due to him in mid-May – to decide on what that action ought to look like.
“I’ve been personally street-checked more times than I’d like to admit,” she said. “This is not just about Halifax. This is a national problem.
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