“The Special Investigations Unit is supposed to be an impartial civilian board that is supposed to work to investigate police interactions with the public but what it actually does is protect police officers”, said Yusra Khogali, co-founder of Toronto’s BLM group, at a demonstration earlier in August.
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That morning, police received calls about an incident at a coffee shop in the Hintonburg neighbourhood in Ottawa, though a witness at the cafe said the alleged groping never happened. According to the police, the group used bottles to attack them and then punched and kicked them.
They then allegedly left him lying handcuffed, facedown on the concrete, for several minutes without performing CPR.
The group also also called for the SIU to release its entire report into the Abdi case and release any race-based data that it keeps. “The SIU is not accountable to our communities”.
A graduate of Temple University’s famed African American studies department, Williams’ tweet about Sunday’s White Lives Matter protest succinctly sums up exactly why anti-Black Lives Matter rhetoric isn’t about caring for all lives, but rather silencing Black ones.
The “White Lives Matter” protest wanted to voice their concerns that black leaders and organizations have not condemned the actions of the “Black Lives Matter” movement which has led to rioting and violence in certain cities.
In Toronto, BLM’s long-standing target has been the SIU, the Ontario police watchdog that investigates fatal encounters with police in the province.
Another demand is that the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons should “strip the license of the health practitioner (s) who authorized the withholding of information regarding Abdirahman Abdi”.
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Abdi died after what is being described as a violent arrest outside his apartment building in Ottawa back in July.
