In-store police incident sparks claims of profiling

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/10/2022 (1402 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Indigenous advocate is refusing to accept what she calls yet another empty apology, saying she was unfairly targeted by special duty police officers in a Winnipeg store.

Vivian Ketchum, 58, said she was accused of stealing and asked to empty her pockets Monday evening by three uniformed officers, who were acting as security at a Shoppers Drug Mart on Sherbrook Street.

Ketchum told the Free Press she was confronted after placing her gloves in her jacket pocket. She had to put her possessions on the store floor, including her coat, to prove she wasn’t stealing, Ketchum said.

Afterward, the officers watched her visibly struggle to gather her things (she suffers from a medical issue that makes it difficult to bend down) without helping her, she said.

“People were going by me and looking at me. I felt embarrassed to look in people’s eyes,” Ketchum said Tuesday. “I’m standing by the front counter with my stuff on the floor, the police over me. I was guilty, I was judged guilty.”

A spokesperson for Loblaw Companies Ltd., parent company of Shoppers Drug Mart Inc., said Tuesday they had been informed about the situation and reiterated: “Paid duty security is not new, and this is something we’ve done in other markets for many years.”

Ketchum said she believes she was targeted because she is Indigenous, and is no stranger to bigoted treatment day-to-day. In 2016, she spoke out after an alleged assault by a security guard at a local ACCESS medical centre, and again in 2022, when she was asked to leave a BMO bank branch by security two separate times, saying it was without cause.

No charges were laid in the medical centre incident; she received an apology from the BMO branch manager.

This time, however, Ketchum said she found herself especially fearful because it was three Winnipeg Police Service officers working special duty — unlike security guards, who would not be able to search or use a weapon on her lawfully.

“That’s scary, that I could actually get injured in Shoppers by a police officer that had weapons,” she said.

WPS Const. Dani McKinnon said Tuesday the service is aware of the incident and was “actively looking into the situation and reaching out to all involved parties.”

Rates for the special duty program, which contracts out off-duty police officers to serve as traffic escorts or security at events and locations, begin at $124 per hour.

Microaggressions or more severe incidents on account of being visibly Indigenous are a weekly occurrence, Ketchum said. She’s received apologies after speaking publicly about anti-Indigenous racism in the past, but said she would not accept one this time.

“I’m tired of this. I have a pocket full of apologies. I’ve got no more pockets to put these apologies in,” she said. “They’re insincere. There’s no action to resolve these issues.”

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca