Bad Cop, No Doughnut
When Police Kill: Police Use of Force in Montreal and Toronto
Gabriella Pedicelli
Vehicule Press, 1998
160 pages, $17.95
In When Police Kill, Gabriella Pedicelli takes on a project that would make most of us think twice: exposing police brutality. Pedicelli is indeed, as stated in her biographical blurb, uniquely qualified to conduct this analysis: a graduate of John Abbott College's police technology program and of the Nicolet police academy, she abandoned policing upon discovering that there simply was no way to obtain the training to be what she wanted to be - a cop with a difference.
In her autobiographical introduction, Pedicelli makes a point through her personal experience that she later reiterates in her analysis: the very act of policing requires abuse of force, and offers no alternative solutions to social problems. Instead of becoming a cop, Pedicelli brought her critique of policing to the sociology programs of Concordia and the University of Ottawa, constructing an academic critique of the institution that she already, from experience, knew to be deeply flawed. This, her brief exposé of police brutality, is a compelling and necessary, though disappointingly insufficiently detailed, piece of work.
Pedicelli's analysis covers incidents of fatal police uses of force from 1987 to 1993, with appendixed material up to 1997. Her work includes a brief critical summary of the history and construction of policing, an analysis of media coverage of killings by police (and of other types of incidents), an annotated list of cases of murders by police in Montreal and Toronto, a deeper analysis of the Allan Gossett case, and a critique of institutional and governmental responses to police brutality. Informed by critical criminology, Pedicelli's analysis touches on many topics of the social control of deviance, especially through policing and media. Any of these focuses could easily have been the topic for a single work, which is one of the flaws of this book. While each topic sparks interest, the analysis usually only skims the surface, and doesn't leave the reader with enough to really appreciate and analyze the issues.
One important weakness of Pedicelli's analysis is her reliance upon media as a source of data, while she critiques media coverage of police use of force. In chapter 3, "A Pawn in the Game," she focuses on four cases - the police killings of Richard Barnabé, Martin Suazo, and Philippe Ferraro, as well as media coverage of the Sûreté du Québec's strong-arm tactics - to critique the Gazette's June 1995 coverage of police incidents. Her analysis of the Globe & Mail's coverage of police brutality focuses in greater depth, and thus with more nuance, on one case: the media construction of a "Jamaican crime wave" as a social problem. Pedicelli addresses the paradox of relying on a critiqued source as data, stating that information on police abuses is not readily available either through official or media sources. Given that, she maintains a skeptical attitude toward the information provided, pointing out inconsistencies between media reports, court testimony, and police accounts.
Ultimately, Pedicelli's aim is to inform, intending her book to be used "as a tool and resource guide to promote public awareness about, and action against, [police] injustices." This activist slant does much to excuse the book's analytic failings. The only real problem with this work is that it leaves the reader wanting more - more details on the cases, more on the history of policing, more ways to get involved in countering police abuses.
Still, kudos to Pedicelli for having the chutzpah to publish an anti-police work in a city where even municipal employees who work closely with the police (Green Onions) fear them. Pedicelli concludes with a call to action, citing citizen-initiated opposition as the most viable alternative to completely overthrowing and re-visioning the police. For anyone who has followed the controversial cases of police brutality and abuses in Montreal (from the horror of the Richard Barnabé case to the petty abuses of the VIP sticker scandal)and wonders what to do about it, this book is a good place to start one's education.
Montrealers who want to know more and do more can contact Citoyen-nes Opposés-es
a la Brutalité Policiere (COBP) at 514-859-9065, or by e-mail at cobp@hotmail.com.
Also see the web site at http://www.microtec.net/~seahorse/COBP.htm
Lauraine Leblanc, Ph.D.