TORONTO, ON ― Local Toronto Police Service officer Jeremy Moriarty took great care during an initially routine traffic stop this week to unnecessarily escalate the situation to a degree of violence exactly reflecting the racial lineage of his victim, Daniel Hall.
“Our police force has come so far in terms of race relations. There was a time when people said that a drop of Black blood made you all Black, but nowadays, we have a more refined understanding of racism. And that allows us to take a more nuanced approach to applying it,” bragged a TPS spokesperson in a statement that would receive widespread but futile condemnation.
“Also, I replaced the n-word in that saying with ‘Black,’ so you have to say I’m ‘woke’ now.”
Moriarty is considered a model of racial equality by his peers, a low bar considering that unarmed Black people are 2.3 times as likely to have force used against them by the TPS. After one incident as a rookie when he told a Japanese woman to go back to China, his colleagues say he has since striven to do better, and always pauses to ascertain that he is using the correct slurs before he spits on or tasers defenceless people.
Moriarty explained that since Hall was driving with an elderly white man and black woman in the car, as well as his young daughter, a quick assessment of the relative skin tones made it clear that the older couple was Hall’s parents. Further, the whiteness of the father led him to immediately conclude that the son automatically deserved 50% more respect than a fully black man.
For this reason alone ― and not the terrified sobs of the 5-year-old girl, nor the desperate pleas for help from the frail and panicked parents, nor the fact that Hall was only doing 10 over the limit, nor basic human decency, and definitely not because his indifferent partner or turned-off bodycam did anything whatsoever to dissuade him ― Moriarty ceased the violent kicks to the groin and head and removed his knee from the man’s back when he judged that the injuries were only severe and life-altering, rather than fatal.
The TPS has made a half-assed apology and a half-hearted promise to do better, as they do after every such incident and every time a new report shows that racialized people are overrepresented in violent or deadly encounters, street checks, and strip searches. They also confirmed that the cop has been suspended, but currently retains half his pay.
Meanwhile Hall is recovering in hospital, where doctors have allotted him a dosage of painkillers exactly halfway between what they would deem necessary for a white man and for a black man in identical situations. Reached for comment, Hall said, “This is completely fucked up, and I can’t stand knowing that he’s 100% going to get away with this.”
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