Key takeaways:
- Lawyers claim that being able to drag drivers over for no reason is unconstitutional.
- Luamba is suing the government over apparent police racial profiling.
On Monday, joseph-Christopher Luamba told a Montreal court that when he noticed a police car while driving, he began getting ready to pull over.
In the 18 months after he got his driver’s license in March 2018, Luamba stated police stopped him approximately ten times for no precise reason. He said he was driving a vehicle during almost half the stops and was a passenger in another individual’s car during the other police stops.
Those traffic stops are at the core of a lawsuit he filed against the Canadian and Quebec governments, which started in a Montreal courtroom on Monday.
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Luamba, who is Black, said he thinks he was racially profiled during the traffic stops — none of which resulted in a ticket — and he is pursuing a common-law rule that lets Canadian police stop drivers for no reason to be proclaimed unconstitutional.
“I was annoyed,” he told the court. “Why was I stopped? I followed the laws; I didn’t commit any crimes.”
Luamba, 22, said he was scared during the interactions with the police.
Source – cbc.ca
