Worst of Halifax: Disinterested Police

Yes, I’ll put my drink away. Can you serve and protect me now?

Leilani Graham-Laidlaw, Staff Contributor

I’m not from Halifax (nor am I from Toronto). In the past few years of student living, my first impressions seem to have stuck: sweatpants should not be outdoor wear (no matter the label on your butt), students breed coffee shops (and bars!) like rabbits, and living in a university town lends itself to a them-and-us situation: residents are “us” and students are “them.” Clearly if you only live here eight months of the year, then you don’t really matter since you’ll leave anyway.

Annoying as that last attitude is, it wasn’t surprising to find it here. What surprised me was who espoused that toxic (and rather silly) view—not just old-timers and real Maritimers looking at you shifty on the bus, but our own Halifax Regional Police.

Let me explain.

When I was little first-year journalism student writing my first major project, I decided I wanted to cover gangs and violence.

Totally preposterous, I know—I barely knew anyone in Halifax yet, and those people I did know were all students. How the heck was I going to meet gangsters?

I never found any (they don’t exactly have PR people), and I didn’t know how to even get to a jail, never mind how to get interviews there. But the police had PR, so I went off to interview spokesperson Constable Carr, nervous as all hell at my first “real” interview.

What he gave me regarding violence in Halifax and how it might affect students was essentially the same pap they feed us perennially at Operation Fall Back every September. Essentially: police will take noise complaints seriously, so don’t party too hard or too loud. Don’t bug the regular citizens.

Regular citizens? I vote here, I live here, I pay outrageous fees that support this economy. Students don’t count? No.

I pressed a little harder, seeing red (but still sweaty-palmed at the mere idea that this guy gave up twenty minutes to talk to me). I never got much out of him except the same “well you don’t really live here, our concerns are for permanent citizens” stuff over and over again. Not in as many words, mind you, but the attitude was there.

It’s everywhere, and it hasn’t changed from then to now.  When sleep-watcher fear was at its frenzy this fall, police press releases condescended to remind us to lock our doors. Meanwhile, a contingent of our men and women in blue were patrolling South End Halifax during the ritual Operation Fall Back, in which they ticket petty liquor violations and keep students from urinating on the sidewalk.

While police take the time to warn students each year not to be so loud, they seem not to have time to support student victims of crime such as sexual assault. At least, that’s the message you’d get from hearing the numerous “student talks” put on by the HRM police, in which students are told to avoid getting themselves into trouble, rather than what the police wants to do about it.

Elise Graham, the VP Internal of NSCAD, was not impressed with the police sentiments at her school’s Orientation Week police presentation. She spoke to the Gazette this fall, saying that the officer who presented “created an overwhelming sense of fear among the new students.”

Reports say the officer told women to cover their drinks, not to get too drunk, and not to wear revealing clothing.

“It would have been refreshing to hear ‘rape is wrong’ instead of putting all the onus on what potential victims shouldn’t do,” Graham said.

So the biggest thing I hate about Halifax is that there’s an ingrained attitude in official organs like the Police force that students are second-class citizens because we are temporary.

We pay taxes, we vote, and there’s been all sorts of talk about how to get students to stay and stimulate the economy with jobs and spending, but still the only message the Police want to get out to us is to not cause trouble for the regular folk.

Here’s a novel idea, Halifax: if you want students to stay, don’t treat them as second class citizens because they’re transient.