"My name is Hana Al-Zaghab," said the short, curvy, Hijab-wearing young Arab woman, smiling faintly. Ottawa Police Constable Rupert James Sherman nodded gently, and noted this on his pad. In spite of the ordeal she'd just gone through, as evidenced by her bruised face, the young woman looked sturdy and dignified. Attacks on racial minorities, especially Muslims, were becoming quite common across provincial Ontario.
The various police forces of the province were doing very little about those xenophobic attacks, a sure sign of the times in this part of Canada. According to the latest criminological statistics, the biggest minority groups in the City of Ottawa, Ontario, people of African and Middle-Eastern descent, were the biggest targets. Several mosques had been vandalized, Black Lives Matter activists had been attacked in public, and now, this lovely young Arab woman got attacked on the bus. Dammit.
"Hana, I am Constable Rupert James Sherman with the Ottawa Police Service, please, tell me exactly what happened," he said gently, and he waited for Hana to begin. They were at Lincoln Fields Station, where Hana's attackers had fled after attacking her on the bus. The young woman took a deep breath, and then told him how she'd been attacked by a couple of young white guys while riding the OC Transpo bus going to Barrhaven, Ontario, from downtown Ottawa. What began as a casual bus ride soon took a tragic turn...
"Officer, is this going to hurt my chances with immigration? I'm an international student from Gaza and I've recently applied for permanent residency," Hana said, and Rupert looked at her, stunned by the worry that shone in those dark brown eyes of hers. Taking a deep breath, Rupert wondered how to best answer that question. The Constable understood all too well the worries that plagued the immigrant class in Canada, after all, he moved to Ottawa from Saint Lucia with his family ten years ago.
"Ma'am, you are the victim of a hate crime, you did nothing wrong, those men had no right to treat you like this, I will personally pursue them to the full extent of the law," Rupert said, and Hana looked at him, surprised by his choice of words. Rupert scribbled in his notepad, feeling slightly uneasy under Hana's unwavering, penetrating stare. This young woman is something else, Rupert thought to himself.
"Good, I just don't want to have a criminal record or anything like that, I'm close to finishing the nursing program at Ottawa University, " Hana replied evenly, and Rupert nodded, and reassured her that the Hate Crime Investigation Division of the Ottawa Police Service was taking the incident seriously. After a few minutes, he handed her his card, and promised to keep in touch. Hana nodded gratefully, and then began to head toward the bus stop. Rupert bit his lip, feeling bad about leaving Hana alone after the ordeal she'd just gone through.
"Ma'am, if you want, we can have a cruiser escort you home," Rupert suggested, and after a brief hesitation, Hana nodded. Rupert spoke to patrol supervisor Helena Locke about escorting Hana home, and the tall, blonde-haired policewoman nodded her assent. She glanced at Hana, and shook her head sadly. Poor thing, she doesn't deserve this, the officer thought.
"Young lady, Constable Rupert will get you home, and we will keep you updated about the investigation," Supervisor Helena Locke said, and Hana nodded. Rupert thanked his supervisor, then held the backdoor open for Hana, and then got behind the wheel. Turning to look at her, he asked for her address, and after a slight hesitation, Hana told him.
"I live right across the new Minto Center off Cambrian Avenue," Hana said, and Rupert nodded, then punched it into the GPS tracker. They sped away from Lincoln Fields Station, and began the long trek to Barrhaven. Blaring his police siren, Rupert sped through the streets of Nepean with seemingly wild abandon, and the police car arrived in Barrhaven's Cambrian area in no time.
"That was cool, the way you used the siren like that, thank you, Mister Rupert, I mean, Constable," Hana said shyly, and Rupert nodded, and then got out and held the door open for her. Hana nodded at him after exiting the back of the police cruiser, and held out her hand. Rupert hesitated. He was raised Catholic and didn't know much about Islam but he knew that usually, conservatively attired Muslim ladies like Hana didn't shake hands with men.
"Um, have a good night, ma'am," Rupert said awkwardly as he shook Hana's hand, and the young woman smiled and nodded, then headed for the front door. Rupert stuck around for another minute, just to make sure she got home okay, and then he drove away. He'd only been working for the Ottawa Police Service for eight months, and this was one of the hairiest situations he'd encountered in his police career. He was still a rookie, sure, but the Hana case touched him in ways that others hadn't. Rupert could actually relate to what Hana had gone through...
Rupert thought about his not so great days at Cadmus Academy, a private Catholic which he attended in the Orleans suburb of Ottawa back in the day. He was one of only sixty five black students at a school of six hundred. This was the late 1990s, and although Ottawa was already quite diverse back then, elite schools like Cadmus Academy were lagging behind.
Rupert recalled how a lot of the white students teased him for his dark skin color, and teachers got on his case due to his parents steadfast refusal to do away with his dreads, which apparently clashed with school policy. Cadmus Academy had a preppy image and boasted of several high-ranking Canadian politicians and two prime ministers among its distinguished alumni. Rupert was destined to become one of those famous alumni, for different reasons.
When Rupert's very Afro-centric parents, Louis and Madeline Sherman, went all the way to the Ontario Supreme Court to fight against the school's racist policies, they became famous as a result. For starters, they won, and the policies were seen as discriminatory and struck down. Many hated the Sherman family as a result of the court case. In spite of all that, Rupert graduated and later went on to study criminology at York University, before coming back to Ottawa.
Adversity cannot be avoided, Rupert thought sourly. He ran his hand through his mini-Afro and smiled. As Constable Rupert Sherman drove from Hana Al-Zaghab's household in Nepean, he contacted dispatch, which requested his presence to Baseline Station. Apparently, there was a fight at the dorms at Algonquin College and an assailant being held by the college security team. As the officer closest to the scene, Rupert accepted the call, and sped away, intent on helping in any ( lawful ) way that he could.
"Dispatch, this is Unit 117-D-11, responding," Rupert spoke into the radio, and he headed toward Algonquin College, which was only a few minutes from his current position. Rupert went there, and was met by two other patrol officers, a tall, red-haired and green-eyed young policewoman named Patricia Dean, and a burly, bearded older white male officer named Bobby Winchester. The three officers headed into the residence building, and spoke to staff and students.
The incident at Algonquin College involved four individuals, three of whom were students. A young white woman named Deirdre invited her Jamaican boyfriend Lenny to spend the night, and that didn't sit right with her ex-boyfriend Doyle or his buddy Richie, both of whom happened to be in the building when Lenny came calling. Doyle and Richie attacked Lenny out of jealousy, yet the brother was the one accused of assailing them, according to campus security.
"You can say whatever you want, they came at me and I defended myself," Lenny said, shaking his dreadlocked head as he looked at the newly arrived police officers, and Rupert pursed his lips, wondering how to address this. This was the dilemma that police officers of color were often placed in. If they sided with a brother, the other police officers might look at them funny, and if they didn't, then they were sellouts to their own community.
"This fucker came at me, attacked me for no reason," said Doyle, looking at the police and security teams, then at Deirdre, as though daring the plump, blue-eyed blonde gal to say otherwise. Doyle stood about five-foot-ten, wearing a flannel shirt and blue jeans. Rupert could smell the liquor on his breath from a distance of just about twelve meters.
