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OTTAWA, Feb 10 2004 (CBC Ottawa) – About 20 members of Ottawa's Somali community met with the critical-incident team of the Ottawa police Monday afternoon.
It was an attempt to smooth tensions following a confrontation between police and Somalis at a Somali-owned restaurant two weeks ago. Some were more ready to be mollified than others.
Established community leaders such as Abdi Rizak Karod, director of the Somali Centre for Family Services, were ready to believe that police were serious about improving relations.
"We started with good mood, and we are still in a good mood, and we are going in the right direction," Karod says.
But it was a much tougher sell with the mothers, such as Miriam Abdirehman.
"If I bring you 10 or 20 Somali mothers from the catchments, and I say 'what is police to you?,' they will say police is enemy, not my friend," Abdirehman says.
"We live at Bank and Ledbury 15 years. All of that area is going to jail, even 14 years old," she says.
Mothers like Amina Ta'ba and Miriam Aden say many Somalis of the younger generation have fallen afoul of the law, not because they behave much worse than other teenagers, but because Somali neighbourhoods, such as the one at the junction of Banff Avenue and Ledbury Avenue, are under intense surveillance.
"The police are always there, watching them. He's at the corner, sitting there in the car, 24 hours a day, watching the child. He look at them, that's it, he don't have any other job," one mother said.
Still, the fact that the mothers showed up suggests that trust isn't completely broken. The mothers say they still hope things can get better.
Police say they don't want to alienate that trust. As well as a public relations team, the police also sent Staff-Sgt. Gerry Sabourin, head of internal investigations, to give an update on the investigation into the complaints of violence and racism at the Somali-owned Ambassador Bar & Grill.
Many Somalis say they'll know police are serious when they see results from that investigation.
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