Advisory - Black Lives Matter - Toronto Joins Montreal Vigil For Pierre Coriolan

MONTREAL, July 2, 2017 /CNW/ - Black Lives Matter – Toronto organizers are joining a coalition of Black organizations in Montreal to demonstrate against the police killing of Pierre Coriolan. This police killing came at the eve of the coroner's inquest into the death of another Black man, Andrew Loku, in Toronto. The parallels between the Andrew Loku case and the Pierre Coriolan case reveal an alarming systemic reality of fatal interactions between Black people in crisis and police. Both Black men were killed in their homes by police, both were from immigrant communities, both police departments refused to release the names of the police officers who killed the men, and in both cases the police and the media actively engaged in a campaign to smear and criminalize the victims. Black Lives Matter is raising the issue of anti-Black racism across Canada and have released the following national demands:

1. Develop a national Black mental health strategy with Black communities across the country that seeks to implement policy and service-provision responses
2. Mandate Statistics Canada to collect race-based statistics on institutions and services including municipal, provincial and local policing and mental health services
3. Mandate the province to collect race-based data in regards to policing, and mental health services

Black Lives Matter – Toronto is the Toronto chapter of #BlackLivesMatter, an international organization and movement fighting anti-Black racism all over the world.

#PierreCoriolan #BlackLivesMatter #BLMMTL

SOURCE Black Lives Matter - Toronto

Sandy Hudson at [email protected] or 416-722-8842; Venetta Gordon at [email protected] or 514-586-7469