It was Aug. 26, 1979, when two Metro Toronto police officers kicked their way into Albert Johnson’s home. He didn’t know it, but the 35-year-old Jamaican immigrant only had minutes to live.
And it all went back to May of that year.
On May 12, police questioned him at home during a mental health call. Then, they shackled him with three handcuffs, dragging him down the stairs while calling him a “Black bastard.” He spent three days in the hospital. Cops visited him there, warning him to “forget” what happened.
But when he got out, he filed several reports with the Ontario Human Rights Commission.
From then on, police harassed him, whether Johnson was reading Bible passages in the park, riding his bike, or “disturbing the peace.”
Johnson reported that police told him they’d kill him - days before he died.
That day, an “anonymous neighbor” called the police claiming Johnson was “causing a disturbance.” That neighbor? A cop’s father. One officer first radioed that everything was fine.
But that’s when two others broke in, brutally beating Johnson before firing the fatal shot that left him bleeding to death.
Today, in Canada, the U.S., or anywhere - police continue to rob us of our lives. But we can remember Johnson for refusing to let his brutality go unchallenged, until the very end.