What it feels like when police ask, 'What are you doing there?'

He was a few blocks from home, waiting for a bus in the cold, checking emails on his phone, when Coun. Matthew Green was stopped and questioned for several minutes by a Hamilton Police officer who seemed not to realize who he was.

"What are you doing there?" was the first thing Green said he heard the officer say, just after 3 p.m. on Tuesday.

You don't forget being stopped.- Desmond Cole, writer and activist

He felt like a suspect in his own neighbourhood, he said. He felt intimidated, frustrated and angry.

Green's story brings up the emotional and psychological impact that police activity in a diverse city can have on people on the receiving end of that activity.

Being asked random questions by police when you're minding your own business – and having it happen more than once – sticks with a person. That's an impact that people who oppose carding and street checks have cited as a reason for reform. 

"After years of being stopped by police, I've started to internalize their scrutiny," wrote Desmond Cole, a writer and activist whose story of being stopped and questioned dozens of times by Ontario police officers was published last year in Toronto. "I've doubted myself, wondered if I've actually done something to provoke them."

Green had to stay to wait for the bus, but even the idea of walking away from the officer didn't cross his mind.

"In theory my Charter rights allow me to walk away," he said. "I know in that particular situation it was somewhat of a psychological detainment."

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The officer was "obviously in control enough" of the situation that he was content holding up a handful of cars to have the conversation, Green said.

"As an elected official, you know, I wanted to try to cooperate with him and answer the questions as fully as I possibly could, and I think walking away at that time would've escalated the situation," Green said.

Incidents like these may be something an officer quickly forgets as part of his or her day, Cole said in an address to the Ontario Bar Association.

But the person who was questioned? "You don't forget being stopped," Cole said.

'What would it have been if I was younger?'

Green, who has thousands of Twitter followers and a public platform as an elected official, can talk publicly about what happened, get it off his chest, hope for change or at least increased awareness.

But he wonders what would've happened if an officer had found another black man leaning against the wall on Tuesday afternoon, maybe one who's not as used to talking with police for his job.

"What would it have been if I was younger? I'm not sure how I would've responded to that as a younger man," Green said in an interview on Bill Kelly's CHML talk show.

"It's a dehumanizing process when you have to justify yourself to somebody for being where you are."

'Even if you're innocent'

Raheem Aman is a 23-year-old McMaster student who plans to be a lawyer and ran for the Green Party on the Mountain in last year's federal election.

When he was about 17, he and his two brothers and their father were playing basketball down the street from their home in Brampton.

On their walk home, a police car rolled up and stopped them and asked them where they were going and what they were doing, despite how obvious the answer was, Aman said.

They were still sweating from their game on the walk down the street, Aman said. "In basketball clothes. Nothing even in our pockets," he said.

"My dad was angry about the situation – to be disrespected in front of his children," Aman said.

In the heated exchange that followed, the officer drew his gun and threatened his dad, Aman said.

Now, Aman gets nervous every time he sees a police officer.

"Sometimes even if you're innocent you can still get a little nervous based on previous experiences especially if they were negative," he said. "I'll never be the same again."

'Living in Ancaster, water my garden every morning'

Aman said the people who've reacted to what happened to Green with "why didn't he just politely comply with the cops?" missed the point.

"They're talking from a position who've never been asked by the police random questions," he said. "[Police are] trying to incriminate you."

"If I was 45 years old, say, a European woman who's never been asked random questions by police, living in Ancaster, water my garden every morning, it's a totally different context," he said. "To any … black man especially, it's tough."

The incident with Green, whom Aman knows and considers a "brother," angered him, he said.

"Matthew Green, who pours his heart and blood into Hamilton -- he's still treated like any one of us," he said.

"It's not as simple as 'Just answer the questions.'"

[email protected] | @kellyrbennett