Demario Chambers - Know Your Rights [VIDEO]

The Know Your Rights campaign collaborates with key organizations to develop self-help guides, pre-recorded advice sessions, workshops, lectures, and youth-led programming focused on Human Rights, Labour and Employment, and Policing. Through these initiatives, the campaign aims to disseminate valuable resources, foster community engagement, and promote awareness while encouraging the sharing of relevant statistics and referrals related to African Nova Scotians. The overarching goal is to facilitate a nuanced analysis that considers intersectionality and addresses the diverse needs of the African Nova Scotian community.

ANSJI’s Know Your Rights Campaign is funded by Justice Canada through their department's Justice Partnership and Innovation Program (JPIP) which funds projects that support a fair, relevant, and accessible Canadian Justice System.

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Halifax Regional Police officer, Mark Pierce, appears at a restorative justice meeting after being criminally charged with assaulting 15-year-old Demario Chambers

Demario Chambers said he received a concussion, cuts, bruises, and badly hurt finger at the hands of Halifax Regional Police officer Const. Mark Pierce and his partner Const. Craig Trudel when they arrested him outside of a mall in Bedford in February 2020 when he was 15 years old.

They released Chambers without charges to his parents later that night.

Chambers’ parents, Troylena and Dasmen Dixon, shared a 23-second video of the arrest that Chambers recorded. The video was widely shared on social media in the days that followed as the story made headlines. (Watch and read more: https://blacknovascotia.ca/halifax-constable-referred-to-restorative-justice-for-2020-assault-on-black-teen/ )

Pierce has since resumed his duties and is believed to have been promoted to detective with the Halifax Regional Police.

Chambers wrote an article in the Examiner in July 2020 (before Pierce was charged) where he told his side of the story.