An Ottawa man has come up with a response to highly-controversial wristband campaign by members of the Ottawa Police Service.
Greg Birtch is making wristbands of his own.
The police wristbands are intended to show support for a fellow officer charged with manslaughter. Constable Daniel Montsion was charged in relation to the death of Abdirahman Abdi in Ottawa in July of 2016. Abdi died from injuries sustained while being arrested.
Greg Birtch, a retired firefighter, says the wristband campaign is “offensive” and not well thought out. “I understand the need to support members,” he says. “I just think there was other ways to do it.”
Birtch decided to create a wristband in support of the Abdi family. It says “Stand with Abdirahman Abdi” and uses the star and blue colour from the flag of Abdi’s homeland, Somalia, in its design.
He hopes his wristband is more in keeping with why wristbands got started in the first place, to unite people to a cause rather than divide them.
“It’s almost like a stab in the back to these folks who are about to endure some trying times over the next little while while this trial goes through,” he says of the police wristband campaign. “It’s splitting up a bunch of different folds and creating divide which is not a good thing these days. There’s enough of it going on.”
Birtch and his wife are covering the cost of manufacturing the Abdi wristbands. He hopes to sell 500 at $2 each. All the proceeds will go to the Abdi family.
He expects the wristbands to arrive from the US early next week. He says they will be sold at locations across the city.
