“It was so heartbreaking,” Zarabi-Majd said. “Having seen that stuff and reporting it, I thought that the police service was gonna actually do something and deal with these, but of course they didn’t and I became the target.”
Zarabi-Majd posted Division 51 group chats on social media under an account called Dirty Shades of Blue in October 2019, and was dismissed in May 2023. She is appealing and has outstanding proceedings before Ontario’s Human Rights Tribunal.
There has been other fallout.
In the case of accused sex trafficker Kevin Barreau, his lawyer cited remarks about Zarabi-Majd’s body to support a claim of racism against Det. Const. Chris Hoeller. Barreau claimed Hoeller used a racial epithet during his 2017 arrest.
Hoeller admitted writing about Zarabi-Majd’s body during Barreau’s trial that began in 2021, telling the Ontario court of justice it was “completely inappropriate,” and “highly disrespectful,” but a “one-time thing.”
“I find his reluctance to acknowledge the racist overtones of that text to be disturbing,” Justice Russell Stuart Silverstein wrote in a May 2023 ruling, saying it increased the likelihood Hoeller used the epithet.
However, Silverstein rejected Barreau’s efforts to stay the case.
Barreau was convicted but his lawyer, Chris Rudnicki, said the group chat evidence showed a “striking” culture among police.
He said the material was “deeply relevant” to Barreau’s case because he had been “trying to establish that this guy (Hoeller) is a racist.”...
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