Citizen appointee Dr. Anjali Menezes abruptly resigned from the Hamilton Police Service Board on June 25, 2026, citing persistent mistreatment and calling on the provincial government to dissolve the oversight body and appoint an independent administrator.
Delivering her remarks directly to the Board at the beginning of its regular meeting, Menezes announced her immediate departure and characterized her tenure as marred by a culture of non-inclusion.
Menezes addressed the Board directly: “I have served as a citizen appointee on this Board since November 2023. And I am the first citizen appointee to be nominated by a groundbreaking collaborative committee of both diverse citizens and City Councillors.”
Menezes stated that she entered the role deeply aware that large segments of the community harbour a profound mistrust of law enforcement, hoping to bring accountability and transparency to the Board while building bridges to address widening divides in the city.
“But that hope has been extinguished,” Menezes told the Board. “I have experienced persistent mistreatment from colleagues, including ongoing commentary that is exclusionary, patronizing, and focused on my identity. But my personal treatment is not an isolated issue. Instead, it reflects how this governing body views and treats marginalized communities in Hamilton.”
Menezes argued the Board has actively presided over a profound failure of institutional oversight, citing a disregard for Charter rights, a denial of community realities, and unaddressed systemic disparities.
“I refuse to continue validating my continued mistreatment and these failures of governance through my silence,” Menezes added. “And so today, nearly three years into my term on this Board, it is with profound sadness and disappointment that I must announce my resignation as a citizen appointee to the Hamilton Police Service Board, effective immediately.”
Menezes invited the media and supporters outside for a full address where she read from a prepared statement and expanded on her reasons for resigning.
“I sat on this Board and these have been my colleagues for three years and barring Member Cameron Kroetsch, not a single one of my colleagues or senior service officers have ever taken the time to even learn how to pronounce my name,” Menezes said. “They either continuously mispronounce it, or they avoid using my name in any way. This continuous dehumanizing behaviour that I have had to endure.”
“Despite mounting data and explicit community calls for response, this Board has failed to pass a single corrective policy,” Menezes told reporters. “It has also refused to launch any independent investigations to address these critical concerns in our community. Instead of acting as an independent oversight body, this Board has increasingly functioned as a rubber stamp for the service it oversees.”
Menezes stated that accountability is eroded by an increasing administrative trend of adding important items to large agenda packages without required notice, meaning critical reports and data remain unread before votes are cast and decisions made.
Menezes said she has initiated formal actions beyond her resignation, including an ongoing complaint launched with the Inspectorate of Policing regarding her mistreatment up to January 2025, and she plans to submit further complaints regarding recent incidents. When asked if she held the Police Chief or the Board Chair directly responsible, Menezes declined to name individuals, stating she would wait for the formal complaint processes to conclude.
In her formal resignation letter, Menezes detailed further procedural exclusions and a failure to provide adequate independent oversight of the Hamilton Police Service.
The Hamilton Police Service Board issued a statement on June 26, 2026, stating Menezes’s resignation came without prior notice.
“The Board remains focused on providing effective governance of the Hamilton Police Service and will continue its work on behalf of the community and in adherence to the Community Safety and Policing Act, 2019 and its regulations,” the unattributed Board statement read.
The statement did not address any of Menezes’s specific allegations of mistreatment or her characterizations of the Board.
Menezes’s resignation letter is scheduled to be included in the July 15, 2026, City Council ratification meeting agenda. Council may choose to appoint a replacement citizen member before the October 26 municipal election or leave the vacancy to the incoming council.
In her closing statements to the press, Menezes called on Hamilton residents to demand better governance from their elected officials in the upcoming municipal election.
“I am calling out the Hamilton Police Services Board for failing to uphold its duties to govern and act as an official oversight body for our Hamilton Police Services, and I’m calling the Solicitor General to dissolve the Hamilton Police Services Board,” Menezes concluded. “I’m calling on all members of Hamilton to redefine what police accountability looks like and how we hold our city leaders accountable.”
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Published: June 29, 2026
Last updated: June 29, 2026
Author: Joey Coleman
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