Damptey ran for Hamilton City Council in 2022 on the West Mountain in Ward 14, losing to Councillor Mike Spadafora by only 79 votes. Photo Credit: Kojo Damptey/X.
Kojo Damptey, who was nominated as the Ontario NDP’s candidate for Hamilton Mountain in the upcoming Feb. 27 provincial election, has called for the police to be abolished multiple times.
In a series of tweets discovered by The Hamilton Independent, Damptey, who also calls himself “Dr. Decolonial,” wrote, “disarm, defund, dismantle, abolish the police” on at least four occasions on his social media account on X (formerly Twitter).
Damptey’s most recent tweet with that message was made only three and a half years ago on June 29, 2021. The other tweets are from Oct. 26, 2020, Nov. 6, 2020, and Feb. 16, 2021.
Damptey has also tweeted “Abolish the RCMP” on at least three occasions (June 24, 2020, Sept. 30, 2021, and Nov. 20, 2021) and “Abolish the carceral state” on at least one occasion (Dec. 4, 2021).
All tweets are still up on Damptey’s X account as of Feb. 16, 2025.
He tweets from the handle @EasyThePianoMan, going by his full name Kojo Easy Damptey.
Damptey has also been involved in local efforts within Hamilton to defund the police, including working with a group called Defund HPS.
Damptey appears to feature in a November 2020 video posted on the Defund HPS Facebook account with a sign reading “Abolish the police.”
In the video he says, “Defund the police because we need to end white colonial violence.”
Defund HPS was a group organized by Sarah Jama, who currently serves as the Member of Provincial Parliament for Hamilton Centre and was kicked out of the provincial NDP for controversial statements and actions following the October 7th terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel.
In November 2020, the group called for the Hamilton Police to be immediately defunded by 50 per cent and also advocated for abolishing the police.
Defund HPS staged multiple protests in Hamilton and, in July 2020, painted “Defund the Police” on the street in front of Hamilton City Hall.
Damptey tweeted a photo of the painted “Defund the Police” message on July 23, 2020 and used the hashtags “Defund the Police” and “Defund HPS” in the post.
The Defund HPS protestors organized a sit-in at City Hall that lasted for two weeks from November to December 2020.
As the protest was in the midst of the pandemic, when outdoor gatherings were supposed to be limited to no more than 25 people, Jama was charged under the Reopening Ontario Act.
Defund HPS is the same group that went to former Hamilton Mayor Fred Eisenberger’s personal residence in the dark on Nov. 30, 2020, leaving a coffin in front of his home and saying that he has “blood on his hands” for funding the police rather than “free housing.”
Damptey also supported efforts to defund the police through his position as Executive Director for the Hamilton Centre for Civic Inclusion which he held from January 2020 to February 2023.
While he was Executive Director the organization signed on with a number of other organizations calling for the police to be defunded.
Damptey’s personal website explains that he grew up in Ghana and came to Canada when he was 17 to study chemical engineering at McMaster University.
His LinkedIn account shows that he was also involved with a controversial organization called the Ontario Public Interest Research Group (OPIRG).
OPIRG has branches at multiple different post-secondary institutions which are funded by student fees.
Damptey was reportedly a Volunteer Board Member for OPIRG McMaster from April 2009 to April 2016.
The left-wing activist organization is involved in a number of different movements and often shares socialist and communist messages.
For example, in May 2024, in an Instagram post OPIRG McMaster announced that they teamed up with World Change Media “to create a powerful mini video series on what level of solidarity is needed to overthrow the capitalist system and how to make this happen.”
OPIRG Toronto was the organization that helped plan the now infamous Hamilton Anarchist Book Fair in March 2018 that devolved into a mob of people walking down Locke Street smashing shop windows and vandalizing cars.
The group also organizes workshops on protesting, resisting authority, and participating in civil disobedience.
Damptey is also endorsed by the far-left Hamilton and District Labour Council, a group which has also endorsed Independent candidate Sarah Jama in Hamilton Centre, and Ontario NDP candidate Zaigham Butt in Hamilton East-Stoney Creek.
It should be noted that Damptey ran for Hamilton City Council in 2022 on the West Mountain in Ward 14, losing to Councillor Mike Spadafora by only 79 votes.
Based in Hamilton, he reaches hundreds of thousands of people monthly on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. He has been published in The Hamilton Spectator, Stoney Creek News, and Bay Observer. He has also been a segment host with Cable 14 Hamilton. In 2017, he received the Chancellor Full Tuition Scholarship from the University of Ottawa (BA, 2022). He has also received the Governor General’s Academic Medal. He formerly worked in a non-partisan role on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
