Dale Duncan is a former editor of Spacing. The opinions expressed in this article represent her personal views on this weekend’s events.
Leading up to the G20 summit, at meetings organized to provide local residents and business owners with information about what to expect, police and politicians reminded those in attendance of our right to assemble and demonstrate in public spaces.
The vast majority of people who joined demonstrations yesterday did so peacefully. But what people are most likely to remember about this summit is the much smaller group of militant thugs who decided it would be a good idea to set police cars on fire and smash the windows of stores and banks.
There’s no question that those who vandalized our city should be stopped and held accountable to their actions, but, now, it seems that the average citizen’s right to peacefully protest in Toronto is being treated as though it’s a criminal act. Sadly, it’s the aggression exhibited by the police — not the so-called Black Bloc — that have instilled fear in many members of the general public who witnessed some of the events of this weekend.
Some are commending the police for showing restraint yesterday; I witnessed some of that restraint. I went for a walk to Yonge Street in the afternoon and, by chance, happened upon the vandals who were out breaking storefront windows. As I watched people march by, my heart pounding and my mouth agape, there seemed to be no police in sight. With all the money spent on security this weekend in Toronto —“the biggest security operation ever in Canada” — I don’t understand why the police weren’t able to stop these criminals from continuing to smash windows all the way up Yonge and then West along College.
Other accounts of the day’s events suggest that the police were anything but restrained.
In the evening, a friend who lives close to where much of the action took place was coming home by bike. He stopped at Yonge because he saw that a crowd of non-violent demonstrators was coming down the street. Before he knew it, there were police behind him. Inexplicably, and without warning, they violently pushed him to the ground. He grabbed his bike and had to beg them to let him simply leave the area so he could go home.
It was later reported that the police encircled these protestors. People would be told to leave the area in one direction, only to meet a line of police telling them to turn around and walk back the way they came. There was no escape. Journalists were told to leave or be arrested.
I’ve heard some people say that if you made the decision to join a demonstration, or simply go close to one, you have no one but yourself to blame for being attacked by police. But the idea that here in Toronto, in Canada — a 10-minute walk from my house no less — I could get assaulted by police for participating in a peaceful demonstration (or for simply wanting to witness one) is incomprehensible. I have always felt safe in this city. This weekend, I did not.
There is a difference between the thousands of peaceful protestors who marched on the streets yesterday and the much smaller number of the violent thugs who set fire to cars and smashed windows. Perhaps I am stating the obvious, but it’s a fact I fear will be forgotten in the coming days.
An even more frightening thought is that the police tactics used this weekend – the unnecessary intimidation, assaults, searches and arrests – will go unquestioned, that the police will not be held to account for their actions (just as the vandals who ravaged our city should be).
We have to make sure that this doesn’t happen.
photo by nouspique
38 comments
There are many questions to be asked of the police and their tactics from this weekend…and I have no faith that we will ever get the answers to these questions.
Chief Blair’s press conference last night when he lied to the face of every Torontonian doesn’t lead me to be optimistic.
Watching things unfold I was at first impressed by the police restraint but it quickly fell apart and people’s worst fears were realised as a small group of vandals were allowed to run free across the city smashing, burning, and intimidating with almost no police reaction at all followed by countless reports of police using excessive force and over-reacting to peaceful legitimate protests. These reports weren’t just from unknown sources, many respected journalists, like Steve Paikin, and other dependable authors filled Twitter with like for like accounts of police brutality and needless arrests and intimidation.
These two things seem to go hand in hand. The vandalism by so-called anarchists which seems to trigger a license for police to over-react against anyone in or near a protest. As the Guardian article you link to suggests, it’s hard not to think this connection is impromtu when $1bn has gone into the security and planning of this event. Police would have had to willful ignore the lessons of past G20 events for things to unfold as they have this weekend. Even the police chief claimed to be shocked at the vandalism on Saturday, but it must have been expected, surely some of the $1bn went on reading about previous summits?!
Above comment should read “it’s hard to think” not “it’s hard *not* to think”
Yesterday, I believe that the police had their reasoning, to work with their tactics, as the g20 was going on, and they wanted to make sure they would square in the people, but i noticed many bystanders were caught up as well. I am aware of their intention, but there seems to be a misconception between police and civilians. Whenever police approach from the live tv footage, they never seem to inform with any rules, and the people do not know in what way they have gone against rules to get arrested. I think the police should publish specific rules as the what should be avoided or else arrests will be made otherwise, its really confusing.
My child will never be allowed to become a cop, as their purpose is to intimidate and bully. Sure, wife-beaters and vandals deserve it, but as we speak a peaceful crowd has been corralled for three hours on Queen West and hundreds of them thrown in wagons without provocation or explanation. Too many cops are the type of thug who was a bully in grade school and interpret enforcement of ‘the law’ as attacking anything that offends them. As for justice against cops who overstepped… this is the town of Brummel’s union, and a town where they couldn’t get drug dealing cops off the force. Also the most expensive part of the city’s budget.
“I’ve heard some people say that if you made the decision to join a demonstration, or simply go close to one, you have no one but yourself to blame for being attacked by police.” Really, so the Selma marchers deserved that? That they couldn’t grab a bunch of vandals, even from out of a crowd of mostly peaceful, shows gross negligence. That their response to criticism of their incompetence is to do this to peaceful demonstrators is a crime, that will never be punished.
People should not think modern history is so different from all the other centuries of human history: police and armies are for enforcing the status quo.
I for one commend the police this weekend. Much more restrained response then I would have expected. Anyone going downtown should realize that it’s a 50/50 chance of being cuffed at this point.
Last year, after Tamil protesters had taken over the Gardiner, many people criticized the police, demanding to know why they hadn’t simply arrested everyone. As I recall, Bill Blair said something like, “Sorry for the inconvenience, but our first job was to make sure no one got hurt.” He suggested that a mass arrest might have sent protesters and cops to the hospital. Someone please correct me if I am remembering this wrong.
This is what I was thinking when commentators were asking why the cops were letting police cruisers burn. Maybe it was Burrows who was on CP24 saying, “Police cruisers can be replaced, but our first priority is the safety of people.” Ironically, he seemed to be agreeing with some of the Black Bloc types who insisted their acts of vandalism weren’t “violence.” I figured that the police decided a bunch of broken windows were not sufficient reason to send crowds of people to the hospital with broken skulls, assuming the angry mob chose not to surrender peacefully. And as far as I know (so far), the hospitals remain quiet.
I have yet to understand what the hell took place yesterday at Queen’s Park, last night at the detention centre or today at Queen/Spadina. It sure seems as if the police were clamping down on legal, peaceful protest. I want an investigation too.
But it really makes me sick to hear people like Judy Rebick claim it was a police tactic to abandon cars so that they could be destroyed by vandals, just so they could have an excuse to beat people up. This sort of shit is coming from the same idiots who played coy when asked whether they would condemn violent protest tactics. Rather than state clearly that violence would be unwelcome and counterproductive, they basically said it was cool with them if our city got trashed by riot tourists. And now they want Bill Blair to resign, as if his replacement now won’t be another Fantino-type with an even worse trigger finger.
I had been hoping that peaceful protests would show that Stephen Harper was a paranoid and wasteful idiot with the $1B security bill. No one is saying that anymore. It is possible that people will condemn Harper for forcing this clusterfuck on our city, but I doubt it. Glancing at various international websites, the protests seem to be a footnote to a rather pointless summit, and I would bet Harper’s natural constituency doesn’t care about Toronto anyway.
A sad, sad weekend for this city.
There should be an investigation into police tactics afterward, especially if it discovered that agents provocateurs were responsible for rioting. And if that is true, it must be investigated whether Bill Blair had anything to do with it – and if so, David Miller must ask for his resignation.
CTV has some pretty amazing footage up of the Queen and Spadina protest – they nearly arrested Lisa La Flamme – they also show a pretty sad seen of cops shooting rubber bullets at a crowd of protestors who were sitting singing songs of peace. This week has been nothing more than a catastrophe. And something should be done, this is not the Toronto I know.
Of all of the youtube clips, media news reports and print media, I have yet to see the “aggression exhibited by the police”. I see a lot of response to protestors hurling rocks, attacking police and causing damage.
One report twitters that the protest he was at was peaceful, yet riot police move in. Well, was he able to see all of the protestors? I doubt it. He probably didn’t see the cause of what forced the police to move in.
Even if you peacefully demonstrate, you still need to follow certain rules; including following the lawful orders of the police. You may not like that they are making you move on, but you still need to listen to them. You’ve said your piece, now be on your way.
Just because you are demonstrating, doesn’t mean you have carte blanche to do whatever you want.
I’m angry and frustrated…what can we (as average citizens) do about this?
The question everyone should be asking and demanding an answer to is: “who got the $1,200,000,000.00 in money”
Our eyes have been deliberately focused on the gratuitous violence of a few to take our minds of the massive theft of tax dollars for this fiasco. Someone has to be accountable and a forensic audit should be held of the financing. Then charges should be laid.
We want our city back and our money back.
Who will start this enquiry? Not a politician that’s for sure.
I am absolutely disgusted by the actions taken by police this weekend. Bill Blair needs to resign.
picard> to expect that is to give up on the charter. that’s uncanadian.
This is how our forces work. Think back to the Lucky Moose incident of last year, when the police were unable to walk five minutes down the street to aid a shopkeeper, then arrested the shopkeeper when he was forced to take actions for himself. Or how about the RCMP, who spent millions reassembling a bombed plane in their search for evidence but were unable to prosecute the people responsible. So this time, despite assembling the largest, most expensive force in our history, not one officer was capable of stopping one vandal when they were running rampant on the city. All of our finest collecting overtime left it to the $12 an hour security guards to defend the buildings of Queen and Yonge Sts. But afterwards they can march on the designated area for protests. They can run sweeps all over the city, certainly arresting many activists who were protesting sincerely without violent action. They can harass citizens walking our downtown streets. I saw many young people stopped, questioned and searched today. I was upset yesterday seeing people destroying property unchecked, but the police reaction today was disgusting. And then they topped it off tonight with the absurd farce at Queen and Spadina.
A billion dollars created an unwieldy force incapable of moving or thinking. It was unable to react to individuals and their actions. All it could do is move against groups. And when it moved it could only move in clumsy formations. These are the most expensive people on our city’s budget. We need to remember this weekend every time a politician tells us we need more cops. For those who think more cops are the answer there can never be enough cops. Here we amassed more police than we can possibly afford and when what everyone expected to happen did happen they were too dopey and inflexible to do anything but stand and watch.
Try this: the security forces allowed a number of “black-bloc” actions to take place early on Saturday so that they would seem to be justified in expediting matters later in the day and on Sunday (running people out of Queens Park aggressively last night and then making hundreds of pre-emptive arrests and being hostile with the folks down at the detention center and elsewhere today). The press predictably had a field day with the burning car at King and Bay (you think the cops slipped up at that location, really?) and the broken windows on Yonge north of Dundas (nowhere near their primary areas of concern). After Saturday afternoon’s apparent “mayhem” they’d already have greater public sympathy to get tough with the “roving violent types” as the weekend progressed. A little bit of collateral damage (a few smashed windows and cruisers) really does help the cops’ cause.
Plausible?
It seems like the cops did an excellent job of orchestrating the whole spectacle. In any case, horrible weekend for Toronto. Totally demoralizing and counter-productive for this city’s increasingly positive global profile.
Shawn Micallef> Charter isn’t without limits.
I was living in Calgary during the G8 in 2002, I must say Calgary police did a much better job of dealing with the Black Bloc than Toronto police did.
Consider this; the Black Blocs’ entire strategy is to provoke the police into retaliation. They first dress up in black clothing and attack business, then the take of their clothing and dress up like ordinary protesters. Hence the clothing near the smashed windows. It serves a purpose; the whole purpose was to provoke the police into retaliation. The hopes of the Black Bloc are that if there are images of police beating up kids, it could start a revolution against the government. The strategy employed by the police in Toronto fell into that trap (minus the revolution).
However, Calgary police used the Black Blocs own strategy against them. Undercover Calgary Police’s dressed as ordinary protesters and mixed in with the crowd. So when the Black Bloc started smashing windows, the plain clothes police officers would stop them then it looked like it was protesters stopping the violent protesters. Then they handed them over to the nearest uniformed officer. Furthermore there were spotters on the roof who kept an eye of for potential trouble who then directed the police on the ground about where to go. The riot squad was still on standby in case things got out of hand.
While there were a few windows smashed, some graffiti was sprayed, it was nothing like what happened in Toronto this past weekend. There was no real ‘riot’.
It is worth noting, the city has used this tactic in other instances too. Most notably during the 2004 Flames Cup run on the Red Mile, which also had the potential of turning into a riot, but the unique strategy helped keep the event relatively calm. In fact many sociologists such as Stephen Graham have suggested that Calgary’s unique strategy has allowed the city to remain relatively calm at times of civil unrest or potential unrest.
Although Calgary did have the advantage of the actual summit being in Kananaskis Country; with the summit being so far away from the nearest Urban Centre, police resources were entirely directed to preventing riots rather than keeping the protesters away from the actual summit site.
It is also worth noting that the Federal government played a role in preventing the riots. Many people who are known to be black bloc protesters were denied entry into Canada as well.
But the fact that this strategy has worked in other instances such as the Flames cup run, it does suggest that there is something to this strategy.
Toronto police could learn a thing or two from Calgary police next time the city holds a major summit.
@lucas
I’m not sure what you mean by “cops’ cause”? From what I understand, their (what was it, the G20 integrated security force or something like that) only cause was to maintain a secure perimeter at/around the security zone (though I think priority should have also been given to protect the people/places that were caught up in the demonstrations and violence — especially since, as Adam Vaughan brought up weeks before, that there would be no support to cover repair costs to any businesses that get trashed).
If you’re implying anything beyond that, I don’t see the security forces (remember, these aren’t just Toronto police) as having some sort of sinister motives or even being able to orchestrate such plans as their deployment was very reactionary.
As far as collateral damage, one of the cruisers that were wrecked (it may not be one of the ones set ablaze, but it windows were certainly smashed in) had officers inside as that happened and a mounted officer was pelted with (rocks?) and knocked from his horse by the HMV at Queen while he was just standing at ready.
@Tim
At Q&S tonight the estimates were at least 1-1 cops/”protesters” (which was before the round-up) and look how well that was handled. Even if they were “individually interviewing” the people who were caught there (which is what the police said, though none of the detainees I saw who were interviewed by media said they saw anything like that happening), if you say 3 cops to each interviewee for 15 minute interviews (thats GOT to be enough time to check ID, search bags for any “black bloc” type things and say “sorry for the inconvenience”) that situation should have been resolved in less than an hour.
@Picard and Shawn
Certain rights supersede others, I don’t know if that “secret legislation” covered anything like this (since it wasn’t within 5 metres of the fence), but it is usually the courts who decide which right is the winner, not the street-level cops of even police chief (I don’t know who they are currently saying is responsible for the decision).
I think its a mistake to polarize anger/disappointment/shame/disgust at any one group. The police certainly did seem to make a bad call and the black bloc-ers diluted the message of legit protesters by creating violence and destruction (if they do have some message, is anyone going to listen after hissy fits like that?). Even the other protesters/spectators should really have tried to disassociate themselves when situations got tense (ESPECIALLY during all the destruction/vandalism that was happening, every rubber necker that stuck around was another person for the perpetrators to hide behind). It wasn’t hard to see when the police atmosphere would change, and when they start expecting trouble, it should be a pretty clear indication that if you DON’T want trouble, don’t stick around.
Just because you have the right to be out in the streets protesting doesn’t mean it’s always the best idea, especially when cars are blowing up.
Terry Pratchett explains it pretty well: “The IQ of a mob is the IQ of its most stupid member divided by the number of mobsters.”
Aman> The summit being held in Kananaskis Country is a fundamental difference. Had G 8 and G20 been in Huntsville, very little would have happened in Toronto.
Even if it was closer to the airport (no traffic disruptions on the 427 and Gardiner would have been nice!) things would have happened very differently. The heart of the city was the absolutely worst place to stage it, even if it went smoothly without any protests or destruction.
Terrifying, I thought Toronto was a nice and open place where people could express their ideas. Now I find the police storming people who obviously aren’t the enemy.
Saddening.
Or at the CNE. One of the most cogent comments I’ve read about this very expensive Black-Block-and-Riot-Police show was in a Toronto Star editorial and something that corresponds to Spacing’s core messages: only citizens living, working and moving about in a city can effectively prevent violence, whether by trouble-makers (we call them “casseurs” in French) or trigger-happy police. A hollowed-out city core is an ideal theatre for all forms of violence.
By the way, John, I have known Judy Rebick for decades and she is not an idiot. I have friends from here (Montréal) who were protesting the G20 – they have no sympathy whatsoever fro the so-called Black Block – and they saw lots of police cars with not an officer in sight, and indeed they thought the same thing – that they were being used as some kind of decoy or “fixation abcess” to draw violent protesters.
This was a huge waste of “our taxpayers’ money” as Harper would say under other circumstances. Even holding the summit at the CNE grounds would have disrupted the life of Canada’s largest city (hence setting the stage for Black Block antics) far less. I don’t think such events belong in major cities anyway. Nor should they be silly roadshows bringing the leaders’ WIVES (I mean wives, didn’t see any evidence of Mr Merkel or Mr Kirchner being there) in a throwback to seeing women as decorations or building fake lakes or other extravagant, Potemkin-village nonsense.
I was struck by Bill Blair’s claim that peaceful protesters were ‘complicit with a criminal conspiracy’ by standing in the same area as suspected vandals.
The police might get more support from citizens’ arrests and such if they weren’t rewarding Lucky Moose owner David Chen with prosecution and hadn’t emptied the downtown of civic ‘eyes on the street’ by hyping the danger in the run-up to the summit.
If the goal is to ensure that no one is held accountable for the stupidity of this weekend, then everyone please focus exclusively on the actions of the Toronto police, and not the federal government that knowingly put our city in this dangerous situation.
As far as the federal government is concerned, the security fence was not breached, and the VIPs at the convention centre remained safe. Now the people in charge can say “it was all worth it,” as they take their plane back to Ottawa or Washington or wherever, and leave the rest of us to clean up their mess.
And now, with the help of various folks (including some posting to this blog), any overreaction by security forces can be blamed on local decisions. This ends with Torontonians pointing fingers at each other, while the rest of the country goes back to hating us as usual.
Or would anyone prefer to look beyond the cops who were placed in this crappy situation by others, and ask how Toronto became the disposable stage for Stephen Harper’s photo op and rioters’ performance art?
This weekend was a hate crime against Toronto.
What’s quite pathetic, is that nobody relevant would comment on the hundreds of peaceful protesters unlawfully penned in by hundreds of menacing riot cops, for five hours in the rain: not Blair, Miller, the PMO, or any Toronto politicians. Bunch of careerist cowards. What would it take to say, ‘vandals should be quickly charged, and everyone else released before they have hypothermia or medical issues. Peaceful protest is protected, and everyone else should be dealt with according to the rule of law.’? Hand it to CP24 on this one, for keeping this the main story for the duration, but it will still be forgotten by the mass of Canadians who will slumber away the erosion of civil liberties others once fought hard for.
Would have loved to see a Toronto politician drive down to demand an explanation from the cops, but I can’t see anyone but Moscoe having the stones (or the lack of judgement).
Nothing I like despise than someone going around pronouncing unequivocally what is and is not Canadian, or who is or is not truly Canadian. Nonsense…divisive Fox News style nonsense and a whole lot less than I’d expect from the admirable writers of this great magazine and blog. If you find yourself doing it, you should be embarrassed.
You can’t play down in the muck if you want to achieve the moral high ground.
As for the police, it seems to me that Saturday was about letting protest happen in all it’s forms and Sunday was about making sure it wasn’t still happening on Monday. And if that was indeed the case, I for one support that strategy.
When all the crying, hyperbole and histrionics are finished, one can only hope that certain people regain a bit of their journalistic skepticism and start looking for the truth in both sides of this story. It can’t happen now, people are too charged up…but maybe some day. Otherwise the next engagement between the people and the people in power can only be an exaggeration of this weekend’s rhetoric and I don’t want to see the result of that.
Speaking of hate, here’s some from Saskatchewan: “Dear Mayor Miller, any city that stands aside to photograph itself burning – deserves to.”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/014309.html
The cops are taking a lot of heat for not protecting Yonge St and Queen St, but to be fair, I’m not sure there was much they could do. The Black Block was clever enough to go attack an area away from the security fence and main cop force, and that target would have shifted based on where the cops were. Had the cops lined Yonge St, they might have attacked Bloor. Had the cops lined Bloor, they might have attacked Bay. And so on. The whole point was to go where the police weren’t in order to cause trouble, get on tv, live out hooligan fantasies, etc.
Once the smashing-up started, the cops laid back not because of a conspiracy but because, as was pointed out with the Tamil protests, they wanted to avoid direct confrontation and running battles.
At some point it must have been decided that enough was enough (all the media attention could not have helped) so they went hardcore and started arresting everyone in sight. Yes, it was a shame that for a period the ability to peacefully protest was compromised because of the confusion in sorting out the two camps of protesters, but that’s what happens when violence starts. If you want to organize marches and mobs of restive people in the street, you have to do more to not allow your rally to be overtaken by violent elements. That failed, and the peaceful protesters paid the price.
If you poll the entire citizenry today I would not be surprised to find that a majority are thrilled that the cops became aggressive in their tactics. Civilization woke up today not destroyed but alive, and now we can go back to our enjoying our normal liberties.
“If you poll the entire citizenry today I would not be surprised to find that a majority are thrilled that the cops became aggressive in their tactics. Civilization woke up today not destroyed but alive, and now we can go back to our enjoying our normal liberties.”
You have no knowledge about the concepts you refer to:
– neither citizens (mob rule) nor ‘leaders’ (oligarchy) get to decide how to apply the law in a free society, the courts do: it’s called ‘rule of law’
– to “go back to our enjoying our normal liberties” implies that they are not inalienable, but belong to us at the whim of the police, courts or parliament, which though de facto, are not the stated aims of our constitution and charter.
Someone who has passing knowledge of our constitution, charter, and the history of the struggles for the British Common Law, should be much less upset about a few hooligans causing property damage (which the corporations can write off/down easily) than seven hundred people detained without arrest for as long as possible in the worst conditions possible and released without explanation. This is an overused privilege of the police: make them have an arrest in two hours or release, not twenty-four.
I’m bothered by the Queen/Spadina caging especially, which seemed to be unnecessary, unless one wanted to impair apparently peaceful protests. I’ve seen a bit of a youtube-posted video of the ending of Oh Canada followed by the charge of the police into the crowd. Let’s hope it gets viral…
this may be one link… or close to it.
http://trendsmap.com/local/ca/toronto
Shawn: You are over estimating how much that mattered. First of all the media centre was still in Calgary and secondly the Black Bloc was targeting the media centre and the businesses in downtown Calgary. If you think banks are a big target, imagine oil companies.
The only reason it mattered was that by having the actual heads of state so far away the police were focused on riot prevention rather than securing the summit site.
I would like to see the peaceful protesters get angry and beat up the stupid thugs that seem to be intent on mayhem and destruction. They give peaceful protesters a bad name and drive up security costs.
Humanoid, you are quite correct. I have no knowledge about the concepts I referred to and I grossly over-generalized. (I guess I am just an online anarchist, stirring up trouble.) But nonetheless I am still an ex-citizen of the city and can express my opinion, which is “bravo, police, for handling a terrible mess handed to you by the hosting of this summit.” I’m sure the courts will find in the end, when all the details emerge and the dust settles, that their actions were reasonable and lawful.
Didn’t you say you saw thugs vandalizing with their faces covered? There’s your police presence. I’ve seen video of them demolishing and vandalizing, only to be confronted by the peaceful protesters and be forced to retreat behind their police lines. They do the vandalism themselves to give them an excuse to arrest you.
I’d like to have seen Dale’s boss* resign from the Police Services Board since he is currently muzzled by virtue of his position from representing his constituents in respect of being able to freely react to the G20’s policing issues.
* Adam Vaughan, for whom she is a Constituency Assistant.
The truth will come out because so many cops were in on the conspiracy. While they played a role, they did not create the plan and I’m sure some know the kind of damage that they have done to their reputations. They also as a group have very high divorce rates and ex’s are usually delighted to talk.