A handful of police testimony in last week’s sweeping G20 report by Ontario’s police complaints watchdog outlines in striking detail the hostility officers faced during the June 26-27, 2010 summit. The report collects in one place for the first time evidence suggesting officers policing the summit were attacked, and possibly provoked, by protesters.
“That’s the subtext of the G20, the conditions that our officers had to face,” Toronto Police Association president Mike McCormack said Sunday. “It was pretty well unprecedented. It’s very frustrating as a police officer for you to be abused like that.”
The violent conditions front line police faced depict an atmosphere in which officers legitimately feared for their safety.
In one account, frightened Staff Sgt. Graham Queen, trapped inside his squad car amid swarming black-clad protesters, struggled to escape a barrage of sticks and rocks raining down on his mirrors, windows and lights.
“People came up beside the car and started smashing the windows of the vehicle,” Queen told investigators for the Office of the Independent Police Review Director. “Somebody on my left side, he had smashed the window, and then he smashed the back of my head with a pole.”
“(Protesters) were throwing rocks at us,” he continued, “throwing bottles, urine, threatening to harm and smash our cars.”
A 2011 Toronto police review found 97 officers “were injured in the course of carrying out their duties.”
The scathing OIPRD report chronicles gross police misconduct, including unlawful arrests and Charter rights infringements. McCormack has said about 28 front line officers are expected to face misconduct charges.
Police arrested more than 1,100 people during the G20, but to date only 32 people have been found guilty of G20-related crimes.
The report offers several instances when protesters actively obstructed police. One unidentified officer from the police’s public order unit operating near Queen’s Park just before 6 p.m. on June 26 testified that efforts to push back protesters were met with projectiles.
“(One officer) got hit by a half full water bottle,” the officer said. “He was running forward ... and the impact literally took him off his feet and laid him flat on his back. I took my helmet off and (my colleague) took his helmet off and when an aluminum baseball bat sailed over our heads, we decided to put helmets back on.”
The protest at Queen’s Park was co-ordinated, in part, by the Southern Ontario Anarchist Resistance, which, according to the OIPRD report, previously stated online it would use “militant and confrontational action, seeking to humiliate the security apparatus.”
As if the violent protests weren’t enough, police also suffered through the weekend heat, according to the OIPRD’s consolidated report on Queen and Spadina, which hasn’t been released publicly but was obtained last week by the Star.
“(OPP Insp. Paul Bedard) said he had three to four (team) members go down because of heat exhaustion due to the equipment they were wearing, the excessive heat, and the long hours on duty,” the report says.
But for Abby Deshman, director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association’s public safety program, the violence and heat are no excuse for police actions during the summit.
“Just because a few engage in criminal acts doesn’t mean police have the right to violate the constitutional rights of those who haven’t committed a crime,” she said.
Original Article
Source: Star
Author: Josh Tapper
No comments:
Post a Comment