Chief Bill Blair maintains mass arrests at G20 necessary

The mass arrests at the G20 summit were necessary to prevent further property destruction Chief Bill Blair said Friday, a day after releasing a review into police tactics at the summit. Despite the review, Chief Blair said he still doesn't know whether any key decisions were made by commanders in other police forces involved in summit security.

In an interview with The Globe and Mail nearly a year after the summit, the chief admitted there were “deficiencies” in how officers handled the operations, but suggested there were good reasons for the arrests that saw 1,118 people rounded up.

On the afternoon of June 26, when a group of black-clad protesters broke away from a labour-organized march and went on a smashing spree, police couldn't keep up with them. Even after the vandalism finished and the Black Bloc melted back into the crowd, officers believed there was a threat it could start again.

“The attack of those who were intent on criminality was being launched from large crowds and so...the decision was made that it was necessary to disperse those crowds in order to lessen the likelihood that other criminal attacks would take place,” he told the Globe and Mail.

He stopped short of saying whether he still felt those arrests were justified.

For the most part, the report suggests decisions were made at the major incident command centre at headquarters by Toronto police officers. However, Chief Blair could not say whether RCMP or OPP officers with the Integrated Security Unit in Barrie played any part.

“I wasn’t in the major incident command centre and I’m not aware of any communication that may have been received from the unified command centre. None of that went through me, I wasn’t involved in that,” he said.

While the report also acknowledges there were problems at a temporary detention centre where arrestees were held – many of them were unable to see a lawyer or receive a medical evaluation – he said the purpose of his review was not to assign blame or hold decision-makers accountable for these issues. His purpose was simply to explain what happened.

“This is not a conduct report, this is an operational response report,” he said. “This report looks at the tactical response to what was taking place in the city of Toronto...and there are lessons that we learned.”

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Source: Toronto Star