The manifestation did defy P6, after two or three announcements before it’s commencement stating the assembly was illegal, ten thousand people took to the streets against austerity. A couple hours later cops were coming into the crowd trying to “fight” (and I mean quite literally, fight, yes – like fist fight) protesters, blood was pooling on Sherbrooke, rubber bullets were flying, rocks were flying, teargas (which is a new type of teargas for the SPVM – we will get into this later) was in the air and rumors were floating around that people were being hauled to the hospital after heads were cracked open. But the timeline of events is not as clear as it may appear.
The manifestation was declared illegal at least two times before it began. Regardless we took to the streets.
I had made note prior to it beginning to some friends and on twitter that the GI Riot Cops (the ones who walk beside the crowd in riot gear without shields) were new. I inferred this simply because they did not recognize me, and I did not recognize them. (Which sounds silly, but when you have a civil lawsuit against the cops, you get to know which ones to avoid.)
As many people are aware the manifestation went great, we made it down to Square Victoria where it was planned to have ended. However, the truck which ASSE hires, the one which leads the manifestation and provides the speaker system had been stopped on Bleury before arriving to Square Victoria by the police. I was told that the police had pulled over the driver issued him a ticket for having come from the protest at Emilie-Gamelin and had threatened that if he drove to Square Victoria they would remove his license. So he did not come to Square Victoria, and instinctively the manifestation continued without question. (There was an attempt by an ASSE member with a megaphone to notify people of the end point, but apparently it is difficult making announcements to 10,000 people when you only possess a megaphone – who would have thought.)
The march moved up toward St. Catherines and then into Place-des-Arts. Another opportunity for it to conclude was missed, as still the now 5000-8000 people wanted to continue marching. At this point a group of GIs attempted to intervene through the crowd to target arrest (an arrest that seeks to target a single individual as opposed to a group) which failed and just resulted in inciting a lot of panic in a lot of people. No one really cared, we continued on.
This is the blurry part. We were walking on Sherbrooke and the same group of GIs entered the crowd, quite viciously, to make a target arrest. That is when things got a little weird.
Then they see the 5000-8000 super nostalgic people coming toward them. I then see a riot cop grab his colleague and start to pull him away, leaving behind a back pack and some other things. We start to chant against them, moving forward.
A person picks up the refuge of broken signs and flags, he looks up at a cop, the cop shakes is finger and begins to charge at him.
The cops back up into a glass building. Then more cops, as individuals, not with their group and totally on their own prerogative, come back into the crowd and start fighting with protesters. Fist fighting. Punching and hitting. Malicious, vengeful shit to put the cherry on their cowardly, repressive cupcakes. These “new” GIs decide it’s a bright idea to come back for more. Now there is people wounded all over the place, and a lot of people who are so far back in the manifestation and still have no idea what is going on, at this point fear kicks in and people start picking up anything they can and trying to push the police back into a retreat. Somewhere in this a man is shot in the chest with a rubber bullet who is also rumored to be in hospital.
We are then tear gassed. I have never been put down by tear gas before. And I have been tear gassed countless times. The tear gas the SPVM have decided to start using was noticeably not the same as gas used during the 2012 student strike. I can only describe this as being a wall of gas that when it hit you, you were incapacitated beyond comprehension. 45 minutes after the confrontation a young Woman was seen at a nearby gas station still choking. The strength of the gas was noted by several people, who had also suffered the extreme negative effects of whatever they were using.
What I remember the most vividly is cops dragging other cops away from the scene. The very long ordeal still had cops coming back into the crowd of predominately students in an effort to “get revenge”. I am still not sure what they were avenging. Maybe they scuffed their boots when they cracked open skulls with their batons. Who knows. Anyway…
Then the riot cops with shields come.
Somewhere in their minds they decide it was a clever idea to knock down an elderly man off of his bike. They did this by taking their shield and slicing open his forehead. He is also in hospital.
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Source: maroisandme.wordpress.com/
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