Home movies from Montebello
In case you missed it, here is the Youtube link showing the confrontation at Montebello between Union organizer Dave Coles, President of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union, and three members of some security force (RCMP? Surete du Quebec?) disguised as protesters.
There is no real room for doubt here. The three are burly, well built guys (the protest crowd usually tends to the young and scrawny or over-weight and middle aged… not a lot of “pumping iron” folks in the anti-globalization movement.) The men are dressed as hoodlums. Bandanas over their mouth and nose. Caps down over their eyes. One of the three has a rock and is threatening to lob it at the police line. Dave Coles, in open shirt and sports jacket, moves in to call for only peaceful protest. In the moments that ensue, Dave gets very suspicious of the so-called protesters. As he related later, he looked at one and said “you are a cop, aren’t you?” (that part was inaudible to me on the tape) Very clearly, you then hear him say “Take your masks off, the three of you. … It’s a peaceful protest.” They refuse to remove their masks, so he points at them and calls out to the crowd “These three guys are all cops.”
This is where any doubt about their identities really falls apart. One of them leans in to the policeman at the end of the line. Since the policeman, in full riot gear, is holding a plexiglass shield, our hapless provocateur has to lean in pretty far to have a chat with the officer.
Let’s try to imagine what he could possibly be saying if it wasn’t “We are cops, get us out of here.”
Maybe: “Excuse me officer, but this union leader here is badgering me and asking me to take off my bandana. I need protective custody.”
The three do get to go behind the police line where they are then (gently) handcuffed on the ground, providing a good view of the fact the boots they are wearing are identical to those of the officers handcuffing them.
Most Canadians are shocked by this. Sadly I am not. In fact, on Sunday at the Parliament Hill Rally a reporter asked me if I was worried about the potential for violence at Montebello. I answered “No, it will be peaceful, unless they send in agents provocateurs to create a violent confrontation.” The reporter looked dubious, so I told him that I had been in Seattle and in Quebec City and that it was very clear that the people who smashed windows were not with any protest group.
In Seattle, where I was part of the official Canadian delegation to the World Trade Organization meetings, the march of over 40,000 people had been entirely peaceful. NDP MP, Bill Blaikie and I marched together surrounded by union members and environmentalists and wonderful banners proclaiming “Turtles and Teamsters: together at last.” The mood was festive, happy and peaceful. But somehow near the downtown, people dressed in black with crowbars had started smashing plate glass windows. The national guard quickly replaced the Seattle police. Tear gas filled the air and a curfew was imposed that left many young people scrambling for a place to go. There was no bus service. No cabs would venture out. Two young Sierra Club volunteers reached me in my hotel seeking shelter. They brought with them eye witness accounts of what had transpired. And they had video tape. (We didn’t have Youtube then.) I was shocked to watch on video as a line of policemen never moved an inch to stop the window smashing “anarchists.” The only effort to stop the hoodlums was from young people who had been part of the march. One young man put himself at real risk by trying to get the crowbar away from the vandal. They smashed windows in full view of over twenty policemen who watched impassively and then the vandals walked away. It made no sense.
Once I saw that footage, I was convinced these young people in black were sent in to justify the crackdown that followed. I heard similar stories from Quebec City. One of my friends watched a group of men who looked like SQ forces (well-built, short hair, good boots) eating in a restaurant and then donning their disguises. She was convinced they were agents provocateurs.
I have always been uncompromising in my belief that there is no excuse for violent protest or vandalism. None. When writing my activist guide, How to Save the World in Your Spare Time, I outlined the reasons. Ethical, moral, strategic. I also repeated prominent Toronto lawyer Clayton Ruby’s advice from a pre-Quebec City teach-in. When asked what to do if someone in your group starts talking about explosives or advocating violence, Clay answered: “You get a picture of them. You tell them you now suspect they are under-cover agents for the RCMP. You don’t tolerate that sort of suggestion.”
Dave Coles is a hero. He not only acted to stop what he thought was an outraged youth with a rock, he took the time to notice the incongruities. He went for the evidence: show me your face. The fact that a video camera captured the whole confrontation is huge. Even more amazing is that thousands of people have already gone to the Youtube site to watch for themselves.
Exactly who ordered this, who knew, what they hoped to achieve are all pressing and urgent questions. We must press for a full investigation. We must not let this chance to insist on transparency and respect for legitimate, Charter-protected rights of peaceful assembly be shrugged off with the official denials issued today.
The Montebello Summit was all about a secret agenda with meetings held in secret. We must demand of the whole charade: “Take off your mask. Show us who you are.”
- Elizabeth May's blog
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Commentaires
A Quick update on an abrupt about-face
Police deny using 'provocateurs' at summit
Aug 22, 2007 08:27 PM
Joan Bryden
Officers never posed as protesters: Quebec police
Updated Wed. Aug. 22 2007 11:07 PM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
Agent provocateurs at Montebello Quebec - video
Bay Area Indymedia, CA - 22 Aug 2007
Protesters want answers
Thu, August 23, 2007
By LAURA CZEKAJ, SUN MEDIA
Police accused of using agents provocateurs in Montebello
'They were there to deliberately cause trouble.' - Dave Coles, CEP president
Ottawa (23 Aug. 2007)
Quebec police admit they went undercover at Montebello protest
Last Updated: Thursday, August 23, 2007 | 7:52 PM ET
CBC News
Quebec police says masked protesters were cops
CTV.ca, Canada - 36 minutes ago
Day rejects call for probe of summit allegations
Toronto Star, Canada - 3 hours ago
No reason to pursue answers here. Clearly the authorities have been open and transparent about the whole thing.
They can't expect us to believe this...
The police have admitted those were their agents, but now they're claiming they were there only to prevent violence. I'm not sure how they expect to get away with claiming that when the video clearly shows one shoving a peaceful protester as well as menacingly carrying a large rock near the police line (and refusing to put it down, even).
Police are important to all who believe in non violence
Gareth Davies
Nanaimo-Alberni EDA
Parksville, BC
I watched YouTube and from what I can make out nothing of moment happened at Montebello outside. There was some shouting, cursing, pushing and shoving. Some of the protesters were quite excited, but Canada is not a police state, for that go to China or Iran or Zimbabwe, but not here, please.
If the police have broken the law then those responsible should be brought to task and suffer the consequences. For that we have procedures and protocols we call due process. If anyone has evidence of the police breaking the law, that person should file a complaint, if not with the police, then with the police board.
I support those who protest peacefully, it is our democratic right as Canadian citizens, but I also support the police who try to prevent violence. It is the police and the police alone who stand between civilized society in Canada and chaos, between us and the criminal elements, who would quickly dominate if the police weren't around.
The police put themselves in harm's way for you and me and sometimes pay the ultimate price. Let us be charitable then and give them our support and if any are found breaking the law, treat them as anyone else who breaks the law. If found guilty, then, given the position of public trust they hold, their punishment should be more severe, but only if found guilty.
Why I'll never trust the police
First of all I should state I'm from Saskatoon which has a rather notorious police force. Now they are known mainly for the "starlight tours" (it was not some radical minority doing this seeing as I know two people who have told me personally it has happened to them) and I have friends who claim to have smoked a joint with police and hells angels at the same time.
One time a friend of mine was walking through a park when he was stopped and searched by a police officer (for no reason I might add). He had a ball of hash on him and the cop found it and took it without arresting him. As the cop walked away he said "If you're going to just smoke that can I have half of it back?" This cop may have been a thief but he wasn't a jerk so he gave him half of his hash back.
When I was six I was crossing a street outside my house with my dog when a car came around a corner missed me by about two feet hit my dog sending him skidding along the street before he backed up and drove away. The police later told my family he admitted to speeding... So for almost killing me, for speeding, for killing my dog, and for committing a hit and run his charge was... And I'm quoting the police here "If he does it again we will do something." I wonder which family member of this guy's was on the police force. Oh this happened in Victoria by the way.
When I lived in Vancouver I saw the police beat a homeless guy for no reason. I saw the police basically rob a crack dealer. They grabbed him, threw him to the ground, hand cuffed him, opened his bag, and took a couple ounces of crack... then they took his picture before letting him leave. I and the group of people with me couldn't believe it and I wouldn't believe it except that I was there.
Then there are people like Tom Shapiro whose story can be found here. http://www.medicalmarihuana.ca/bureaucracy.html
About every six months I get stopped by police and told I fit a description of a suspect in the area... I'm 6'4 and weigh 160 lbs and usually wear a poncho... I've met all of three other people in this city who look even slightly like me. So either there is some guy who looks just like me on a crime spree and getting away with it or they just stop and search random people. I find it funny how the police don't seem to care about section 8 of the CCRF and if you mention this they consider that "cause" to search you.
Probably the two worst stories I know of involving police are the following (this gets a bit graphic). The first happened to a friend of mine while he was walking home. He was tackled while walking on an overpass without warning and handcuffed because he was suspected in a robbery that happened two minutes earlier. He sustained a massive cut on his face for which he required stitches and was detained overnight. The next day he arrived at work late because of this ordeal and was fired that day... Now comes the punch line he was at least a ten minute run from where the robbery happened (remember the robbery happened two minutes earlier) and wearing a yellow coat when the suspect's coat was orange.
The other story involves yet another friend of mine in Winnipeg. He developed schizophrenia and attacked someone for being "evil". He was arrested and while in police custody he was placed in a confinement chair and beaten. He had his arms dislocated. He got treatment for his illness the next day and came to realize he was schizophrenic and that evil people weren't out to get him. Despite being insane at the time he still claimed the police tortured him up until his suicide a year later.
The reality is unfortunately that police and law enforcement officers throughout all of human history have not been "good guys". Positions of authority attract two types of people... Nice people who want to make the world a better place and bullies. There is a minority (about 40% I'd say) who actually care about the rule of law but as a former RCMP friend of mine told me "I had to quit because I couldn't stand the old boys club." I also once had an RCMP officer reminisce to me about the good old days when if someone gave you lip you tossed them down a staircase... while handcuffed.
If you want to hear some funny stories talk to a gas station owner about the police response to a gas and go. If it wasn’t true it would be a laugh riot.
I was at a speech made by Rubin Carter earlier this month (if you ever get the chance to see this man speak go for it) and he said about 85% of all wrongful convictions are intentional. Not like the courts or cops made a mistake but they simply frame people who they consider bad people. How many people are wrongfully convicted in this country? Simply we will never know but I’d guess probably 1/20.
Oh I should also mention on top of this every time I have ever called the police for help they have either not shown up or have shown up hours later. This includes times when people were getting beaten and robbed.
I do not rely on the police to keep me safe. I rely on me. The police don't keep you safe they will just show up afterwards (and in my case even then that's a maybe). As for the notion that without police we would live in some kind of mad max style anarchy is beyond ludicrous. I don't kill, rape, maim, or steal because I disagree with doing those things. The police coming after me is not a deterrent. If I wanted anyone in this country dead I would kill them and if anyone in this country wants me dead they can kill me. It's hard to face but that is reality. If someone wants to kill someone and puts about an hour worth of thought into it they can do it. If the only reason people are not doing this is simply because of the police then we are truly a group of savages. Oh also if you look at the stats can website you have about a 3/4 chance of getting away with murder.
At what point did police stop being agents of oppression and become "good guys". Was it fifty years ago, maybe one hundred? As much as things have changed involving police and persons with authority being held accountable we still are no where near where we should be.
As for Canada being a police state... Iran and China aren't much of a police state as long as you agree with the status quo... No state is if you agree and support the government. The same goes for Canada. If you dissent it will cost you something most likely a job or friends. Due to past victories by people of this country against authority I can do many things like dissent and it probably won't cost me my life. We don't practice things like human organ harvesting, death penalty, or rape (although if you get strip searched and a cop checks every hole in your body for "evidence" that is state sanctioned rape). If I walk up to someone on the street and do that I'd probably be called a molester or something but full body cavity searches are okay as long as it can be justified under the guise of “security”.
A friend of mine worked for the Elizabeth Fry society and one time she was in a court room where someone was pleading with the judge to be let out of prison early due to the fact that “They put things up my ass and made me eat s**t.” That apparently is a Tuesday like any other in that court room and the man’s crime was cocaine possession... He stayed in prison. Things like this are common place and a disgrace to anyone who ever died or gave anything to this country. I’m sure nobody likes thinking of things like these but these are some of the issues within our injustice system (I call it the judiciary industry) that need to be addressed. Have you ever seen a police force say we have too much money and to cut their budget to increase say education budgets? Why do cops wear ski masks? The "bad guys" are supposed to wear masks and jackboots not the "good guys". These problems are not a “few bad apples” this is the entire orchard. If our stardard of having a good justice system or police force is that we are better than Iran then we are pathetic... That's like being the worlds smallest giant.
Tell Marc (soon to be jailed for life) Emery that this isn't a police state, please. He disagrees with the state and it will probably cost him his life. What's his crime? Not selling seeds (although that's the charge) or smoking pot but daring to speak out about it (as admitted by the DEA the day after the warrant was issued). When Marc was here in Saskatoon he and he alone got arrested out of a group of pot smokers. What he had to say about my home was "The suffering of the cannabis culture here is great, and remedy is desperately needed, and I shall be here often to rally the marijuana community in this forsaken province. I am full of sorrow for the people here. They suffer a reign of evil by Bible thumping prohibitionists and corrupt police and sadistic prosecutors. I am merely a victim of their obscenities but unlike those here, I garner attention, unlike so many others here who languish in obscurity, and no one hears their crying or pain." Did anyone alive today get the chance to decide if marijuana should be illegal? No. But that's patriarchy for you (that's the rule of fathers not men).
The primary difference is that we maintain the illusion of freedom and this must be maintained at all costs in any society that wishes to call itself free. The second someone sees this very narrow form of what we call freedom for what it is they can never think or feel the same way about their society ever again. Our authorities will always point out how enslaved everyone else is and after hearing horror stories from other countries we immediately assume that this is freedom. We have it better than most but this is not freedom.
Now I'm rather sure someone will point out how this post is clear evidence that we must be free and I should just quit complaining and be grateful my government lets me say anything at all. The proof of a police state or a free society does not exist in the words of an internet post. I would have to say this country is neither and what I will use as my proof is the SPP summit and the police action there. We have a Canadian charter of rights and freedoms in this country and the first freedom was expressed while the third was oppressed. The freedom to peaceably assemble means that you cannot assemble and fire tear gas and rubber bullets at peaceful people. Remember the Surete du Quebec said in a statement. “The police officers were identified by demonstrators when they refused to throw projectiles.” Seeing as they lied the day before this they have already shown they cannot be trusted and I will bet money on those three being agent provocateurs.
Right now I'm going through all the youtube videos of the summit to try to find other pictures of the cops that got busted. Please do the same. Those three were not the only undercover cops I'm sure. One part of me hopes to either not find them or to find them there peacefully...But the other part of me hopes I find them throwing projectiles.
One thing to remember about a police state is that it survives not by oppression of police but by convincing people to live in fear. Not a fear of what Steven Harper will think of you but what your family, friends, and neighbors will think of you if you dare to disagree or discuss taboo topics.
Police are not designed to be non violent peace makers they were originally designed to be an insturment of state repression. A cartle with a monopoly on the ultimate currency of violence. If you dare violate their monopoly, like organized crime, they will violate you. But don't worry it is all for your protection... Surete du Quebec told me so.
I like Ron Paul’s definition of a police state... a society where you must ask permission to do anything. Under that definition we are close to a police state.
"A functioning police state needs no police." - William S Burroughs
Cheers and Peace
Democracy is two wolfs and a sheep voting on what the have for dinner. Liberty is a well armed sheep contesting the vote.
Problematic policing
I was at my wife's staff party, and some of her co-workers' spouses/boyfriends there were cops.
They joked about the little bag of weed they keep in the car that they can throw into your car so they can arrest you for possession, if they need an excuse. They seemed to think this was a pretty funny part of cop SOP.
Even if they were just making this up, it's rather chilling behaviour. THis conversation was very disturbing to the party host, who as a "person of colour" (I hadn't noticed until then - he looks a lot like Vin Diesel) has often been hassled by police for no discernable reason. But rather than bring it up, he went out into the garage instead. Chased from his own house.
One of the candidates in our municipal election last fall was charged publicly with possession of child pornography just weeks before the vote, so he had to drop out of the race. He was an opponent of the incumbent (now former) mayor. He maintains his innocence, and almost a year later, no evidence has yet been brought forward.
"Top cop" Julian Fantino is infamous for misleading photo-ops - in one case, displaying guns he claimed were confiscated at raves (which were not), in another, displaying hundreds of videotapes of seized "child porn" which all turned out to be legal movies.
Trust in police is easily lost, and must be continuously earned to be deserved.
Erich Jacoby-Hawkins
Barrie, ON
The views I express on this blog are purely my own and should not be construed to represent the official position of the Green Party of Canada - the same goes for all other people's posts & comments.
Erich Jacoby-Hawkins, Barrie ON - although I'm on Cabinet (Nat'l Rev. and Ecol. Fiscal Reform), views here are my own and may not reflect official GPC positions. Please visit www.ErichtheGreen.ca
Policing Culture
I can't help that part of the problem is the whole cultural context of policing.
We recruit macho men and women to the force because it is seen as a "enforcement" sort of job, when I suspect it could be just as easily be spun as a "social work" position. What a change would happen if the emphasis was on "peace keeping" instead of "law enforcement"!
The other problem is our insane legal system. I cannot think of any better way to make people aggressive than to put them into an adversarial situation and then delay, delay, delay, every single attempt to resolve problems. Everyone ends up being totally frustrated, which causes people to lash out at the police (don't try to lash out at a judge or you'll get hammered.) This just encourages them to retreat into their own weird little sub-culture.
What a stupid waste of money and humanity---.
"There is always an easy solution to every human problem--neat, plausible, and wrong." H.L. Mencken
Bully stick
When I was in elementary school, one of my classmates was a perennial bully. Taller than most, not too bright, took joy in others' misfortune.
A few years ago, I discovered that he is now a police officer. Has he become a better person in the meantime? I can only hope.
If you like to push people around, carry a gun, stick, sap, pepperspray and other weapons, drive with immunity to traffic rules, and have your word trusted unquestioningly despite contrary accounts, why not become a cop?
It must be difficult for police to screen out such individuals in favour of those who really just want to help people. They failed to screen out my classmate. How does one know a person's true motivation, or what they do when no-one (of authority) is watching?
Erich Jacoby-Hawkins
Barrie, ON
The views I express on this blog are purely my own and should not be construed to represent the official position of the Green Party of Canada - the same goes for all other people's posts & comments.
Erich Jacoby-Hawkins, Barrie ON - although I'm on Cabinet (Nat'l Rev. and Ecol. Fiscal Reform), views here are my own and may not reflect official GPC positions. Please visit www.ErichtheGreen.ca
Screening is easy---
Screening people for jobs is easy. The problem is the criteria and process that is being used. Where I work human resources decided to start being more scientific about the way they hire staff and it made a HUGE difference. The first thing was to include people who actually do the job on the hiring committee, which meant that managers who didn't have a clue weren't hiring people to do a job that didn't really exist. The second thing was that they taught everyone doing the hiring that the only real predictor for how a person will act on a job is how they have acted in the past. So in the case of your acquaintance, the committee should have sought references.
In addition, when I was attempting to get into the Canadian Forces officer corps, I went through a one week long interview process that involved working in teams to deal with "war game" like situations. (The system had been designed by the Germans to fill their officer corps during WWII.) It was an absolutely excellent way of judging a person's ability and character. One of the scenarios involved what one would do if you had to hire a salesman, the overwhelming best candidate is black---and your biggest customer is a racist pig. One of the others involved what you would do if your top seargant drops dead with a heart attack and when you clean out his desk to send his effects to his wife and you find a sealed letter that looks like it comes from a girlfriend.
I suspect that if the police force adopted these sorts of hiring practices they could get really top notch people to fill their slots. If they were also taught how to use their brains instead of brawn to handle people it could go a long way.
But having said all of the above, we put police in an impossible situation every day by the simple fact that they have to deal with the end result of many insane decisions by government plus a court system that is long, long, long overdue for a serious rethink. It is too bad, but the other parties have made criminal justice a football and it is probably going to be impossible to reform it any time in my life. :-(
"There is always an easy solution to every human problem--neat, plausible, and wrong." H.L. Mencken
amazing responses
thanks for responding all this is great.
I thought of one other story involving police while I was in Vancouver that I feel shows how police can properly deal with a bad situation. I was on Denman waiting for my sister to get off work. She worked next to a blendz coffee shop which had a patio. There were two police officers sitting in the patio drinking their coffee when some guy can walking by them and started calling them "f'ing pigs" then suggested they follow him into an alley so he can make them squeal. The man then went into an alley with another guy. The police just sat there drinking their coffee. five minutes later when the two guys came out of the alley they crossed the street and started calling the police on again. The two police just sat there ignoring this jerk. In this city you would probably be arrested for pulling that. Although the guy who walked into the alley was a total jerk he hadn't done anything illegal. I would have posted this with my first or second post here but I'd totally forgot about it. Cudos to those two cops for not escalating the situation... We need more police like those two.
I've been looking through the youtube videos and there is one other where you see the violence start (it looks like the first day and a guy walking infront of the camera looks remarkably like on of the cops caught the next day although the bandana is different and he seems shorter)... It also has the guy who started pushing at the police line. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKm90v6tBwI
In this video here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qomR9kkgCzg you'll see it was basically one protester shoving his was to the front and using the board he has as a kind of weapon. It happens at about 5 minutes into the video. You can't clearly see who it is but the guy seems to be about a foot taller than anyone else in the area which I find odd. Anyone at montebello remember this guy? He basically seems to be the one that got the police to start using tear gas and got the protesters demonized as hoodlums. Now I should point out I don't think he's a cop but I would still like to be sure.
Now I still haven't watched all the videos yet (there are alot). Mainly because I found if you type in something like police brutality you get to see some rather nasty videos and I've been watching those. Funny how in so many of these situations if the officers exercised the same control I saw for those two police at blendz there would have been no escalation or violence.
Democracy is two wolfs and a sheep voting on what the have for dinner. Liberty is a well armed sheep contesting the vote.
The problem is police procedure, not police per ce
I took a course entitled "Non-violent Crisis Intervention" as part of my work life. It was taught by an experience police sargeant and it was based on the idea that you can deal with all sorts of potentially violent situations without having to get violent. He told us that the hardest group to give the course to are police officers because their training teaches them that they should never negotiate with people but instead need to dominate and control. The idea that they would simply allow a protest and negotiate with the marshalls to limit problems is probably very creepy for them.
My other suspicion is that police---like people in all large bureaucracies---are informally taught that their primary responsibility is to "cover their butt". I suspect that is why the police force denied that they had infiltrated the demonstration for so long. They knew that they would get into trouble for being caught on film. They are used to the fact that unless the media have their noses rubbed into the dirt they would never report that there were police in the crowd.
The big issue now is whether or not they were trying to incite violence. Given the low level of discipline that has historically existed in the Quebece police force, this might be a possibility. (I have heard that the RCMP were appalled by the attitude of the police at the Oka stand-off.)
I agree with Gareth that we need to respect the police as individuals. But like many other elements of our justice system, the police as an institution could benefit from a dramatic overhaul in terms of its internal culture and standard operating procedures.
"There is always an easy solution to every human problem--neat, plausible, and wrong." H.L. Mencken
Independent oversight needed
We desperately need an independent body to investigate incidents like this. When the police investigate themselves, even if the police actually did nothing wrong, there is justifiable distrust of the results.
Sadly, they were successful
Whether it was the intention of these agents provocateurs to deflect attention away from the issues being protested or not, they were successful. Media coverage of the events in Montebello has been focussed on this particular controversy, and there has been next to no coverage of why there was a protest happening in Montebello at all. I've talked to people who seem to know a fair amount about the Youtube video, but have no idea what the SPP is and why there might be any reason to object to it at all. It seems to me that the protest was successfully neutralized.
Keep blogging SPP
Gareth Davies
Nanaimo-Alberni EDA
Parksville, BC
Anne, if it was neutralized, it was neutralized by the media, no one else. But I don't believe that it was neutralized. YouTube is not where you are going to necessarily find knowledgeable political content. For that, check out all the on-line media, including newspapers.
Besides, the media won't keep an issue on the front page forever.
I agree with you that what is afoot politically on the intergovernmental level in North America is the important issue. Many guests visit us here and we must all blog SPP in its various aspects so as to get the word out.
Occasionally, Google, Yahoo! Search, and other internet search engines pick up our blogs on their first page, so we must blog.
Cheers
: )
Green thought for the day: SPP is a serious threat to green policy.
This is my opinion, not that of the Green Party of Canada
We are all lucky to live in Canada
Gareth Davies
Nanaimo-Alberni EDA
Parksville, BC
Mike, you relate a fascinating tale. No doubt you must tell the police complaints commissioner or an ombudsman or the media all of this.
I am NOT being facetious, because police officers killed a man in Stanley Park because he was gay, police officers leave the indigent poor outside the city to freeze to death, police definitely frame people sometimes. That such things happen is well documented by the courts and media, but these "bad"cops are not typical. Police officers have families and are still people like the rest of us. Bill said it right that police have a certain psychology about them that sets them apart, but that does not make them bad. He suggested that individually they are mostly A-okay, but as an institution they need a drastic overhaul. I agree with him 100%.
What are you going to do about the dreadful things you witnessed? You should tell someone and posting it here is a good start. It is difficult, I know.
By the way, go to Iran where they are stoning men and women to death for breaking morality laws, they bury men up to their waists and women up to their shoulders before casting stones. Men and women are being hanged outside foreign embassies on construction cranes in the streets for opposing the political and religious regime. In China convicted political prisoners have vital organs surgically removed before they are shot so that transplants will be available.
Mike, I do NOT disbelieve what you say, but it pales into insignificance, relatively speaking, when compared to such countries as Iran and China. What you witnessed is wrong and such people do not belong in the police force, but I shall always believe in the Canadian police officer and trust her or him not only with my life, but with the lives of my family too.
You may not want to rape, steal and murder, but don't judge everyone by your own good standards, there are those who would do such things with abandon and it doesn't take many to completely screw up our way of life. These villains already rape and kill children and women now, when we have a police force, home invasions take place every day somewhere in Canada. With great respect, Mike, if you think it wouldn't get worse you must be some place other than where I am.
Learn to trust and try not to generalize. But who am I to tell you anything? I am not, but just giving my point of view.
This is my opinion and not that of the Green Party of Canada
Learn to trust the police to be the police.
"Bill said it right that police have a certain psychology about them that sets them apart, but that does not make them bad. He suggested that individually they are mostly A-okay, but as an institution they need a drastic overhaul."
The psychology is Jack Bauer syndrom where because they are the "good guys" they can do anything and justify it because it is being done to "bad guys". This has forced many of the good people out of the police force for not following the thin blue line of silence. This is what made me come to the 40% of cops are decent conclusion.
We have a far better justice system than China or Iran... this is not the stardard by which we should be judgeing our police force. Iran and China do not claim to be a liberal free society while we do. Malcolm X once said "They don't stand for anything different in South Africa than America stands for. The only difference is over there they preach as well as practice apartheid. America preaches freedom and practices slavery." And due to the preaching of freedom that makes the actions of America worse than south africa (using his example and paraphrasing his words). I happen to agree with this concept.
Iran claims to be an Islamic republic/theocracy. China claims to be a people's republic/communist dictatroship. Canada claims to be a free democratic constitutional monarchy. Which makes the violation of the rule of law here worse than the enforcement of law there simply because we claim the moral high ground. We do have the moral high ground compared to these other countries. Do you really have to try hard to be a better person than say Will Pickton? I'm sure most of the police in China and Iran are good decent people who pay their taxes and love their families... In other words as individuals they are mostly A-okay... But the institution they are part of is evil. This makes even a "good German" evil.
Looking at the Milgram and Stanford prison experiments I believe I see what the problem is. The first is the obedence to an authority who will accept responsibility for wrong doing. For those of you unfamiliar with this... Stanley Milgram wanted to find out why so many people were willing to participate in the holocaust of WW2. So he wanted to see how far an individual would go against their own conscience if an authority figure asked them. view it here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e02xGc-K0c . The second is the establishment of an US vs THEM mentality and how roles in a society changes a persons actions. The Stanford prison experiment can be viewed here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4PrmqvYO94 . I don't trust police because they lie constantly and repeatedly. I trust a liar to lie which is what I trust police to do (look at their lies about Montebello as the latest example).
Lastly you act like myself and others people have not complained repeatedly about these kinds of violations. I hate to tell you but they really don't care. They do a typical CYA (cover your ass) about the situation and claim as always "Police acted correctly given the circumstances". If you don't get one of the 40% that actually care you can get in some serious trouble because then you must be discredited (usually by some trumped up charge) before you tell the media.
I made that post to basically show that this Montebello summit is yet another unjust action in a long line of corruption, incompotenct, and sadism. I'm sure that if you asked around you'd probably find stories far worse than anything I have experienced. Anyway I'm gonna goto sleep now...
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - MLK
Cheers and Peace
Democracy is two wolfs and a sheep voting on what the have for dinner. Liberty is a well armed sheep contesting the vote.