statism watch

Police states don’t appear full blown, over night.  They are, like any other social phenomenon, part of social and political process — the end result of long term corruption of the political culture and the incremental diminishing of democracy. – Murray Dobbin

Related: G20 police ripped off amputee’s prosthetic limb, told him to walk before dragging him off | Release G20 ‘political prisoners’: rights groups | Canada Day: 2,000 protest G20 summit arrests | Civil liberties association to sue police on behalf of G20 arrestees | Four detained journalists file complaints of assault, sexual threats against G20 police | Inside the G20 Eastern Avenue Detention Centre | Toronto Police Lied: No five-metre rule existed in G20 security fence law | Outraged G20 protesters rally against police abuse and arbitrary detention | 20 G20 detention reports: ‘I will not forget what they have done to me’ | The G20: Brutal spectacle failed a city and its people | The G20’s ignominious end: Panic, outrage as police detain hundreds for hours in pouring rain | National Post photographers arrested, spend night in G20 detention camp | Peaceful Eastern Ave jail solidarity action attacked by Toronto police | Police Raid U of T Student Union for Hosting G20 Protesters | Guardian journalist beaten, arrested at peaceful G20 protest on Esplanade | Four alleged G20 violence ringleaders appear in court | Pre-dawn raids in Toronto homes result in four arrests | First G20 ‘secret law’ arrestee plans Charter challenge | G20 law gives police sweeping powers to arrest people | CP Reporter: How I was detained by G8 security | G20: Activists Arrested, Others Denied Entry into Canada | No legislation, no precedent to limit G20 police powers | Rights group files for injunction against G20 ‘sound cannon’ | G20 activists accuse CSIS of intimidation | For more, see the G20 Coverage page feature

Henry Stancu, Michelle Henry, Toronto Star
July 6, 2010

The province’s special investigations unit has begun probing five allegations that police caused serious injury to civilians during the summit.

It is unclear whether civilian or police information led to the investigation, with more details promised Wednesday.

“We’re currently looking into details surrounding those interactions” and speaking with witnesses, SIU spokesperson Monica Hudon said Tuesday. She would not say which police force or forces, of many drawn into G20 security, are involved in the allegations. The SIU can probe only the officers who work in Ontario, Hudon said, which includes municipal forces and the OPP but not the RCMP.

On the same day, a Toronto police services board meeting calling for an independent civilian review of the way G20 security was handled drew heated response from many people who came to vent about their treatment during the summit.

Thinking their voices would be heard at Tuesday’s hastily called special session at police headquarters, many shouted their objections after board chair Alok Mukherjee announced his recommendation that an impartial civilian overseer be chosen to conduct the review.

The chair said those in the rowdy gathering had “no automatic right to speak” at this venue, and that complaints should be filed in the form of written deputations.

(more…)

Of course the cops were yelling that he was resisting arrest – that’s now standard operating procedure. Raise an arm to defend yourself against the crack of a baton or push back even accidentally, and presto, you’ve assaulted an officer. As the G20 weekend and media reports from across the country in recent years make clear, this is about more than just a few bad apples – the barrel of apples is just about rotted through. Of course there must be many honest, hardworking good people on the force but it seems like they’re rapidly becoming a minority. Just look at media reports from across the continent – grandmothers being TASERed for sitting up in bed, women for sitting in the wrong seat at a game, innocent people being dragged out of their homes and beaten, border guards arresting people for asking questions, this is just how the cops roll now. The question is, why? What has happened to our former ‘peace officers’, charged with the honour to serve and protect, now more akin to some sort of dark STASI enforcement arm loosed on the public? There are many cultural forces at play here, but the increasing militarization and corruption of the police in the world we’re told is forever changed ‘post-911′ is but one of the many issues this journal attempts to set in context. Spin the ‘topicgate’ globe to the left of your screen and click a topic to jump in.

Related: Release G20 ‘political prisoners’: rights groups | Canada Day: 2,000 protest G20 summit arrests | Civil liberties association to sue police on behalf of G20 arrestees | Four detained journalists file complaints of assault, sexual threats against G20 police | Inside the G20 Eastern Avenue Detention Centre | Toronto Police Lied: No five-metre rule existed in G20 security fence law | Outraged G20 protesters rally against police abuse and arbitrary detention | 20 G20 detention reports: ‘I will not forget what they have done to me’ | The G20: Brutal spectacle failed a city and its people | The G20’s ignominious end: Panic, outrage as police detain hundreds for hours in pouring rain | National Post photographers arrested, spend night in G20 detention camp | Peaceful Eastern Ave jail solidarity action attacked by Toronto police | Police Raid U of T Student Union for Hosting G20 Protesters | Guardian journalist beaten, arrested at peaceful G20 protest on Esplanade | Four alleged G20 violence ringleaders appear in court | Pre-dawn raids in Toronto homes result in four arrests | First G20 ‘secret law’ arrestee plans Charter challenge | G20 law gives police sweeping powers to arrest people | CP Reporter: How I was detained by G8 security | G20: Activists Arrested, Others Denied Entry into Canada | No legislation, no precedent to limit G20 police powers | Rights group files for injunction against G20 ‘sound cannon’ | G20 activists accuse CSIS of intimidation | For more, see the G20 Coverage page feature

Doug Draper, Niagara at Large
July 5, 2010

John Pruyn wasn’t much in the mood for celebrating Canada Day this year.

How could he be after the way he was treated a few days earlier in Toronto by figures of authority most of us were brought up to respect, our publicly paid-for police forces who are supposed to be there to serve and protect peaceful, law-abiding citizens like him.

The 57-year-old Thorold, Ontario resident — an employee with Revenue Canada and a part-time farmer who lost a leg above his knee following a farming accident 17 years ago — was sitting on the grass at Queen’s Park with his daughter Sarah and two other young people this June 26, during the G20 summit, where he assumed it would be safe.

As it turned out, it was a bad assumption because in came a line of armoured police, into an area the city had promised would be safe for peaceful demonstrations during the summit. They closed right in on John and his daughter and the two others and ordered them to move. Pruyn tried getting up and he fell, and it was all too slow for the police.

As Sarah began pleading with them to give her father a little time and space to get up because he is an amputee, they began kicking and hitting him. One of the police officers used his knee to press Pruyn’s head down so hard on the ground, said Pruyn in an interview this July 4 with Niagara At Large, that his head was still hurting a week later.

Accusing him of resisting arrest, they pulled his walking sticks away from him, tied his hands behind his back and ripped off his prosthetic leg. Then they told him to get up and hop, and when he said he couldn’t, they dragged him across the pavement, tearing skin off his elbows , with his hands still tied behind his back. His glasses were knocked off as they continued to accuse him of resisting arrest and of being a “spitter,” something he said he did not do. They took him to a warehouse and locked him in a steel-mesh cage where his nightmare continued for another 27 hours.

(more…)

“You can’t pre-emptively violate rights and then ask citizens to sort it out in the future,” White said.

Exactly.

Related: Canada Day: 2,000 protest G20 summit arrests | Civil liberties association to sue police on behalf of G20 arrestees | Four detained journalists file complaints of assault, sexual threats against G20 police | Inside the G20 Eastern Avenue Detention Centre | Toronto Police Lied: No five-metre rule existed in G20 security fence law | Outraged G20 protesters rally against police abuse and arbitrary detention | 20 G20 detention reports: ‘I will not forget what they have done to me’ | The G20: Brutal spectacle failed a city and its people | The G20’s ignominious end: Panic, outrage as police detain hundreds for hours in pouring rain | National Post photographers arrested, spend night in G20 detention camp | Peaceful Eastern Ave jail solidarity action attacked by Toronto police | Police Raid U of T Student Union for Hosting G20 Protesters | Guardian journalist beaten, arrested at peaceful G20 protest on Esplanade | Four alleged G20 violence ringleaders appear in court | Pre-dawn raids in Toronto homes result in four arrests | First G20 ‘secret law’ arrestee plans Charter challenge | G20 law gives police sweeping powers to arrest people | CP Reporter: How I was detained by G8 security | G20: Activists Arrested, Others Denied Entry into Canada | No legislation, no precedent to limit G20 police powers | Rights group files for injunction against G20 ‘sound cannon’ | G20 activists accuse CSIS of intimidation | For more, see the G20 Coverage page feature

The Canadian Press
July 5, 2010

The mass detention of people and widespread use of police force over the G20 summit weekend was a gross abuse of state power that demands an independent inquiry and the immediate release of “political prisoners,” a civil-rights coalition said Monday.

In addition, they said, those responsible for “one of the most grotesque public expressions of police brutality, intimidation and mass violation of civil liberties” need to be held to account.

Mark Calzavara, of the Council of Canadians, said police detained more than 1,000 people after some protesters broke windows and burned a few police cruisers.

“When the police are the ones that are breaking the law, that’s when all of society has to really start to pay attention,” Calzavara said.

“That is a far greater crime.”

While the vast majority of those detained were released without charge within 24 hours, about 250 people still face charges and more than a dozen remained in custody Monday, according to the Movement Defence Committee.

The groups called for the release of those still incarcerated, saying the mass arrests amounted to criminalizing dissent.

(more…)