Here in Toronto we've just wrapped up the G20 police-car-burnin', window-smashin' weekend. There are many issues abuzz, and while they seem to be going largely unreported in the rest of the world, they're all the rage here; so I'm going to weigh in.
First off, I like to acknowledge that there seems to be almost no criticism of the G20 itself anymore. Torontonians seem to have gotten all of our rotting on the actual summit out of the way leading up to the event, so now our attention can be focused on other issues, namely:
1) Those damn protesters and;
2) Those damn police.
The Protesters
I'm not going to waste much time on the violent protesters; these people are clearly idiots. (Incidently, many people
have spent time on condemning the acts of the outspoken few, to which I respond; well, duh.) I do, however, have several beefs with the non-violent protesters.
The main issue is that protesters in Toronto don't seem to really understand what 'peaceful protest' means. While we do live in a free, democratic country and are afforded the rights of free speech and assembly, there are limitations to those rights. These limitations generally exist to inhibit the ability of any person, or group of people, to infringe the rights of another person or group. I think, therefore, that it's fair to say, once you infringe on another person's right, aka commit an illegal activity, you forfeit your rights. Obstructing traffic is illegal because it affects other people in a negative way. So, if you choose to sit down in the middle of the street in protest, you're gonna get your ass whooped. (Or at least the get
shit scarred out of you.)
Furthermore, protesters need to stay focused. Protesting doesn't mean getting together with your friends and causing shit. Protesting conveys message which is politically or ideologically important to the protester. This
does not include standing around and
antagonizing police officers. Antagonizing cops is a bad idea for two reasons, 1) They're human and eventually they'll break, and if there's a conflict (for whatever reason), 2) you're gonna lose. I'm not condoning police brutality at all, who would? It's still best to not try and get under the skin of a group of people who are under a lot of stress and armed to the teeth.
The Cops
By in large, I thought the Integrated Security Unit (ISU) did a fantastic job. There have been reported (and youTubed) incidents with individual police officers and at the holding facility, but I'm not convinced it makes a strong case against the police force as a whole.
Here's my case:
The police publicly stated that their priorities on the first day of the summit (Saturday), were, in order 1) Protect the G20 security perimeter, 2) Protect human life and, 3) Protect property. Many criticisms have come to the police for not stopping the 200 or so violent protesters who laid waste to Yonge street during the first gambit of protests. There are two very good reasons for not stopping them. Firstly, it almost certainly would have resulted in casualties, if not death. Secondly, it would have required the ISU to pull a large portion of riot officers from away from large groups to deal with a relatively small one. By doing that, they would have compromised their exterior perimeter and had to mount their defense right at the interior security perimeter. (If you don't understand why that's bad, you need to read the
Art of War.)
On Saturday evening and Sunday, things were different. Police had encountered massive public condemnation of their slack procedures. More importantly, they now had that caveat, so important to police legalities: reasonable and probably cause. By virtue of the rioting that took place on Saturday morning and afternoon, police now knew it was a reasonable premise that, left unchecked, protesting crowds would escalate in to violence. So they began to take precautionary measures. Among these measures, they choose to stay to the letter of the law, arresting people for legal violations, euphemistically, that would normally be overlooked. There were definitely some innocent bystanders who were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Unfortunately for them, it was their choice to be their when the curtain fell, and so they must bare the consequences. To an riot officer, there is only
us and
them. I challenge anyone, in real time, to face a potentially hostile crowd of several hundred and reliably pick out which among them is most likely to commit a crime next. [Door opens to racial profiling and various other forms of prejudice.] The police did the only reasonable thing they could do, detain everyone, analyze the situation, arrest likely suspects, release the remainder.
And it's not a violation of human rights, since all of them were committing a crime anyhow.
I must say, having witnessed some of the crowd dispersal first hand, when the police moved it was organized, ruthlessly efficient, effective and, it seems, executed with the highest regard for human safety. Mind you, I didn't witness
all situations, so there may be scenarios I'm not aware of, but I haven't yet seen evidence of them.
As for the incidents with individual police officers, I wasn't there. Sure, some of them were caught on video, but they seem to be carefully edited so only the actual altercation is shown. There's no context to protester or police behaviour or verbal exchanges between them, so I remain undecided on the subject until further evidence come in.
I think the main problem with criticism of the ISU in this case was a lack of seeing the human aspect of the unit. Yes, it's a paramilitary operation that has objectives and carefully designed methods of achieving them; but it's run and consists entirely of humans. Humans, like the protesters, who react, adapt, doubt, make mistakes and, especially when on the front lines, get tired. When faced with an authority figure who is stifling one's personal freedoms, perhaps it's best to first off, see them as a human being, then consider how their actions might be aiding the great good.
