500 police raid Mohawk community of Kanesatake
Drugs raids target Que. Mohawk communities
Both the RCMP and the Sûreté du Québec have officers on the ground Tuesday to execute 13 search warrants on the Mohawk territory.
Police said the target is a large drug-trafficking network dealing principally in marijuana.
Police have already raided four homes in Kanesatake, including one in which officers exited the house with what appears to be bags of pills, said CBC reporter Daniel Halton.
French network TVA reported that a newspaper journalist was roughed up by locals during the raids, and that authorities warned the media to keep their distance.
Raids were also being done in Akwesasne and Oka, the municipality next to Kanesatake, as well as in other towns north of Montreal.
RCMP Cpl. Luc Thibault said police are continuing to sweep more than 50 sites.
500 police. Kanesatake population: 1369
I mentioned it in the Watching the Detective thread.
Overkill much :-(
another of Canada's 'humanitarian interventions' no doubt
The number of police being sent in is absurd. A similar case in a white suburb would surely not get 500 cops.
The Toronto raid had 600 cops but that was hitting 60 places at once to get everyone in the Jamestown gang
At least 38 people were arrested by midday and face drug trafficking and conspiracy charges. Most will appear in court Wednesday.
Idiotic bullshit.
Crap.
And this is charming as all fuck:
(bold added)
"We have to be careful, everywhere we go security is first for everybody, including the public." (Cpl. Luc Thibault.)
Nice, I feel all warm and fuzzy now.
And hey, the last time there were raids in Kanesatake in 2009 they had 300 cops for 13 arrests. Their ratio of cop to arrestees is getting better.
Crap X 2
Is it even legal for the RCMP to invade FN territory like this?
That's the rub, Erik.
Five hundred cops represents a battalion sized force. They'll never stop the underground market in commodities of this nature no matter how thorough they believe themselves to be. We'd have to suspect that even some of the cops are aware of this fact, at least those who have spent any time at all on a beat. What we see here is a punative attack on an entire community, an exercise aimed at reminding the people living there who has the real power, who's boss, who can be invaded and held at gunpoint at the whim of power. This reminder applies everywhere actually. It's just easier and more convenient to demonstrate this to the general public every now and then by making an example from the usual target communities.
The investigation targeted an alleged criminal network believed to be peddling marijuana, cocaine and designer drugs from producers in the greater Montreal region to the Mohawk communities of Kanesatake and Akwesasne, said Insp. Lino Maurizio of the Aboriginal Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit (A-CFSEU).
"We have disrupted its capacity to use aboriginal territories for its activities," Maurizio said at a news conference. "We can catch them, no matter where they are."
At least 55 people were targeted in the raids, which spanned some 50 sites in Kanesatake, nearby Oka, Akwesasne and other locations north of Montreal.
If their aim was to keep drug trafficking out of FN communities, why didn't they see fit to work with Kanesatake authorities, or even inform Chief Bonspiel of their intentions? Why, if the operation is based in Montreal, are they not raiding locations in Montreal? The answers are pretty obvious, but that makes the entire operation no less a shameful exercise of brute force designed to intimidate the community.