Apparently, Sunday was payback day for the police.
After yesterday afternoon’s demonstrations hit the downtown streets hard – four police vehicles were set on fire and numerous storefront windows broken, including twelve Starbuck locations vandalized – the police on Sunday were ready to retaliate.
I can actually count backwards to late Saturday night/early Sunday morning when over 150 people were arrested in front of the Novotel Hotel during a peaceful protest that the police turned violent. You can read Steve Paikin’s (TVO – The Agenda) reporting on his blog here:
Demonstrators who gathered to do jail solidarity for those arrested at the Eastern Avenue Detention Centre were fired upon by police with muzzle blasts (talcum powder and tear gas) the next morning (Sunday).
There are also unconfirmed reports of rubber bullets being used on the crowd (police deny this but protester insist it occurred). Police in snatch teams would dive into the crowd, grab a demonstration, and drag them out. At one point, all you could hear was a woman screaming, looking for her child. It was absolute chaos.
There was also a mass detention/arrest of activists and by-standards who were trapped by police at the corner of Queen Street West and Spadina Avenue after 6:00 pm and were not arrested or released until 9:40 pm. They stood in the pouring rain for hours, some only wearing tank tops, sundresses and flip flops.
The police defended their actions at that corner, claiming they saw members of the black bloc approach the crowd gathered there, thus giving them justification for kettling in (the tactic of surrounding a crowd and squeeze them in) every person on the corner whether they were a part of the protests or not.
But as media reported from the scene live, person after person released from the police’s human box stated clearly they were in fact just by-standards who got trapped by the police – people out walking their dog, people waiting for the bus, people coming home from watching the World Cup at their local bar.
Now before anyone spits out that ‘obviously these people should not have been out on the streets on Sunday’, let me sweetly chant into your ear: “Who’s streets? / Our streets”.
Also trapped in the police’s human box was a TTC driver in full uniform who had been ordered off his street car by riot police, and members of the media, including CTV and CityTV who were covering the event.
Speaking to the media the next day, Toronto Police Staff Superintendent Jeff McGuire said, “We’re not suggesting we’re perfect.”
After the group of trapped protesters and by-standards were left to stand in the pouring rain for hours; half were taken away in buses to the Eastern Avenue detention centre and the other half were simply released and ordered to go home.
The detainees were angry, ranting at the police and the state to any camera or reporter they could find. Perhaps the cops have just radicalized a whole new crop of activists?
[Note: I have no photos of Sunday’s events, the police deleted them]
Support rabble today!
We’re so glad you stopped by! Thanks for consuming rabble content this year.
rabble.ca is 100% reader and donor funded, so as an avid reader of our content, we hope you will consider gifting rabble with a donation during our summer fundraiser today.
Whether it be a one-time donation or a small monthly contribution, your support is critical to keep rabble writers producing the work you’ve come to rely on as a part of a healthy media diet.
Whether it be a one-time donation or a small monthly contribution, your support is critical to keep rabble writers producing the work you’ve come to rely on as a part of a healthy media diet.
Become a rabble rouser — donate to rabble.ca today.
Nick Seebruch, editor
