Bob Thomson, Saturday March 2, 2002

The political context

Behind the violence at the demonstrations on November 16-18 in Ottawa there was a range of political, emotional, legal and technical issues.

What was behind this charged atmosphere?

On  Sept 11, 4000 people died horrible deaths in New York and Washington. But on that same day, 30,000 people died from hunger and disease resulting from poverty. (UNDP World Development Report 2001 p.9)

And every day since, there have been 30,000 deaths from poverty.

So the world is not a perfect place. As a result, in every society and every generation there are two flames burning
- the flame of anger against injustice and
- the flame of hope that a better world is possible

Today, many police officers and firefighters are being consumed by the flame of anger at the injustice of the deaths of their comrades in New York.  In some parts of the world and among some police, this anger, understandable as it is, has become irrational.

At the same time, the flame of anger at the injustice of poverty and corporate greed is also burning in the general population, but especially among youth.  Some elements of youth and protest are consumed by that anger, anger at their perception of the injustice of “the system”.

There are other demonstrators however, who are warmed, and not consumed, by the flame of hope

There are not always easy ways to distinguish between these two flames. In the past three days of public hearings, you've heard from a great many people motivated to protest by both the flames of anger AND of hope.

Many of these people have been subjected to or seriously affected by the anger of heavily armed police.

For their own reasons, some good, some very bad, the police chose to believe that a small number of young people, about 50 (100 at the very most) affiliated with a not very homogeneous group called the "Black Bloc", were capable of causing great damage and violence during public demonstrations. And it is true that the frustration of these young people with "the system" has led them to the belief that it can only be changed through confrontation.

Some Black Bloc members believe that violent confrontation and property damage will cause a violent police reaction which will demonstrate to the general population that "the system" itself, including the police as its defenders, is corrupt.  Others among them believe that, while violence is “ideologically correct” under these terms, it is tactically ineffective. This sub-group choose to demonstrate the imbalance of power in society and in demonstrations by catapulting teddy bears at the police, as they did in Quebec City last April 20, 2001 in demonstrations against the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas.

Many other demonstrators, definitely the majority, believe that, while people must be confronted with the contradictions of poverty and "the system", they know that most Canadians will not listen if these confrontations are violent and involve personal or property damage.

That's part of the context and it’s a volatile mix.

Despite Chief Bevan's statement to the Ottawa Police Services Board (OPSB) on November 26, 2001 that the policing of the G20, IMF and World Bank meetings was an "intelligence led” operation, I don't think the police have truly made an effort to understand these politics and to develop appropriate police operations which respect and balance political rights and the right to property and safety.

The Panel has heard that the police held several meeting with business people to explain why the Police had decided to shut down the centre of Ottawa, but that the police avoided meeting with those people representing by far the majority of demonstrators who planned to demonstrate peacefully.

Many demonstrations before and since November 16-18 have shown that protest and so called normal life can co-exist.  Indeed you have heard comments to the effect that, on November 17th, there was peace when the police were not present in provocative numbers and dress. I have heard reports that there are some business people who believe the police unnecessarily exaggerated the potential for violence prior to November 16-18.

The police will argue that they could not trust the peaceful demonstrators to keep unruly elements from acting violently.  They did not even know however, that there were in fact groups within the crowd with the specific purpose of doing this. They did not know that the Black Bloc (remember, about 50 people), had given their word that, at that time and place, they would not endanger their fellow marchers through direct action and confrontation. And they kept their word.

Conversations with police officers in the foyer at OPSB meetings show that the police did not know about the deliberate actions of the Pagan women and others to provide a buffer between confrontational and peaceful demonstrators.  Or that there is a Quaker led peace brigade in Ottawa which could have helped to enforce these understandings about non-violence at specific times and places.

This information about the intents of different actors, about the discussions and differences over “diversity of tactics” is widely and openly available on the internet. I personally did not participate in any of the planning for the November 16-18 demonstrations, yet I was aware of the positions of the different actors well in advance of going downtown on Friday and Saturday to observe and/or participate in the demonstrations.

In short, the police do not understand and chose not to trust nor respect, the thousands of citizens who wished to peacefully demonstrate their hope that there is a better world than that offered by the G20, the World Bank and the IMF.

Since the police do not seem to wish a dialogue on these issues, those of us who want to carry out peaceful demonstrations are forced to rely on the letter of "law" to ensure that the imbalance of power represented by the police authority to carry weapons is not abused.

Unfortunately, the demonstrations on November 16-18 show clearly that this “law” is not a very effective "weapon" in our "arsenal".  The police demonstrated very clearly on those days that they are not capable of respecting their own standards and internal "laws". Subsequent lack of action by the Ottawa Police Services Board in the face of serious and well documented evidence of police abuse show us that policing, in what we assumed was a democratic society, is not under the control of “the law” or of elected officials.  The recent lack of scrutiny of the Ottawa Police Services budget is but another example of this lack of scrutiny.

Police Policies

In this regard then, I want to bring the Panel's attention to a number of Ottawa Police Services’ policies which govern their operations and which were patently violated on the weekend of November 16-18, 2002.

First, I want to thank the Police for providing us with these policies, although it was not without delay. They are now available on the web site of the Citizens Panel at http://members.rogers.com/citizenspanel. I have made as yet unsuccessful efforts to obtain the Ontario Solicitor General’s “Ontario Police Standards Manual (2000)” as well.

From the Ottawa Police DRAFT protests and demonstrations policy

Members of the OPS remain neutral and take action only after the situation has been carefully assessed.

Police officers were not neutral and they did not carefully assess the situation at Lebreton Flats.

They did not hold adequate discussions with the group of demonstration organizers responsible for that particular action at Lebreton Flats that day. If their assertions and comments to the press since are any indication, they came to the conclusion that because one McDonalds window was broken on Friday, there would be widespread violence on Saturday morning. The fact that the Saturday morning march with speeches at the Supreme Court was to be peaceful, and that the small group of confrontational "diversity of tactics" proponents would act at the barricades in front of the Conference Centre AFTER the speeches at the Supreme Court, was widely advertised and known for days, even weeks, before. The arguments and positions of these demonstrators which led to these decisions was openly carried in a public mailing list on the internet. Those of us with an interest in these debates made the mistake of believing that the police were as capable of understanding this “intelligence” as we were.

This was NOT an intelligence led approach to police operations - or if it was, there was a massive failure of intelligence.

Reading again, from the OPS draft demonstrations policy:

When assigned to the scene of a protest or demonstration, members shall maintain a position of impartiality in dealing with all parties involved.

The police did not deal impartially with demonstrators. You have heard that police officers on numerous occasions use profane and crude language in communicating with demonstrators. The police did not respect the right of the media to cover these events on behalf of the public. You have heard how several journalists were attacked by dogs, beaten by police officers and taunted by officers who didn't think that the media was any different from demonstrators, who the police clearly treated as violent and anti-social despite the lack of evidence of such behavior.

Upon receiving notification of a protest or demonstration ....the Supervisor shall...emphasize to personnel assigned the need to act in an impartial manner.

Given the stories that we have heard about the language used and behavior by police officers toward demonstrators, I would like to know at what point in their briefings in preparation for these police operations, police were advised that they must act in an impartial manner.

Upon receiving information that a potentially violent protest or demonstration is to take place, the Supervisor shall...arrange to have additional personnel on standby in the vicinity of the protest or demonstration, but out of view

 We have heard and we saw with our own eyes that the additional police at the head of Lebreton Flats were not out of view.

Subsequent communications with the police indicate that they may have believed that, because of the violence on Friday, there would be violence on Saturday morning. The fact that the crowd on Saturday was markedly different from the "snake dance" crowd on Friday was obvious for more than an hour prior to the beginning of this march. Again, there was a massive failure of "intelligence" here or else a pre-planned show of force which was implemented deliberately to demonstrate something other than the control of unruly crowds.

From the Ottawa Police Public Order Unit policy

Public Order Unit members shall.... when responding to a crowd management situation, initial response should be Soft Tact
Definitions:  [Soft Tact:  - crowd management where the civilian involved are relatively peaceful and the need to resort to an escalated response (i.e. Hard Tact) is not warranted]
-  [Hard Tact: - situations involving crowd management where the civilians involved are becoming progressively more hostile /threatening and an escalated response by the Public Order Unit is warranted. This response involves a number of equipment /uniform changes to facilitate this response]

It is clear that the initial response to the crowd at Lebreton Flats was “Hard Tact”. There is no evidence that the civilians involved were becoming progressively more hostile. There is no evidence that there were members of the Black Bloc group of demonstrators who could be reasonably assumed to be about to commit any offence whatsoever. There is no evidence that any of the members of the group of demonstrators were carrying weapons.

There was an assumption by the Police that there were violent people with weapons in this group of demonstrators which the Police felt warranted their endangering the safety of hundreds of other people to arrest or interdict these allegedly violent people.

What is the evidence for this. Four people were charged as a result of these demonstrations, out of the 50 or so demonstrators who were detained. One of those charges has already been dropped. All charges I understand are for “mischief” or even lesser charges. I do not know if any of the four people charged were arrested on the Friday or on the Saturday during or after the Saturday morning demonstration.

The “weapons” displayed at the November 26, 2001 OPSB meeting were not all weapons. I have a photo here of the police “capturing” a bundle of 1” x 1” placard sticks at Queen and Elgin at 5 pm on Saturday November 17th which were bundled together and displayed as “weapons” by the police. This is extremely misleading, even dishonest.

From the Ottawa Police Canine Unit Policy

In regards to Crowd Control:  ...canine will be used only in a defensive support for crowd control and will not normally be released in a crowd control situation.

You have heard ample evidence that the police used dogs as an offensive "weapon" on November 16th & 17th.

As a result of the RCMP Complaints Commission investigation of police behavior in St-Sauveur in May 1997, the Commission recommended, and RCMP Commissioner Zaccardelli accepted in January 2001, that “only in exceptional circumstances are police dogs to be in direct contact with demonstrators during rallies and riots”.

I believe the Ottawa Police, or the Ontario Provincial Police, or the Metro Toronto Public Order Unit must justify the so called exceptional circumstances which justified the direct use of dogs against the public. I don’t believe they can justify this and it is evident from Chief Bevan’s interim report to the Ottawa Police Services Board on January 28th that the Police will not respond to these concerns unless public pressure is brought to bear on them.  For example, there is no mention of dogs whatsoever in this interim report.

The Canine Coordinator/Supervisor shall.... offer reasonable assistance to anyone bitten by a police dog and encourage them to receive medical attention regardless of injuries

We have not heard of one single incident where the police made any effort to assist members of the public injured by their dogs nor helped anyone receive medical attention.
 

In addition to the Ottawa Police’s own internal policies, there are other indicators of standards to which the Police are subject as a result of Canada being a signatory to certain United Nations rights documents.

For example, Article 5 of the United Nations Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials states that:

No law enforcement official may inflict, instigate or tolerate any act of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment...

You have heard of the conditions under which a number of demonstrators were held in detention. There are reports of people being forced to endure long periods of time in cold conditions in their underwear. There are reports of demonstrators having numbers written on their bodies with red felt pens as if they were so many cattle. There are reports of police guards shouting obscenities at detained demonstrators simply because they wanted to know the time.

I haven’t had the time to look up our own Canadian Constitution in regard to these rights but I am certain that it would not be too difficult to demonstrate that the Constitutional rights of many, many citizens were flagrantly violated by police actions on the weekend of November 16-18, 2001.

In conclusion

The Police have insisted that their actions were a “measured response”, that “actions were not taken at random”, and that the men and women of the Police forces involved are to be commended for their professionalism during the G20, IMF and world Bank meetings in Ottawa. There may have been a number of professional interventions by the police, or perhaps many examples of professionalism.  However, we have heard of dozens, even hundreds of incidents of highly unprofessional and even illegal behavior.

It would be a lot easier to commend those officers who acted professionally if the Police were to admit there were indeed many examples of unprofessional behavior.  It would be easier still if the Police were to show that they are prepared to seriously deal with this behavior, through improved policies, better monitoring of adherence to policies, training and community relations re-building.