I am not quite sure what to say or do about the incident I was involved in on N17. Following the general dispersal from the "red zone" on wellington, I remained with roughly 20 protesters and onlookers on Elgin St, just north of Mackenzie King Bridge. A riot squad proceeded to push all of us southwards along elgin, despite the fact that we were demonstrating peacefully--making little noise, in fact, as there were some language barriers amongst the crowd members, and nobody had a megaphone.

Myself and other people in the group were pushed quite violently, and threatened with arrest should we not move. I began asking various officers under what grounds any of us could be arrested. The response was "obstruction". When I asked the officers to elaborate, they refused.

I had a mini-recorder with me, and when I pulled it out, the officers suddenly became mute. Finally I pulled out my pocket criminal code and asked them to tell me or show me the section of the Criminal Code under which we could be arrested or charged. They refused to do so.

I began asking the members of the police line for names and badge numbers--they were RCMP. I received absolutely no response to my requests.

I began shouting to the officers who were directing the line (members of Ottawa Police) to give me THEIR badge numbers, names, and names of supervisors. I was again ignored. I even addressed the rearward officers by the ranks displayed on their arms. One of the staff-sergeants looked my way, then promptly turned his head away. After about 20 minutes of my ranting against the police line between the War Memorial and Laurier Ave, and after the police realized there was no point in further subduing an already subdued crowd, they made a left turn, and marched away in a column.

A little while later (I think it was probably about 6pm, but I'm not positive), I was maintaining a vigil at the barricades in the red-zone.

There, one of the Ottawa Police officers who had seen me shouting at the police line approached me, and we had a brief discussion about why I was there, etc. It was mostly small-talk, however he also mentioned that police officers are not required to identify themselves anymore than the average citizen is--and he cited the Police Services Act. I have scoured the PSA to see where it would mention that, but have failed to find it.

All of this leads me to wonder how the police can be accountable for their actions if they cannot be identified. And if they are not accountable, what is the difference between the police and your average, run-of-the-mill streetgang?