Toronto Police Swear off Kettling

Toronto police will never again use the controversial crowd control technique known as kettling, which was employed for the first and last time in the city’s history during last year’s G20 summit.

The decision was revealed to the Star in a police statement Tuesday, along with the information that two Toronto police superintendents were “responsible” for commanding and controlling G20 policing in the city outside the security fence.

On June 27, the final day of the G20 summit, some 300 protesters and bystanders were boxed in, or kettled, by riot police at Queen St. and Spadina Ave. for about four hours.
Not long after the enclosure, rain began to fall in torrents as some stood shivering in summer dresses and tank tops.

“The crowd control technique implemented at Queen & Spadina on June 27 will not be used again by the Toronto Police Service,” spokeswoman Meaghan Gray said in the statement, a response to a list of G20-related questions sent by the Star.

They won't concede it was a mistake to use it at the G20 - being the subject of numerous legal actions that's hardly surprising - but they claim they never plan to use the tactic again,

On the one hand, good that public pressure has made the police bend on a widely condemned policing tactic, but it also just seems like they're throwing the public a bone to try to evade responsibility for the police riot that victimized so many.

And what about other police forces?  Will the RCMP and the major city forces across Canada also disavow the tactic?

UPDATE: Another thought, as the tactic was literally found illegal by British courts and the British police now face potentially millions in court costs from lawsuits from those it was used against before being outlawed, perhaps the police simply want to avoid the tactics legality being considered by a court.

Counterfit receipts aren't just a 'difference of interpretation of the rules'

Spotted at A Creative Revolution:

In total, 65 Conservative candidates had submitted nearly identical invoices; only the dollar amounts were different.

The invoices were on the letterhead of the Conservative Party's advertising purchasing agency, Retail Media.

But an Elections Canada investigator later reported that Retail Media didn't seem to know anything about the documents, with a company spokesperson saying they didn’t even look remotely like the firm's standard invoices.

One executive of the ad company "speculated that this invoice must have been altered or created by someone."

So were the other 64 invoices, in total showing $1.3 million of local advertising expenses worth a federal rebate of more than $800,000.

Elections Canada discovered most Conservative candidates didn't seem to have a clue what they were claiming.

One is quoted in court documents as saying: "I think we contributed to TV national advertising. There was no way we could spend our limit so we were asked if we can help contribute."

The appeals court was blunt, saying the ads weren't local at all.

The level of criminality and contempt for the law displayed by the Harper Conservatives has long since reached Nixonian proportions.  If they don't approve of a law they ignore it.  If they are constrained by any independent oversight they co-opt it, corrupt it or crush it.  If they see an opportunity to use their governing power to attack partisan enemies or counteract democratic opposition they take it.

At this point, bringing down this government is necessary to save this country from a criminal regime.

Ignatieff and his handlers were behind the last coalition crumbling, it is to be hoped that his poll numbers like the prospect of a hanging in the morning have focused their attention on reality.

Ahem

Hat tip to @emilydawnlove

And another little blast from the past:

”It’s not the responsibility of the Official Opposition to support the entire program of the government. Two-thirds of Canadians did not vote for this government. The Liberal party can’t expect to walk in and simply propose its own program that only one-third of Canadians supported and expect that everybody’s going to vote for it.”
Stephen Harper - Oct. 5, 2004.

The Noose Tightens

G-20 security forces are using WWII era law to extend their 'Papers, please.' mandate to outside the security zone.

Since when do Canadians have to submit to police scrutiny for strolling down the street in broad daylight? We don’t do “Papers, please.” The Charter of Rights and the age-old common law affirm our right to go peacefully about our business without having to identify ourselves to the police, much less submit to searches.

Except in Toronto at the 2010 Group of 20 summit this weekend.

As the Star reported on Friday, York University graduate student and environmental activist Dave Vasey got into potentially serious trouble when he and a friend were exploring the outside perimeter of the chain-link fence that encloses the summit site. Police stopped Vasey and demanded that he identify himself. When he balked they arrested him and held him for hours in a wire cage.

This is outrageous. If it doesn’t infringe his Charter right to “peaceful assembly,” it crowds it needlessly. No one on the outside of the security zone should face such harassment. There aren’t even any signs warning people that they are in a controlled area. But they are, as Vasey discovered to his shock.

Blame Premier Dalton McGuinty, Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair and Ontario’s Public Works Protection Act. This obscure piece of WWII-era legislation exposes people to a $500 fine and/or two months in jail if they are “attempting to enter any public work or any approach thereto” and fail to provide their name and address to a police officer or guard, or submit to a search.

Three weeks ago under the auspices of this act, the McGuinty cabinet quietly passed a regulation at Blair’s request that declares the summit zone and the area five metres beyond to be a “public work.” There was no legislative debate or even a public announcement.

Meanwhile the only major real security breach came from an out of town officer deciding to sample the local amenities and try one of those high class Toronto street hookers he'd heard so much about:

In the other incident, confirmed by security sources but not confirmed by the ISU, an out-of-town officer allegedly hired a street prostitute to accompany him to his hotel room and fell asleep following their encounter. Taking advantage of her situation, she left with some of his luggage, which included his police gear. Police officers tracked her down and recovered the items. She apparently was unaware of what she had, looking for property for financial gain and not security material. It is also not known what information was stored on the computers.

These are the clowns with the power to decide what level of civil rights you have in Toronto right now, depending in some cases on what side of the street you're standing on.

Sure we're corrupt, violent and taser happy, but that's no reason not to trust us.

The RCMP commissioner admits - because really, what choice does he have? - that the national force has had a series of 'inappropriate behaviours and violations of core values' like electrocuting Polish people, killing bicyclists while driving drunk (The same officer in both incidents!) and trying to suppress evidence of wrong doing. But the commissioner wants the public to have patience and, "It's also important for the public to have faith in the independent systems we have in place to review our activities with respect to all those incidents,"

That would be the same independent systems that determined that it was possible for an officer, while lying face down on a couch with a big heavy guy kneeling on his back throttling him from behind to pull out his gun, reach behind the guy kneeling on his back and shoot him in the back of the head. In self defense.

Well why on earth would anyone not have faith in such a clearly 'independent system'?

How do you shoot someone in the back of the head in self defense?

Paul Kennedy, chair of the commission for public complaints against the RCMP has concluded that Constable Paul Koester's story that with his face down in a couch cushion and a six foot 187 pound Ian Bush on his back throttling him, he was able to draw his weapon, reach behind his back, behind Ian Bush and shoot him in the back of the head is the truth.

Koester, who stands 6-4 and weighs 180 pounds, insisted the six-foot, 187-pound laborer was atop his back choking the life out of him when he managed to free his gun. In a physical feat even RCMP investigators conceded was worthy of a contortionist, the Constable got the gun behind his own back, up to the back of Bush's head and shot him. He refused to reenact what happened for investigators and the coroner's inquest that was held earlier this year.

The RCMP seem mystified as to why anyone could have any doubts in this version of events, firmly believe they have no image problem with the public and indignantly reject Kennedy's call for video and audio equipment in all areas where prisoners are dealt with as 'unnecessary'.

UPDATE: Gary Mason, behind a paywall, flatly says he doesn't believe the RCMP and Constable Koester's description of the death of Ian Bush:

Like many others, I don't believe his version of events. I just don't see how he could have hit Mr. Bush three times in the back of the head with the tip of his gun and then shot him, all the while being face down on a couch and with Mr. Bush lying on top of him.
The fact that Constable Koester refused on the advice of his lawyer to be part of a re-enactment at the inquest into the shooting only confirmed my doubts. Personally, I believe Constable Koester was on top of Mr. Bush, hit him three times in the back of the head with the tip of his gun and then hit him a fourth time when his gun accidentally went off.

However, in a demonstration of institutional schizophrenia, the Globe's editorial board disregards the opinion of the reporter covering the story since the beginning. They accept the RCMP version unreservedly. They call the Kennedy report that Mason dismisses as fatally compromised 'persuasive' and claim Constable Koester is 'entitled to respect and a fresh start.'

I submit that Constable Koester's fresh start should be in the neighborhood lived in by the Globe and Mail's editors dealing with their children in unmonitored RCMP backrooms.

Allegations of criminality at the highest levels of the RCMP

RCMP Chief Supt. Fraser MacAulay added: "For the past few years, the RCMP has had a small group of managers who, through their actions and inactions, are responsible for serious breeches in our core values, the RCMP code of conduct and even the Criminal Code."

The officers alleged that Zaccardelli and others blocked investigations and removed some who were asking uncomfortable questions.

In blaming the leadership, Lewis said, "A culture was created by several senior executives where it was a danger for employees to report wrongdoings."

Roll that one around in your head for a bit, really adjust yourself to the statement that within the highest echelons of the RCMP "A culture was created by several senior executives where it was a danger for employees to report wrongdoings."

There's been serious problems in the RCMP for years. Go back twenty years or so and the RCMP were the elite. More money, better equipment and more prestige than the various city police forces - that's completely switched around now and a city cop becoming a Mountie would probably be taking a pay-cut.

Morale, professionalism and management culture all appear from the outside to have taken a steep dive. A proliferation of tragic and and appalling incidents has rocked Canadian confidence in our national police force.

I still don't understand how you can shoot someone in the back of the head in self defense.

This isn't something that can be left to politicians and back rooms anymore. This can't be put off because it's inconvenient to the minority government. This needs a public enquiry, that's not even open to question now.

"A culture was created by several senior executives where it was a danger for employees to report wrongdoings."

Unreal.

Hat-tip to Bene Diction Blogs On