“This first approach was fairly tentative—largely nonviolent protesters dipping their toes into the water. Initially, the protesters were outnumbered by the cops, but then as more and more of them converged, they eventually outnumbered the police and started drawing closer and closer to the line: taking pictures, chanting, singing, screaming invective. “
More at The Torontoist (h/t subversible).
Not so related; “Sir, I’m going to ask you to move along. There’s really nothing to see here.” I’m staying off that particular bandwagon, but then again, I don’t pull over at the side of the road to rubberneck at accidents, either. In short, what appears to have started out as a police request to “move along” rapidly escalates into mockery and a overwhelming show of police non-violence.
“But civilian photographers will be rebuffed with a force in equal contradistinction to that not being applied to the rioters themselves.”
Except, you know, there was no force. They stuck around for 5 minutes and left under their own steam.
(By the way – who the hell picks a G20 weekend to hold their pro-Israel rally? I thought Jews were the smart ones?)
Aaron,
Ulm, Caribanna and Pride may be community events but they require government permits so that they can shut down and restrict sections of the city. And they include lots and lots of “foreigners”….xenophobic much? And you said I had a village mentality….too quote you…DUDE???!!!
Each festival is a creation not a traditional event, whatever that means.
If I read you correctly you are saying that a cop cant even talk to you unless you are committing a crime?
So I take it from your statement that your just angry the G20 was here in the first place, and anything that flows from that is wrong, no matter what.
Thats ok I can accept that as a position..I just thought you were willing to discuss the particular law. Hard to know what you were so angry about since it seems to be, well, everything.
Phantom:
“brick60, you don’t have a problem when cops come and roust you for standing across the street filming them? How about for just standing there? Me, I don’t like that.”
Phantom, I don’t like it either. But major crimes were committed the day before, the cops were angry. Common sense says stay home and watch the movie matinee on Turner Classic Films. If not, don’t be surprised to run into testy cop or two.
Like another poster said, if there’s a hurricane, get out of town. Don’t be surprised when it hits. Common sense.
Pakin or the NP photographer getting busted are one thing, I’ll grant you. But Shaidle and Arnie gave more than they took, and are acting like victims. They aren’t victims.
Aaron have you ever thought that maybe your watch spring is wound a little to tight?
I don’t see any real need to debate this to death, some people in the free speech movement saw this as an opportunity to dramatize what we all know is a gradual erosion of our rights and freedoms, others saw it as a misguided effort that prompted predictable reactions from officers under stress (and plausibly without the best of training or orientation).
It would not be worth any permanent divisions or bad feelings. We need to get back to the task of challenging lawfare, Section 13 excesses, and the general over-ripening of political correctness in Canada. The details are not that significant here, and the events in Toronto did not really change the fundamental equation.
The whole problem is that our conservative political forces are diluted almost beyond recognition, yet they continue to do enough good things to keep the “free speech movement” as broadly defined in two minds as to whether to bail out totally or keep hoping for improvements.
I really think the focus needs to be on a united appeal to the PM this summer, as in Stephen Harper, listen for once, it’s the death of a thousand cuts, and not in the right places. We get caution, but these are troubled times and we need action more than delay … and your time to act is running short.
I’m getting the feeling that some posters here are confused about where Arnie and Kathy were. They were BLOCKS and BLOCKS away from where the G-20 protesters were rioting/demonstrating.
Surely, it’s their right to take photos/videos at a very small pro-Israel rally at a completely different venue. Pro-Israel rallies in Toronto have never been known to be rowdy, unless you factor in the pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel crowd.
I’m pretty sure that Kathy and Arnie have seen how the police here in Toronto treat law-abiding, pro-Israel folks — not well, asking them to move along and stop asking questions — in contrast to their acquiescence to hopped up, hate-speech- calling, pro-Hamas/Hezbollah supporters. (And, BTW, given the absolute mayhem here this weekend, overall, I think the police did a pretty good job, except for allowing the thugs on Yonge Street to smash windows with no arrests and torch police cars all over the downtown core.)
IMO, Arnie and Kathy are getting a bum rap here by some posters who either think they were taking photos at the G-20 protest or who think they should have been more sensitive to the police. Although I’m totally on the side of law and order and am a scrupulously law-abiding citizen (right down to signaling my turns whether or not there’s someone behind me at 2:00 in the morning), as far as I’m concerned no police officer should be let off the hook when it comes to respecting citizens’ rights IF those citizens are being peaceful. Come on; taking photos doesn’t constitute any infringement of the law.
Sadly, policing today in hyper-multicultural Toronto has become very much more politically correct than it used to be when upholding the law scrupulously and blindly was the norm. It seems all too common that police officers are counseled to avert their eyes and suspend usual practice when dealing with anyone who is a member of a visible minority of which neither Kathy nor Arnie qualify.
Police officers seem much more prone to hitting on individuals and groups they can be pretty sure won’t take them to the HRCs, while tip-toeing around some outrageous, and even illegal, behaviour if it’s perpetrated by a visible minority.
I live in Toronto and navigate our multicultural mean streets every day. I can relate to Kathy and Arnie’s POV.
The only thing revealed by this debacle. Was the timidity of the Police. In the spirit of political correctness that has become Canada.
With its tiered legal system (Law its not, nor equal) of multicultural confusion. Part of the CHRC Kangaroo courts delusions. Seeping into Canadian reality, from its Marxist cave.
This mentality will splinter this Nation into tribes & clans. With the most vicious like bullies in school, the most protected by whats left of any semblance of law.
It was not Toronto under judgment this week.
Both PC with its willing slave multiculturalism.
Run by fanatical thugs who are lawless themselves.
Moral revisionists, pretending to righteousness. What a joke.
These baboons where the true ones being looked at by the public. They failed, how could it be otherwise from savages?!!!!
JMO
RE: police
What Ice Cube said.
Also, I think ET’s initial comment best sums-up my POV
Aaron
I get your argument, and agree somewhat; your view is reasonable. What’s not reasonable, is your inability to recognize the validity of the opposing argument. You tact is seriously hampering your arguments persuasiveness. JMO
Most of you have no clue as to the geography and size of Toronto.
Kathy and Arnie were far from the rioting – perhaps somewhat close to the U of T quarters where the Quebec anarchists stayed – but definitely on the edge of the most chi chi part of twon – Yorkville, the Collonade, Hazelton Lanes, etc.
Arnie likely had his camcorder for the Israel demo, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable for him to have put it to use on Bloor when he saw some perps in police custody.
Sorry, the mayor and the cop leadership, like the scum, are in the wrong on this. They go for the easiest marks. They did nothing when Yonge Street got busted up on Saturday but then they got tough with a bunch of metrosexuals on Sunday night.
I wish they’d take that act to Caledonia, but I won’t hold my breath.
oops, bad grammar…
Your tact is seriously hampering your argument’s persuasiveness.
fixed
Hey, Revnant Dream! We’re channeling each other — or is the Holy Spirit speaking the same message to us?
As we have both pointed out, there’s no longer equality before the law here in Alice’s Wonderland north of ’49. ‘Used to be that the cops would arrest ANYONE smashing private property or torching a police car. Now, they have to stop and ask themselves WHO’s doing the smashing and torching. If they’re a member of a visible minority or belong to a certain political class, the police step gingerly and, from the POV of blindly administering the law, they don’t seem to be doing that anymore.
We’re in big trouble. The train that exploded off the track this weekend has been barreling down the track for a long time — and there are lots more coming.
Starting again.
2000 people outside Police HQ, rumours of Black Bloc in the area.
All peace and love….lets see what happens
> Aaron have you ever thought that maybe your watch spring is wound a little to tight?
At least I am not shoving my fists into anyone’s faces.
“Most of you have no clue as to the geography and size of Toronto.”
Apparently they were close enough to the action that the police had protesters apprehended. But that’s beside the point. “Move along, please, there’s nothing here to see” doesn’t qualify as police over-reach, whether those requested to move be gawkers filming a protest on Queen street, or gawkers at a crash on a rural highway.
It’s legitimate police work to keep traffic moving.
The cop was right – with rights come responsibilities. One of those includes acting like a grown up in a potentially volatile situation. At no time was there any indication that the police were inappropriate towards those arrested. Indeed, one gets the sense that the mere fact that police on the scene outnumbered the suspects was something to ridicule.
I frankly don’t get it. When it comes to rights issues, there’s picking your battles, and there’s picking your battles. Then, there’s creating something out of nothing to prove a point.
Wrong time, wrong place, wrong motivation.
Correction to my above post: Kathy and Arnie were not at a pro-Israel rally on Bloor Street, but as citizens of the city far from the core of the agitation, they were within their rights to photograph the arrests they witnessed.
Heck. Look at all of the cameras clicking on Saturday. All of my other arguments stand.
I think you’re all being a little hard on Shaidle and her spouse. She’s one of the good guys. If you think she screwed up, so OK. Don’t take one small incident and use it to vilify her.
Personally I don’t know what to think about the issue other than her detractors seem to be a little bit knee-jerk.
Wrong time, wrong place,
Right on Kate.
Reminds me of my buddy back in the ’70s taking pictures of the flight line at CFB Bagotville. A rather imposing Military Police Officer squinted at the sun through my buddy’s newly exposed film as his heel ground buddy’s camera into the tarmac. Wrong time, wrong place just as he had been warned.
It’s legitimate police work to keep traffic moving.
They were on foot. Across the street.
At no time was there any indication that the police were inappropriate towards those arrested. Indeed, one gets the sense that the fact that police on the scene outnumbered the suspects was something to ridicule.
I don’t get that sense, although there were 15 thousand cops in the city making double time and they did nothing on Saturday when Yonge Street and Queen Street got trashed. So if that’s the “sense,” it’s understandable given that the police choose to do nothing about real lawlessness and instead chose to dream up some imagined lawlessness.
The cops had no problem letting the rubber neckers hang around the streets for the entire night, look at the videos all over the net the riot tourists were having a grand time. So why did the cops allow those leftarded flakes roam the city all night but the next day they were shaking down journalists and law abiding citizens. Sorry but I suspect the media’s negative reporting on the police’s failure to stop the damage of private property spurned them into making a public spectical of being all nice and law and orderly except the bad guys were gone so they appear to of decided to pick on law abiding citizens.
Perhaps there was no abuse of the arrested because the cameras were rolling, who knows?
There was no cameras outside of Jonathan Logan’s home when he was strip searched for hunting groundhogs.
Careful with what you call for, Kate.
Stick with the program here. A specific cop has been singled out and identified by badge number, along with an allegation that he somehow acted inappropriately. That badge number has now been carried into the greater conservative blogosphere.
This wasn’t about “15,000 cops”, or Queen street, or police deployment, or rules of engagement.
It’s singling out one cop as an individual, who does not have the professional right to respond in public.
Well, I didn’t see him acting inappropriately. I didn’t see him use any “force”. That’s my beef with this incident, and trying to attach the alleged misdeeds of other police, at other times, in other places, towards other people is just sloppy defense argument.
This isn’t the complaint of a third party witness. If rights were violated, then file the damned complaint, and follow it through. If they’re worth filming and bleating about, they’re worth defending the hard way, right?
Using the blogosphere in such a manner is just dirty pool.
It’s a simple matter. Shaidle posted a piece of victimology, grievance theatre that many adults didn’t buy. She reacts to the fair criticism with:
“Disappointing that some of you (even some of you allegedly on our side) still don’t get it.
Your visceral negative reaction to the sound of a woman asserting herself and defying “authority” says more about you than it does about me.”
I had to double check to make sure that I wasn’t reading Arianna at the Huffington Post.(Or Hanoi Jane.)
Nope, it’s Shaidle. This is the same person who has a running gag on her site that women shouldn’t be allowed to vote.
Leather jacket, check. Water skis, check. Shark tank, check. Shaidle jumps.
> A specific cop has been singled out and identified by badge number
They all act by the rule book.
They use every opportunity to polish their suspect control and their investigative wits.
And they don’t get any crap from the brass for doing so – rather opposite.
> If they’re worth filming and bleating about, they’re worth defending the hard way, right?
That’s just one person’s opinion. Another one might have thought that publicity and ridicule were more appropriate. Are you, like, trying to bully Shaidle into compliance with your behavioral ideals, which is the first sign of inner collectivism?
There is more than one way to assert rights Kate. One of them is to actually use your rights and defend their use if a police officer attempts to abridge them.
And putting the film up on your blog is an effective, cheap, way of holding the officer to account. Not account in the sense of hearings and such like; rather just a simple reminder that “To serve and protect” means just that.
Kate accused of being a collectivist.
The swarm of locusts must be next because I am sure thats one of the signs of the apocalypse.
Stick with the program? As in allow your rights to be trampled because it’s coming from some guy with a badge?
Sorry, not interested.
This is the problem with policing in Ontario. Significant lawlessness – Yonge Street, Caledonia – is ignored because it’s troublesome to the politicians and cops, but the picayune somehow draws their attention.
Aaron :
In the West we have a saying. Get off the pot or piss. Folks out here get twitchy when personnel details with added Innuendo ( I believe them ) are blared about an individual. Particularly if their in a position to be fired or hurt. Without first trying to patch it up personally. In private first. Than if they don’t fess up we call em out.
Its a cultural thing with us.
The riots and protests in Vancouver during the Olympics fizzled because (as Rex mentioned) the crowds in Vancouver let it be known they wouldn’t put up with their crap. But Toronto is Left central, and expect the nanny to look after them.
Jay, batb, rose, and others:
I would be two-hundred percent on Kathy’s side in the situation if the exchange in question occurred on a normal day, but we’re talking about a day when a massive, rolling, quickly-shifting riot of historic proportions was going on. It should reasonably be expected that one may be inconvenienced on rare occasions during an out-of-control public disturbance – like a Stanley Cup riot, for example – by a cop telling you to move along, and that they’re not going to get it right one-hundred percent of the time. It seems to me that by backing off, the officer was tacitly acknowledging that his request couldn’t justifiably be turned into a demand.
Context is important. If I’m standing with a friend on a typical day, watching the world go by – or if I’m watching a procession of non-violent protesters whom I disagree with – and a cop tells me to move along, the cop would be in the wrong, and my reaction would be functionally identical, if less quick-witted, than Kathy’s. But if I’m on the street when there’s a large-scale riot going on, and cops are mildly directing foot traffic, I’m not going to pick that moment to assert that some harried cop’s request for me to move along is an outrageous violation of my rights. I might not agree that his request is a reasonable one, but I would feel more inconvenienced than outraged. And if he backed off completely, as the officer appeared to do, I’d have even less reason to be outraged or to single him out for public criticism.
I can see both sides of the argument, and although I disagree with her subsequent actions, I can understand Kathy’s – almost limbic – reaction at the time – except for her assertion to the cop:
I’m missing something. Was Kathy suggesting that the officer treat her differently than he would treat someone who has only thirty-two readers, none of whom are politicians?
It’s probably just the way I was raised, but to me it’s never – ever – acceptable to utter any kind of quasi-threatening variant of “do you know who I am?“, whether you’re in a restaurant, or a government office, or in a lineup at Tim’s, or…when talking to a cop. Cops, more than anyone outside of impound lots, hear this sort of rank-pulling every day – typically at around 2:30 a.m., from some pompous asshole in an expensive car.
Kathy, it seems to me, has historically done a superb job of smacking down politicians who try to pull rank on regular folks, so it’s a bit confusing to see her hint at having power by proxy (“including politicians.”) One can certainly stand up for one’s rights in situations where one feels one’s rights and privileges are begin violated without trying to invoke relative social/power privilege – “you can’t do this to ME, because I’M….” That particular note was a bit large-L Liberal in my opinion, especially in the context where one is dealing with a civil servant, and it seemed inconsistent with Kathy’s ongoingly-expressed worldview, as far as I can tell. I’d call that one a mulligan.
As a motorcade driver at the G20 Summit I talked to a lot of officers, RCMP, OPP and police from across the country. I stood there at the Sheraton on both sides of the barrier as the protestors taunted the riot police, photographing them, blowing horns in their faces but these guys just stood their ground sweating in their equipment. This was not by any means everyone in the march, most were there because it was exciting and they were leftist university kids or older hippies.
Pissed me off when idiots marched by waving Marxist flags and attacking Canada but that is their right in our society but smashing vehicles and defacing streetcars are over the line. First time I have seen mob violence and it is frightening.
One guy blowing his horn in the officer’s face beside me would have had any of us wanting to shove the thing down his throat but these cops just took it, as the officer said later, as part of the job. One tactical guy even cautioned me when I started to argue with a protestor, just let it go.
Many cops wanted to stop any kind of violence on the Saturday but the message was out to allow minimal collateral damage and not overreact as this is what the media was waiting for as were the Black Block and their allies. It takes two to fight.
In my view I think the riot act should have been read on Monday and any violence would not be tolerated and met with instant force as happened on the Sunday. Any violator would be charged, tried quickly, and sentenced if guilty to long years in jail. Remember a lot of these protestors are international and this is what they do. They could care less about protesting, they are here for the violence.
Aaron, you wouldn’t want to be in the restricted zone as your ID hanging around your neck was checked constantly all day long.
I feel and discussed this that the Chinese businessman in Kensington Market, Caledonia and the Saturday violence are examples of the police turning on the very ones of our citizens that should be protected yet because they are easy targets, unlike the armed Mohawk Warriors, the police justifiably are getting a bad name as in the Air India and Vancouver airport debacles. The cops are being politicized in my view. They are great guys and ladies doing a tough job caught between a rock and a hard place.
Kathy should not have been bothered IMHO but the cops are twitchy with too many different bosses telling them different orders that change by the minute. She should have considered that and moved on. Choose your battles carefully.
It is not just the G20 now; it is a G33 with the additional observer groups like the IMF, EU, UN and NGOs attending. Huge logistics to set this up and coordinate everything. This Summit is growing and must be held in certain locals with airports and large conference centres now
I don’t see that holding the G20 in some isolate place will stop the thugs who use the event to create havoc. They’ll simply hold THEIR violent ‘reaction-to-the-Evil-Capitalists’ in the nearest large city. It could have been held in Muskoka – and the riots could have been carried out in Toronto or Ottawa.
Second, I don’t understand the rationale for holding a pro-Israel rally at a time when the international press members will be focused only on the G20 and will presumably neither have the time nor interest to go find the rally. How, operationally, would this rally help Israel when it would effectively go unnoticed or, even, might have been used as a diversion by the left..and attacked? Remember, these G20 political activists are the left and the left is anti-Israel.
Third, were the people who were being arrested asked if they wanted their pictures taken by Kathy and Arnie?
Fourth – I think we are getting carried away with the term ‘fundamental rights’. There’s no fundamental right to not provide a police officer with one’s identification – particularly in an area during a major international conference with known threats and known acts of violence. This can’t be understood as a random request; Aaron refuses to recognize the context of the event.
And you don’t give your ID AFTER a charge but before one. Does a police officer who pulls you over for…first charge you and then ask for your ID?
And there are no fundamental rights to photograph anyone or anything. It doesn’t, unfortunately, say a word about this in the charter. But there is common sense. Dave’s post and those of others, shows this common sense.
The arrogance of many of the protesters, who, as I said, for the most part, have only a shaky and superficial notion of what-to-protest, and yet, who feel that they have some inalienable right to rant and yell at the world about their agenda…incredible.
Kathy’s ‘do you know who I am’ has shades of Obama’s ‘I’m the President’ tone.
Aaron – your complaint that police ‘all act by the rule book’..is that a complaint? Do you prefer that they ignore the rules?
My own view is that the police acted superbly and professionally this weekend. The thugs and the spineless leftist protesters..acted like thugs and spineless leftist protesters.
EBD – I’m with you, I see both sides of this. While it would never occur to me to try to speak for Kathy – or anyone, but especially Kathy – I think her “I have 10,000 readers. Including politicians” remark probably wasn’t an attempt to pull rank. My guess is that it was more along the lines of letting the officer know that he had mistreated (as she obviously saw it) someone who was in a position to publicize the fact.
ET, you write, “There’s no fundamental right to not provide a police officer with one’s identification – particularly in an area during a major international conference with known threats and known acts of violence. This can’t be understood as a random request; Aaron refuses to recognize the context of the event.”
Actually there is. A police officer must have probable cause to detain or question you or require ID. Now they are certainly allowed to politely ask for your ID and you have the option of refusing to provide it.
Your remark as to the area Kathy and Arnie were in are beside the point. They were not in the security zone.
As to the right to photograph things: you can photograph buildings, people and even arrestees who are in public. That is what “in public” means. Now, a person might assert some sort of privacy claim against your publication of the photograph but that is very hard to win.
I agree with you as to the spineless protestors; however, while the officers in the line behaved well their leadership completely dropped the ball. It was insane not to anticipate and be prepared for the vandals on Yonge Street and Queen. The manpower was available but the will was not.
And this is what you get if you don’t take the need to assert your rights seriously:
“It happened just a few minutes ago. I was sitting down on University Avenue, when a group of police officers approached me and said they wanted to talk to me. Stunned, I opened my mouth getting ready to reply to the request, when one of the officers at the top of his lungs yelled: “I DON’T GIVE A f*ck WHAT YOU THINK!”
Another officer said they didn’t want to hear about my rights.
They then proceeded to demand I remove the earphones from my ears, forcing me to get off the phone with my colleague. I told them I was on the phone to which another officer responded, “we don’t care.”
Then they said they wanted to search my bag, because I was “wearing a black shirt”. To which I replied, that I did not consent to any searches. I told them that I would not resist them, and that any search they conducted was under protest. They simply said, “we don’t care. We want to make sure you don’t have any bombs to kill us with.”
They demanded I present identification, once again I complied under protest. To which they told me they didn’t care again. mike brock, western standard
Cops know that bystanders taking video of an arrest draws more bystanders and that, just like a pack of dogs, mobs are unpredictable and dangerous. The cop was doing his job and Ms Shaidle and Mr Shaidle are being juvenile.
What you’re missing, EBD, is Kathy. Kathy, like Aaron, and most of us, have most of the experiences each of us have because those are the experiences, deep down, each of us wants to have. We unconsciously allocate resources to achieve the effects we desire. Interestingly, perhaps, experienced observers can “smell” those resource allocations, and the entertained officer in this case probably first smelt that Shaidle is a difficult loudmouth, and then ascertained that she is a harmless crank, and so he then chuckled off to attempt to deal with something interesting.
Yeah, sure, gratuitous ad hominems are not called for, yet for years now we have regularly read first- hand report after report from people like Kathy and Aaron (and, fortunately, not most of us) that their lives are an endless litany of being unreasonably put-upon. What’s the common thread in each case, across all (at least to the knowledge of our reports) circumstances? The hominem.
Which brings us to the perhaps interesting question of: why do we behave the way we do? My theory is as first presented above: we continually tend to experience what we report because that’s the legacy of our investment.
IMO Kathy does far more good than harm, Vίtruvius, and we need more people like her. We certainly have enough Canadians who don’t feel even slightly put upon when, oh, I don’t know, their *neighbour’s* house and property is taken from them by native thugs, or when someone they go to see speak can’t do so. We’d need the “hey, it doesn’t affect me” crowd to balance things out if not for the fact that we’ve already got way too many of them.
Recent events – speeches canceled by mob-rule threats – show that the public square is increasingly off-limits to conservatives, supporters of Israel, etc. Militant Muslims and leftists have been effectively shutting down public expressions of opinions they don’t like, both here and in Europe. This *will* have consequences down the road. People like Kathy and Arnie have been out there at the front lines doing what other citizens (albeit, not all of them; that’s a given) will probably find themselves having to do in the not-too-distant future: stand there and say “I will not be intimidated into silence. I’m standing my ground.”
As for being “put upon,” Kate and Mark Steyn and Ezra and Kathy and many others all make the case, in their own manner of speaking, that we’re being “put upon,” whether we’ve completely realized it yet or not, by idiots who want to rule everyone else. I think that they are, in each case, just a little more principled and, especially, more prescient than others, and that it’s this prescience, as much as any mis-allocation of psychic resources, that explains the difference between them and the average Joe, who tends more to not want to know about anything that doesn’t effect him yet.
Does Kathy ever step out of bounds? Well, just take a look. But I suggest that in the Canadian context, she’s been one of that select group who have been advancing the ball up the field, as it were.
Like I said, it’s a mulligan. Or she stepped out of bounds. Pick your metaphor; point is, those events are just part of the game.
batb
Its getting pretty apparent to all. That this period of time is becoming more Chaotic by the year.
If one reads the Bible nothing is surprising these days. IMO we are in a Biblical era of great change.
In the end. We people of the Book have known this day was coming for a long time. In fact I don’t think there is an era more talked about than this one we inhabit prophetically in scripture.
Of course its not the end of the World, but a new beginning.
Sadly no Nation lasts forever. The center (as the poem says) will not hold for long. When men with minds like swords run with vigorousness to cleave whats good by twisted word, while gorging on iniquity. Calling it truth
JMO
Jay Currie 9:36
Your friend’s situation is not cool.
But that’s not what happened with Mr. and Mrs. Shaidle. The cop showed restraint and left the scene. Still, they proceeded to taunt him. Shaidle clucked on about her web stats and says she knows “politicians.” It was pathetic, and people are rightly calling her on it.
Jay,
I wouldnt know whether the guy from the Western Standard was telling the story as it actually happened, embellishing it or underselling it. All I can say for sure is that he is one side of it.
Additionally, why didnt he outright refuse rather than protest if he felt those were his rights. The cops didnt threaten him or physically manhandle him in the quote.
And Jaysus, wearing a black T shirt at a protest two days after the Black Block tactic was used to violent effect. While its his right, its also obtuse given the context. Maybe thats why the writer knew to provide consent under protest, because in this context wearing black with a backpack means probable cause…..and I bet a court would agree. A month ago it wouldnt have been, and a month from now it wont be. But today it is.
Its a charming quality, this innocence we have as Canadians.
jay currie – I didn’t remark about the ‘area Kathy and Arnie were in’. I was talking about Aaron’s rejection of such a request from a police officer.
My comment about Kathy and Arnie was actually that I don’t think that it’s a ‘right’ to take anyone’s picture! That includes those being arrested. I can understand taking a picture of a violent act (burning cars, trashing windows) but to take pictures of people arrested – seems intrusive to me.
Equally – the officer, Jay, couldn’t have said that he didn’t care about the person’s rights UNLESS that person had already started to talk to that officer about ‘his rights’. Again, his statements that their search was ‘under protest’ was equally irrelevant to the reality. The reality was that black shirts was a symbol of a specific group of criminal activity at the demonstrations and his claim to ‘rights’ was not relevant to this. And his claim that he was ‘talking to a colleague’ was equally irrelevant; he could have been talking to someone else in the ‘Black Bloc’ agenda. How were the police to know he wasn’t? So, his feelings of having been a ‘victim’ are empty and vain.
Batb “(right down to signaling my turns whether or not there’s someone behind me at 2:00 in the morning)”
I do that too! When I have young adults with me in the car they think I’m nuts for doing so though!
Stephen,
Are you for real? This is in the neighbourhood where I live, and I was nowhere near a protest. They were totally power tripping, and they took advantage of the fact there were no nearby witnesses to totally verbally abuse me.
I did not resist them for the same reasons. I noted that I was complying under protest. Which in a situation where I had no third-party observer to back me up, was probably the tactically right thing to do.
They likely would have used any intransigence on my part as an excuse to charge me with “disturbing the peace”, thrown me in prison for 23 hours, and then dropped the charges and let me go the next day, like they’ve been doing with many other people.
Excuse me if I didn’t want to be subjected to that. I have a wife and daughter to come home to.
Mike, just out of curiosity – and I don’t mean to be confrontational here, I’m a curious agnostic on the matter – why were you “sitting down on University Avenue” in a black T-shirt during the riot?
It was a disaster.
I was two feet away from the arsonist as he lit the last police car on fire in Toronto.
I was the second guy he tried to borrow a lighter from to light it,
and the only one within earshot speaking out against it. I also figured after a while I was about to get cracked over the back of the head with a rock if I kept yapping.
I called 911 and walked 10 feet toward Spadina.
It’s was really unbelievable to witness.
No cops…
The cops should have driven into the middle of it and filled the patty-wagons, there’s no mistaking the guys with bandannas over their faces they were the ones there to wreck shit and should have been locked up for wearing a disguise.
There were a lot of young kids, amateurs and guys from the neighbourhood, but the pros all covered their faces they should have been stopped.
A few teams of ten cops could have walked down Queen St and handled the punks who smashed the windows and set the cruisers on fire.
The cops were lined up in hugely overpowering numbers around the corner, protecting the imaginary line of nothing as Queen St burned.
For those that disagree with Arnie and Kathy come to Toronto for any…ANY demonstration and witness for yourself the fact the cops are always looking the wrong way.
Just like Caledonia here in Toronto the cops are always making sure that the Hamas and Hezz flag wavers are not getting harassed at their Anti-Israel marches, and University and the core gets shut down any time the Tamil Tigers or any other terrorist supporting group of identifiable @**#*!s and their brothers decide they want to.
The cops are always “protecting” the bad guys and in your face for every “checkin za paperz” routine imaginable for the locals.
With the barricades and 15,000 extra cops this week it was full police state over the top freak show disaster.
Mike, oh yes they would have. And been really happy about doing it too.
I’ve been in the back of more than a couple of cop cars in my day, being questioned over not a g-d d@mn thing. Just driving down the road, doing the speed limit, surprise! Guys with guns are up in my face telling me to roll up my sleeve to make sure I’m not some other “The Phantom” who has a scar on his right arm or we go downtown and I don’t get to go home tonight.
You know what? Kathy’s response to a guy who walked all the way across the street to get up in her face is 100% solid f-ing gold.
Cops have power over the rest of us. A lot of it. When they abuse it, its good they get a rap on the knuckles. Next time some pinhead having a bad day gets up in your face, ask them if they want to be famous.
Sunshine is the best disinfectant.
Mike, just out of curiosity – and I don’t mean to be confrontational here, I’m a curious agnostic on the matter – why were you “sitting down on University Avenue” in a black T-shirt during the riot?
Posted by: EBD at June 28, 2010 11:03 PM
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Actually, 2 nights after the major rioting, although the same day of an OCAP and others protest in front of police HQ on Bay.
University is one of Toronto’s finest avenues, with flowerbeds, fountains, benches, and as EMG pointed out, the occasional ugly statuary running up the middle.
The Ontario legislature is near the top. Behind it is the beautifully treed Queen’s Park, and beyond that the ROM.
Lots of places to sit on a nice night.
I’ve seen reports on TV of people being repeatedly stopped and searched – during daylight hours – on Yonge today.
Was there a memo or something from ether a) the PMO, b) the Premiers’ Office, c) City Hall, d) the Police Chief that I missed which said every cop at every moment was doing a brilliant job and all the people with cameras or, perish the thought, a black t-shirt, were dirty anarchists and potential bombers?
Damn, I hate it when I’m left off the talking points list.
Well Jay, you can either nab the guys as they’re busting windows, or you can wait two days and grab everyone on two legs, hoping that a few bad guys are in the mix.
I’d go with the former but what do I know.
No Jay, there wasn’t any kind of memo. The salient point is that if one is going to complain about cop behaviour – if one is concerned about violations of civil liberties – one’s complaint would have more merit and efficacy if it originated at a time when there’s not a massive riot going on. There’s a huge difference between a cop telling someone to move along during a massive riot and a cop doing so for no good reason on some other quotidian occasion – it’s night and day. It’s beyond me why so many people are dramatically, mulishly disinclined, to the point of obstinacy, to even begin to acknowledge this distinction.
Nobody in their right mind would cross a yellow crime-scene tape and stand there and claim their rights are being violated by a cop telling them to move on. Well, it’s sadly the case that when enough lowlife scumbag leftists are mingling with rubbernecking bystanders, the whole scene becomes a – nominal – crime scene. The only proper thing for the rubberneckers to do in such a situation is to *get the F out of the area,* or, if they live in the area, give the police a break by staying in their homes, and then, in the days and weeks to follow, put the blame squarely where it belongs: on the idiot leftist rioters.
Would a Stanley Cup riot, for example, be the best place to assert your right to stand and mill about wherever you want? Or would it maybe be better – assuming one’s concern is with the violation of rights – to focus on non-riot moments of ‘violation’?
There’s a world of difference between cops violating civil liberties in a non-riot zone (as was the case, I would strongly suggest, when when some cop approached Arnie and made it seem like he was the problem after he’d been menaced and threatened by an anti-Israel protester) and cops telling someone who’s almost pruriently standing up for their “rights” – all of a sudden – at the precise moment when there’s a large-scale, mobile, street-by-street riot going on. Acknowledging the distinction between a normal city scene and a riot zone doesn’t amount to a concomitant claim that cops have a right to violate people’s civil liberties whenever they want. Anyone who suggests or implies otherwise is either looking a little too hard for a personal drah-mah that suits their particular narrative or is living too much in the world of ideas; they’re not being reasonable, in the most manifest sense of the word.
A lot of us who are absolutely staunch, end-of-the-world supporters of freedom of speech and civil liberties understand that anyone who heads straight for the precise location where liberties are *temporarily* and justifiably buffered for security reasons are just providing cover and justification for the plaintive cries of rioters who – always, because it’s essentially their only point – claim that human rights are being violated. Why not just stay off the streets when there’s a riot? Why would anyone who opposes the rioters, and the disruptions they’re causing, choose to mill about among them and then subsequently blame the police for being unable to properly differentiate between a troublemaker and an innocent-appearing rubbernecker?
The cause of the liberty-oriented crowd is just, but the timing, in this case, is not only selfish, and mulish, but dumb. It’s counterproductive to the point of being *retarded.*
Life 101: if a bunch of stinky rioters whose cause you oppose are rampaging through the streets, don’t stand among them and start harassing the cops. If it’s just a normal day, and cops tell you to move along for no good reason, well, have at ’em; reasonable people will actually listen to your complaints about how you were treated. In a riot situation, *get off the streets*.
Brick60 stop pulling on Kathy’s pig tails we all know you secretly lurve her.