Serve & protect
Posted on October 31st, 2016 –
I ran across a thinly veiled op-ed in this Sunday’s Star about the changes to Toronto police vehicles, specifically that they’re being rebranded to an indistinct grey and black, ostensibly in the name of efficacy and safety.
There were a couple of things in the article that stood out like dark grey vehicles against a grey cityscape on a rainy day.
First there was a comment about police uniform changes by former Toronto police chief, OPP commissioner, and aspiring poli-tyrant Julian Fantino:
“We got that with the black shirts, this flurry of rhetoric about stormtroopers and back to the Nazi era, and on and on. In a way it was comical if not ridiculous”
It’s a far stretch to say that nazi uniforms and those of Toronto/Canadian cops are the same but drawing comparisons between their obvious similarities is neither comical, ridiculous, or unwarranted.
Perhaps these similarities are simply the result of any sufficiently demagogic and militaristic mindset. Still, if projecting a certain outward appearance isn’t so important, as Fantino insists, why not allow cops to run around in t-shirts and sweat pants?
There was another comment that Fantino made that really put the whole thing into perspective. When asked about switching OPP cruisers to their current black and white colour scheme Fantino replied:
… what inspired me was the good men and women of the OPP who wanted them back.”
The article clarifies that “He listened to what they — not the experts — said on what made them more visible and safer.”
Because that’s policing is all about: appeasing cops and keeping them safe.
This around the same time that it was revealed that the Montreal police conspired with a judge to secretly spy on a journalist to discover who his sources were. It wasn’t that the writer was suspected of breaking any laws, as if that’d be a tough thing to do, it was that he’d revealed information about two cops who were accused of fabricating evidence, lying, obstructing justice, and soliciting sexual services.
There were no charges laid. No trial was compromised. Turns out that the public just needed to be protected from discovering such damning news about their beloved police.
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