The 2010 G20 demonstrations, along with the repeated slaps to the face that Torontonians received from the courts afterwards, were about to become a clean sweep with the cops completely exonerated in caging (literally) 1,1100 innocent people and breaking  many laws in the process.

Those thousand Torontonians who had no charges laid whatsoever were submitted to quite brutal and demeaning conditions, often after being illegally assaulted by gangs of police who made up their own laws and rules as they went along.

The abuses by police far outweighed any provable good they did on that weekend which, judging by what the cops allowed to happen, had nothing to do with protecting Toronto or its citizens.

The incident of Adam Nobody, though probably more provoked than most bystanders those days, has demonstrated some of what went on that day, resulting in the first (and probably only) conviction of a cop for assault.

Constable Babak Andalib-Goortani, now convicted of assault with a weapon, plus three other officers had the chutzpah to make up vivid stories about Nobody as a troublemaker that day (having made no such notes in their notebooks). At least that’s what the judge thought. The same constable also removed his name tag and badge number before the assault.

Together these would seem to be aggravating charges, no? After all, the police viciously pile charge upon charge on innocent people they want to put the squeeze on. But as we see repeatedly they escape with, at worst, a paid vacation and the reassurance that their brothers, sisters, and supervisors are working hard to serve and protect their asses.

Among the rare times I’ve had an interaction with police that didn’t include them being confrontational and aggressive, one — some physical threats from meth-cooking neighbours — further demonstrated this simple fact to me. They went to their door first first to let them know who was complaining, then visited us to tell us that he’s known to them but that his “alleged” drug production (which the landlord spent many months and much money cleaning up after), and her “personal choice” to prostitute herself out of their premises, were none of our business and we would just have to get along. And while in our place acting like we were ticking them off with our very existence,  they took the time to snoop around, a courtesy they did not extend to the neighbours.

Not accurate? Let’s do the math:

1 conviction to 1000 wrongful arrests, assaults, Charter Rights violations, etc. = 0.1% justice rulings in favour of innocent citizens, 99.9% justice rulings in favour of armed, trained law-breaking paramilitary forces (especially on that day). The established facts are simply that when it comes to crunch time, the Toronto police do not serve and protect the community or citizens, and the courts will back them up.

Of course it’s not fair to say that all cops are in on this racket, and every once in a while we see a successful prosecution, but with numbers like these and story after story of cops getting away with pretty much anything and everything, it is completely fair and accurate to say that this corruption is systemic and far reaching.

Well, today’s his birthday, so that’s a good place to start. He turns 59 today, something to genuinely celebrate given the history of one of Toronto’s perennially peripheral figures.

Originally from England, in the early 80s Clarke suddenly found himself unemployed and decided to found the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, a group both vilified and praised for standing up for, or claiming to stand up for, the city’s poor.

Clarke doesn’t mince words or shy away from controversy, often staging demonstrations, sit-ins, and occupations to drive his message. He’s had run-ins with cops, politicians, and even the media aren’t particularly fond of him. Basically, he’s not in it for the popularity.

Although he’s not homeless, Clarke somehow manages to raise a family of two kids and a wife on a budget that verges on poverty. Prior to 1986, Clarke’s biggest investment was a vehicle — a 1980 Lada.

Clarke doesn’t like the word Marxist and instead prefers to call himself a socialist. Personally, I think the title of bellicose advocate for the poor is probably more appropriate– it’s certainly been his raison d’être.

And at the end of the day, even if you disagree with Clarke or his methods, you have to admire the man’s tenacity and willingness to stand up for justice. If the world only had more men like that in it, we’d all be leading much better lives.

Happy birthday, John.

Thanks to Judge Spiers for injecting some sanity and exonerating Byron Sonne from all charges. The courts, it seems, still provide a level of protection against police abuse. So to that end, good! However, despite being cleared of any wrongdoing, Byron has lost a year of his life, his wife, his house… again I ask what prevents the police from destroying an innocent man’s life like this in the future? What good is a flacid recognition of injustice after the fact?

Another report, another day no one will be held to account. At least this time around it looks closer to the truth, but ultimately the question is, so what? Just more “recommendations” for the police to ignore.

Even officers in place thought the situation untenable, with one describing the incident commander as “maniacal,” the report says. “Where are they going to give them a chance to disperse?” one officer asked. “They aren’t, that’s the problem,” another replied. “Well, that’s stupid.”

http://www.nationalpost.com/m/wp/news/blog.html?b=news.nationalpost.com/2012/05/16/police-violated-civil-rights-acted-illegally-says-scathing-report-on-g20-summit

I like a good protest as much as the next guy, and I’m definitely not above showing my support for the demonstrators when I think they have a point to make, but sometimes I have to question what they’re trying to achieve. Or if they bothered to give any thought to what they’re doing.

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Okay, it’s now been well over two weeks and I’m just about ready to put this puppy to bed.

But before I do, let me round out the G20 weekend for you, dear reader. Let’s start with the Black Bloc, the attention whores of the summit.  While I was trying to figure out who they are and where they came from, a few glaringly obvious pieces of evidence jumped out at me with a, “zut alors!”

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One of the most iconic images of the G20 riots a couple of weeks ago was the that of the burning police car. You know the one:

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It’s mostly the rhetoric and misinformation guiding the protest that I take exception to. After all, people were just expressing themselves and exercising their right to peaceful protest which, much to John Clarke’s chagrin, ended up actually being peaceful. There were a few arrests made along the route, that’s true, but I suspect they involved the kind of people that would get arrested any old day, protest or not.

For most of us on the street the Friday afternoon was more like a parade.

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On a scale of 1 to 3, with 1 being granola-popping tie-dyed hippies, and 3 being black bloc anarchists, the OCAP (Ontario Coalition Against Poverty) protesters on Friday would probably rate at 2. Not outright violent instigation, but prepared to throw a few punches.

You may have already seen the video in which John Clarke bluntly states, “they have given us war, we’re looking to give them war back”, and “things are not gonna to be peaceful”. This speech was given prior to the march and these quotes weren’t taken out of context. Mr. Clarke further urged protesters not to be afraid of the police which, during this protest march, made their presence clear.

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I had to see it for myself, dear reader. I knew that nothing like it would be in town for, potentially, the rest of my life. So I had to see it for myself.

I am, of course, referring to the G20 summit that shut down most of Toronto over the weekend. I’m sure most people are now well aware of the outrageous costs surrounding the event and I wanted to see what kind of security that kind of money could buy. Even more than that, I wanted to see how the situation would be handled.

At every one of these meetings there are accusations of police brutality, protest situations getting out of hand, riot police, riot police, and more riot police. I needed to see the instigators for myself and not have to rely on either the media, the police, or the protesters for the facts – they could be quite skewed in all directions. The only way I can say anything with authority is to be right there between the riot police and the balaclava’d opposition.

But I’m getting a little ahead of myself. Lots of stuff happened over the weekend but plenty happened before that. There were a number of protest marches and demonstrations throughout the city that, unfortunately, were lost in the subsequent shuffle. There were also a couple of related news items that I think are worth mentioning.

Despite some of the images you may have seen coming out of Toronto over the past few days, the vast majority of the protests and protesters were entirely peaceful.

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