Sunday, March 15, 2009

Is it stereotypical for police to be violent at a "Police Brutality Protest"?


Photo: Sean De Coste

An innocent young man makes his way to check out the "Anti Police Brutality" demonstration today, March 15th @ the Mt.Royal metro station. They approached him and demanded he take his knapsack off to reveal the contents. Whether he looked suspicious or not they don't have the right to force him into the corner and make him submit to the ground using their clubs and knees only to find a sweater.

People standing around obviously were trying to defend the guy but what can you do? I was trying to film but my hands were shaking so much. It's was almost like you know EXACTLY how it unfolds. It did not get violent but quite possibly could have. I mean, there were many bystanders and we all probably had that same urge to jump in and pull the cops off the guy cause he is obviously not doing anything but screaming: "YOU CAN'T DO THIS!" and, "I WAS JUST WALKING DOWN THE STREET, YOU CAN'T LEGALLY JUST SEARCH MY BAG!". While the cops had one thing in mind: Get in that bag, and do whatever it takes to get their way.
The problem with jumping in is that, it can quite possible develop into a messy, bloody, scuffle.
You might see yourself as a innocent bystander just trying to help a poor guy out when really, you are as dangerous as that guy with the sweater/weapons of mass destruction in his bag. And once you jump between the cops and their dinner, you become a target.
To get to my point. this sucks and I will be posting videos of the whole ordeal within thenext couple of days.....

Happy Anti Police Brutality Day

7 comments:

Lorne Roberts said...

short answer to the title of this post: yes.

interesting questions, though. it's never simple. and prob'ly, a lot of those cops, if we sat down and had a beer with them, we'd get along. and prob'ly some of the protesters are jerks.

Lorne Roberts said...

and prob'ly lots of the cops are jerks, too.

Anonymous said...

I saw this on the news today, 200 people arrested. Ironic as you imply, to take people down relative to a protest on taking people down!

I also saw an interview yesterday on CBC morning discussing the merits of violent or peaceful protest. I tended to believe the guy who said that violence most always levered more change... gulp.

XP said...

Ah, Surete du Quebec, how I do miss your racial profiling, unnecessary violence and general predisposition towards causing malaise for the people you're paid to protect.

Funny, they just recently tried to table a plan to make it a ticketable offence to “talk-back” or use impolite phrases with police in Quebec. Apparently too many members of Surete du Quebec were getting their feelings hurt.

I wonder how much it hurts to have a billyclub across your neck and a knee in your back?

Irish said...

Probably not as bad as a nice swift disagreement to the crotch.

Anonymous said...

pour water on the cops. Nothing illegal about that.

word veri:

tacers

My good god. Word veris cant be real. Obviosly god is saying that if you poured water on the cops you would get tazed

Anonymous said...

I just though of another funny thing to do. Just like cops sometimes dress as protesters in order to stimulate violence it would be funny to get your buddies to dress up as police offers and do funny things like organizing a limbo line or doing the can can.

you d probably get tazed tho

word veri:

cherucks

This must mean either:
chuck rocks
or
Che rocks!