The only thing which could even in theory explain why this was happening is that the burned-out police car was in the vicinity. Still - they don't need a riot police charge to deal with that - they need their underused watercannon!!!

Another crazy video: muzzle blast of tear gas to the face: http://www.thestar.com/videozone/829371--police-fire-muzzle-blast-at-protestors

Also, this was apparently from earlier today - about fours ago per this report:
http://torontoist.com/2010/06/live_g20_sunday.php

(6:51 pm local)

Whenever a major economic conference takes place (G8, G20, whatever) it always seems that civil liberties go right out the damn door, regardless of what nation is hosting the conference. It's a field day for the cops. And how much gets done about the police abuses after the fact?

Source: http://torontoist.com/2010/06/live_g20_sunday.php#1046PM-27
"We've learned that the video was recorded by Meghann Millard, a partner at Unspace Interactive, from Unspace's offices"

I was surprised that they didnt forget the words halfway through.

>> ^BoneRemake:

I was surprised that they didnt forget the words halfway through.


They didn't suffer from performance anxiety?

Did anyone get hurt there? It looked like they just banged their shields and rushed forward, and scared the living shit out of the protesters, who ran.

*notbrief
*politics

This video has been deemed incorrectly flagged brief (not less than 1 minute in length) - declared notbrief by NetRunner.

Adding video to channels (Politics) - requested by NetRunner.

>> ^Krupo:

>> ^BoneRemake:
I was surprised that they didnt forget the words halfway through.

They didn't suffer from performance anxiety?



not to judge, but most all Canadians I know dont actually know the Canadian anthem. it always starts off strong ! and FREE.. flowing but gets intertwined with lyrics from stepenwolf and bto, Bryan Adams etc..


Just honestly most people dont know their countries anthems words.

1:12

Just left of center screen.

There's a cop that trips, loses the shield, and falls on their face.

That was totally fucking awesome.

But no, there really was next to no violence in this video. I don't know the whole story.. I don't know if these really were just non-violent protesters, or the ones who are going around burning police cars and wrecking buildings.

We've dropped the ball on this. By no means should we have bid on hosting G20 this year, especially after we just shelled out a lot of money for the Olympics.
Harper should've realized that people would be pissed about our tax money going to both things as it is, not to mention like $57,000 on an indoor lake 100 meters from a REAL lake. And now that this is happening, we don't even have the military here clearing the streets of the violent protesters, just rent-a-cops doing their best, and whatever police force the city can afford to send out.

While I disagree with disbanding a non-violent protest in this manner, at least nobody (except the cop who fell on their face) got hurt.

>> ^Shepppard:

1:12
Just left of center screen.
There's a cop that trips, loses the shield, and falls on their face.
That was totally fucking awesome.
But no, there really was next to no violence in this video. I don't know the whole story.. I don't know if these really were just non-violent protesters, or the ones who are going around burning police cars and wrecking buildings.
We've dropped the ball on this. By no means should we have bid on hosting G20 this year, especially after we just shelled out a lot of money for the Olympics.
Harper should've realized that people would be pissed about our tax money going to both things as it is, not to mention like $57,000 on an indoor lake 100 meters from a REAL lake. And now that this is happening, we don't even have the military here clearing the streets of the violent protesters, just rent-a-cops doing their best, and whatever police force the city can afford to send out.
While I disagree with disbanding a non-violent protest in this manner, at least nobody (except the cop who fell on their face) got hurt.


Canada shelled out 10 Million Dollars in Damages to Maher Arar, justly, I think they didn't have a reason to bid on jack shit for some time.

10 Million Dollars to right a wrong. G20 and jackboots are small fries compared to the shit the Allies get up to these days.

At least Ontario had the balls to pay out. The US didn't do jack shit, except deny the case its day in court.

Alas, my rant is beside the point of this video.

More to the point, though, do you think the Military should be clearing the street of protesters, violent or not? I don't know if Canada has a Posse Comitatus law but it is not the Military's Job to disperse angry citizens. The Military's job is to kill, which is exactly why the Posse Comitatus act exists. It puts soldiers in a very bad place, when they have to act on their own soil. I could argue the same point about Police Actions in sovereign nations, but I'd be arguing against years of Policy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act#Recent_legislative_events

This whole thing would have been avoided had they just held the conference in a more remote place. With the money they spent on security, they could have BUILT a the appropriate facilities in some small town near an airport, and STILL have had enough left over for security. There was no reason to host it in the largest city in Canada. The group of black robed anarchist criminals said beforehand that they would be there and cause trouble, so why were they not dealt with before? Slight incompetence on the part of the Canadian Gov't.

If they had hosted it elsewhere there wouldn't be any hookers for all those greasy big-wigs and their underlings.

This is despicable, by the way. I dunno how those officers can consider themselves real Canadians after pulling a stunt like that.

There's a lot more going on there than what you see on the video. The thing people should be concerned about is what happened less than a hundred feet from that line.

The cops were looking for Anarchists with weapons and incendiary devices. They know this, because they have footage of people in black hoods and face wraps, who dropped their weapons (pick axes, hammers etc.) and their things to set more cars on fire, and then changed clothes to blend in with the crowd. That's what we know.

We also know that this tactic is used to disperse the crowd, or make a run forward and snatch someone they want, who is within reach.

Also, there were massive protests that happened all weekend, which were peaceful, and when the jack ass anarchists showed up, they separated from them. The outter perimeter fence was not breached once during the weekend, and no major injuries to the people or the cops.

Things to ask questions about are: Why was that group of a hundred folks or so held at Queen and Spadina in a thunderstorm for three hours, and then just let go? That's the biggie. People just out walking their dog or going to dinner, all of a sudden confined into a tight space and held there.

I'm a big metro supporter, and they did an amazing job this weekend. That incident needs to be investigated though. The one thing you can be sure of, it was an OPP decision, and those cops are bad. Bill Blair has to take the heat for it, because it's a United Security force. That's also speculation and conjecture from my stand point, but I'm paranoid enough to think Fantino had a hand in that somehow.

tl&dr

Metro Cops did a great job, one bad incident needs to get looked at, no one seriously hurt.

edit: I also forgot the incident which Steve Paikin saw, which was not cool at all, with a journalist from the Guardian being assaulted by cops. That needs to be investigated as well. As for the other incidents, re. The Real News journalist who got punched, they did tell him to move back. You may be a journalist that doesn't give you the right to disobey the orders given. And check out the police footage when it goes live, and you can see them pick out the anarchists in the crowd. They lady hit by the horse was told to get out of the area again and again. If you want to stand in front of a charging horse line, you have to accept your consequences. It wasn't a surprise, they were very clear in what they intended to do. The surprise came at QUeen & Spadina.

Yeah, the horse bit can be chalked up to f'up rather than malice, is the idea I'm getting here.

All these videos of the protests make me sick.
Is this the democracy that is being propagated since at least I was a child?
I actually had tears in my eyes when I saw freedom and democracy destroyed with that charge - only to protect an overpriced meeting of a few people, who dont have a clue and didnt come to a conclusion anyway. I just cant believe it.
How can these policemen live with their conscious?

Awwwww, the title made me think that the policemen would be singing "O Canada" as they charged. Boo for anaphora ambiguity, getting my hopes up like that.

@NetRunner Siftstar celebrity extraordinaire,

So that's cool with you? Police charging dramatically at a crowd right at the end of a national anthem?

Seems like they did it for fun. Because we all like to scare the shit outta people.

Except, they're cops.

Serve and protect my ass.

>> ^Matthu:

@NetRunner Siftstar celebrity extraordinaire,
So that's cool with you? Police charging dramatically at a crowd right at the end of a national anthem?
Seems like they did it for fun. Because we all like to scare the shit outta people.
Except, they're cops.
Serve and protect my ass.


It depends. There isn't enough information in this video for me to make any kind of substantive moral judgment.

If it was for fun, yeah, definitely bad.

But I suspect the police are sufficiently scared of these protesters not to fuck with them just for fun.

If it was merely a way to use intimidation to non-violently disperse a crowd of protesters, I actually like this a lot better than 90% of the kinds of things you usually see in these videos. No tear gas, no physical altercations, not even a sonic weapon. Just a sudden, terrifying charge forward, and the crowd disperses, and moves away from the area they were trying to clear.

There might be an argument about whether they had a legitimate reason to clear that particular area, but assuming they did, and it was actually as non-violent as it appeared, then I think the police did pretty well considering the kind of task they were charged with, and the kind of draconian tools they could have chosen to use instead.

There may be details we don't see here that make the cops look out of line, but the video itself actually looks like the cops doing things the way they're supposed to.

Here is another angle of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkwazCJG0vc

On another note, as a citizen of Toronto, I tried to really give the police the benefit of the doubt on this. Even though I disagreed with the amount spent on the G20 security, and the general turmoil that occurred to the businesses in the G20 fenced area. I know in most cases police are there for the good of the people (though I'm sure some will disagree).

While I can understand the crack down they did on the second day (Sunday June 27th), due to what happened on Saturday, unfortunately that came at the expense of our civil liberties. They completely squashed on many liberties that we have in exchange for security. On a very fundamental level, that is just WRONG.

Here is a good overview of what I mean. Here is a video of someone getting arrested for "Public Works Protection Act" a few days before the G20: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TD3lF0ZSgb8

The chief of police declared that "If you go 5 meters away from the fence, you are required to submit to police questioning under this act". As you can see in the above video, police are enacting this order. While this is a vague law, it actually holds true in courts, and many thought they made an exception for the G20. It turns out, this wasn't the case.

After the G20, and when pushed about this, the chief actually says this rule was never actually in place. Yet it is obvious in the video above, that officers were ordered to follow this rule. Here is an article about it: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/police-admit-no-five-metre-rule-existed-on-security-fence-law/article1622864/

This of course goes way above and beyond what happened on Sunday at Queen and Spadina, where hundreds were detained for no reason at all, and I'd even say illegally.

Here is a copy of the Charter of rights in Canada: http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/charter/1.html

Basically legal rights from 7) right down to even 12) were stomped all over this weekend. While there were some people that were in the wrong, the methods the police used were also wrong. Detaining and arresting 1000 in order to capture a 100 is not right.

People were sitting on the patios on this posh shopping street until moments earlier, enjoying their cocktails. This wasn't a rowdy/violent environment. That's what makes this horrible.

Also bad, all the madness @Tyrsis cites.

>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^Matthu:
@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://netrunner.videosift.com" title="member since August 5th, 2006" class="profilelink"><strong style="color: rgb(0, 0, 205);">NetRunner Siftstar celebrity extraordinaire,
So that's cool with you? Police charging dramatically at a crowd right at the end of a national anthem?
Seems like they did it for fun. Because we all like to scare the shit outta people.
Except, they're cops.
Serve and protect my ass.

It depends. There isn't enough information in this video for me to make any kind of substantive moral judgment.
If it was for fun, yeah, definitely bad.
But I suspect the police are sufficiently scared of these protesters not to fuck with them just for fun.
If it was merely a way to use intimidation to non-violently disperse a crowd of protesters, I actually like this a lot better than 90% of the kinds of things you usually see in these videos. No tear gas, no physical altercations, not even a sonic weapon. Just a sudden, terrifying charge forward, and the crowd disperses, and moves away from the area they were trying to clear.
There might be an argument about whether they had a legitimate reason to clear that particular area, but assuming they did, and it was actually as non-violent as it appeared, then I think the police did pretty well considering the kind of task they were charged with, and the kind of draconian tools they could have chosen to use instead.
There may be details we don't see here that make the cops look out of line, but the video itself actually looks like the cops doing things the way they're supposed to.

@Krupo I guess I'm more worried about the claims Tyrsis is making than the "cops doing stuff bothers people having cocktails" argument.

I mean if it were me, I'd be pissed about having a loud and rambunctious group of people breaking out in spontaneous rendition of O Canada while I was enjoying a cocktail...

@NetRunner

Isn't it worth asking why all these people were terrified of the cops to begin with?

If I can employ this analogy:

If this was in Montreal, with a large group of Montrealers, and the Montreal Canadiens charged at the crowd. Do you think the crowd would run screaming away? No, they would be grinning with joy ear to ear as they embraced their heroes.

So unless all these people were guilty of crimes, I think their intense fear of the police is evidence of our continent moving more and more towards a police state.

You shouldn't fear the police unless you're a criminal, or you suspect the police have unlawful intentions.

One last thing, how can there be any good way to disperse a large crowd of non-violent protesters. They have the right to congregate and protest. Do they not?

>> ^Matthu:

Isn't it worth asking why all these people were terrified of the cops to begin with?

Not really. I'd be more worried if a group of people who weren't cops were dressed in riot gear and lined up in a formation like that, especially if they suddenly rushed toward me all at once while banging nightsticks against riot shields.

>> ^Matthu:

[U]nless all these people were guilty of crimes, I think their intense fear of the police is evidence of our continent moving more and more towards a police state.

You shouldn't fear the police unless you're a criminal, or you suspect the police have unlawful intentions.

I should point out that this is circular logic. You're saying that a bunch of people who are organized around the principle of mistrust and fear of the police, demonstrating that they are afraid of the police, proves that they are right to be afraid of the police.

The fact that they ran wouldn't even prove that they necessarily mistrust police generally, much less prove that universal mistrust of police is justified.

When an organized line of men in suits of armor charge you, primitive instinct takes over!

>> ^Matthu:

One last thing, how can there be any good way to disperse a large crowd of non-violent protesters. They have the right to congregate and protest. Do they not?


Because no right is absolute. If you want to protest my wearing a yellow shirt, you're within your rights to do so. But that doesn't give you the right to come onto my property to do so, or to make a physical barricade of protesters outside my house that prevent me from being able to leave and go about my day.

Furthermore, if I receive death threats from members associated with your protest movement, I may get some dispensation from a court or city authorities to set up a safety perimeter around my house that you're not allowed to cross legally. If you cross it anyways, and then refuse to leave, you still need to be moved out of the zone, even if you remain otherwise peaceful.

I prefer to see the police use the minimum amount of force to enforce the law, especially in a case like that.

The problem of course isn't the majority peacefully singing O'Canada. What has repeatedly happened is that behind the large crowd, a few unconnected anarchists/vandals/scum bags, decide to start burning, smashing and looting whatever they can. Meanwhile, the police can't get to the criminals without going through the large peaceful assembly of protesters.

Does the failure of the peaceful crowd to stop/prevent the criminal few count against them?
Does the failure of the peaceful crowd to make way for the police to get to the criminals count against them?
Should the preventative police efforts to clear the street count against them?
Should the reactive police efforts to clear the street count against them?

Freedom of speech is one thing, but singing that badly should be illegal. I think the cops did the right thing.