On May 20, 2010, at the Steelworker’s Hall in Toronto, Canada, and in advance of the G8 (June 25, Huntsville, Ontario) and G20 (June 26-27, Toronto) summits, the Toronto Community Mobilization Network (TCMN) http://g20.torontomobilize.org/ held a press conference: Top 10 Reasons to Oppose the G8/G20.

“The mobilizations in June are concerned with our ongoing struggle for social justice,” says Sharmeen Khan of TCMN. “The attendees of the G8 and G20 summits represent the interests of a wealthy few and are responsible for creating policies and institutions that destroy communities and the environment.”

The Toronto Community Mobilization Network consists of grassroots organizations, people of colour, indigenous people, poor and working class people, women, queer, and disabled people.

TORONTO COMMUNITY MOBILIZATION NETWORK (TCMN)
Themed Days of Resistance, June 21-24
Days of Action, June 25-27
http://g20.torontomobilize.org/

2010 PEOPLE’S SUMMIT
Building a Movement for a Just World, June 18-20, Toronto
http://peoplessummit2010.ca/section/2

Despite widespread claims by the media, there is no indication that the recent “firebombing” of an RBC bank branch in Ottawa was carried out by “anarchists”.

Nowhere in the statement or video that was published online was it claimed that those responsible were anarchists.

For the media to claim that this is the work of anarchists without any evidence is the worst sort of red-baiting and gets a F grade in basic journalism.

We have no idea what the politics of those who did this are. We also can’t rule out the possibility that this act was carried out by agent-provocateurs.

“This act should also be put in the context of the significant violence that is perpetrated on a daily basis by the state capitalist system such as the violence of war, poverty, colonialism and environmental destruction. While we seek to build resistance based on mass movements of working and oppressed peoples, we understand why people are angry at the banks”, says Common Cause Ottawa member Kyle James.

Anarchism is not about violence and chaos. Anarchism is about creating a highly organized and democratic society, free of hierarchy and exploitation.

As anarchists, we support the building of revolutionary, democratic, mass movements that will challenge capitalism directly through labour and community organizing and mass direct action such as strikes, picket lines and occupations.

We believe in the power of millions of working-class people standing together against the bankers, bosses, and their states. We need unlimited general strikes of all workers across Canada and internationally to defeat the attacks on the working class by the capitalists.

Workers, including bank workers, have nothing to fear from anarchists. Together the working class has the power to shut this entire capitalist system down and work for our own needs instead of the profits of the bosses.

Common Cause is an Ontario anarchist organization with branches in Ottawa, London, Toronto and Hamilton.

A french translation of this press release can be obtained here.

Common Cause
http://linchpin.ca
commoncauseontario@gmail.com

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For printer-friendly PDF, please click here. Feel free to print and distribute to your heart’s content.

Political repression is the persecution of an individual or group for political reasons, particularly for the purpose of restricting or preventing their ability to take part in the political life of society. Political repression may be represented by discriminatory policies, human rights violation, surveillance abuse, police brutality, imprisonment, involuntary settlement, stripping of citizen’s rights, or violent action such as the murder, summary execution, torture, disappearance or other extrajudicial punishment of political activists, dissidents, or other members of the general population.

If political repression is not carried out with the official approval of the state, a section of the government may still be responsible. An example is the FBI COINTELPRO operations that occurred in the US between 1956 and 1971.

There’s a mass without roofs, There’s a prison to fill,
There’s a country’s soul that reads post no bills,
There’s a strike and a line of cops outside of tha mill,
There’s a right to obey, And there’s a right to kill
-Rage Agaginst The Machine

Police brutality is the intentional use of excessive force, usually physical, but potentially also in the form of verbal attacks and psychological intimidation, by the police . It is in some instances triggered by “contempt of cop”, i.e., perceived disrespect towards police officers.

Widespread police brutality exists in many countries, even those that prosecute it. Police brutality is one of several forms of police misconduct, which include false arrest, intimidation, racial profiling, political repression, illegal surveillance, sexual abuse, and corruption.

Police state describes a state in which the government exercises rigid and repressive controls over the social, economic and political life of the population. A police state typically exhibits elements of totalitarianism and social control, and there is usually little or no distinction between the law and the exercise of political power by the executive.

Read at the opening ceremony of the fifth CrimethInc. convergence, July 26, 2006

At last summer’s CrimethInc. convergence in Indiana, there was at least one federal infiltrator present disguised as a human being. She insinuated herself into a circle of friends and used their trust to frame them with conspiracy charges after buying them bomb-making supplies and renting them a wiretapped cabin [1]. We can only assume that we are similarly infiltrated this summer. I would like to address the following to our infiltrator or infiltrators: Some of the most beautiful, compassionate, socially conscious young people in North America have traveled across the country to gather here. They have come to meet like-minded friends, to exchange skills for caring for themselves and their communities, to build a struggle for justice and freedom, to fall in love and make a world conducive to falling in love. But not you. You have come, cynically, to hunt like a wolf in sheep’s clothing for young people you can entrap and ensnare. Where others see comrades, you see quarry. We are here to create; you, to destroy.

You may tell yourself that you are here to keep an eye on antisocial elements – but who is the deceitful one, lying to everyone, disguising malice as common cause? You may tell yourself that you are here to protect others from violence – but you are the only one who has come expressly to do harm. Your employers, the FBI, have a history of murder and injustice stretching back long before the notorious COINTELPRO assault on the Black Panthers. They spied on Martin Luther King. When Earth First! Activist Judi Bari was bombed, either by right wing terrorists or government agents, the FBI refused to investigate and instead tried – and failed – to frame her for bombing herself.

Anarchists, not the FBI, are the ones who oppose violence in this society. In the past twenty years of anarchist activity, the only injuries have been minor ones in cases of self-defense, in contrast to the laughter and mayhem the US government perpetrates indiscriminately across the globe. If you really hope to protect others from violence, why aren’t you working at a rape crisis center? Do you really think anarchists pose a greater threat to people than rapists do? Or is it the threat to hierarchy, not people, that concerns you?

You may tell yourself you are nobly serving your country – but there are nobler causes to serve. Your masters want power for themselves at any expense, while we struggle for respect and coexistence among all living things. You may tell yourself that you are here to do good – but you are the one on salary; we do what we do for free, for our consciences, not for a paycheck. Essentially, you are a prostitute [2]; and should you have sex with your targets in order to entrap them, as other infiltrators have done, that will come as no surprise. Imagine the conscience of a person who sleeps with others not out of love or desire, not just in return for money, but in order to ruin their lives!

You must be ashamed of yourself. Think how many people in the world would be disgusted with you, if they knew what you were doing. Anyway, the gulf between us is too broad to be crossed now. The most we can ask is that you do your job badly, like a worker at McDonalds who must feed his family even though he knows his employers are destroying the rainforest, the health of their customers, and the future of all species. If one shred of humanity remains within you after a lifetime of brainwashing, please – do your job badly.

As for the rest of you, who are not infiltrators or informants – if you disapprove of paid agents coming here to endanger you and your friends, don’t do the same thing for free. Don’t speak of your involvement in illegal activities, don’t speculate as to others’ involvement – and above all, should you ever find yourself in an interrogation chamber, with the ones who really hate our freedom attempting to terrorize you into helping them frame your friends, don’t cooperate, don’t sell out everything you believe for them.

Our freedom, our safety, are under our control, not theirs. Freedom is not a matter of how many fences are around us, but of abiding by our consciences in any situation. Safety is not the condition of being temporarily outside the grasp of our enemies, but of being able to trust ourselves never to deliver others into harm’s way, never to become something we despise.

The FBI, which exists to protect the interests of the most powerful, selfish, and destructive men in the world today, hopes to intimidate us out of our struggle for a better world. But we are here because we feel that the lives waiting for us in their society are unlivable, because we see that the injustices that create the foundation of their power are unacceptable, because we know that the pollution and destruction of their economy are unsustainable. There is no future for us except through change – so attacks on our freedom can only mobilize us to struggle more urgently.

Even if there are one hundred federal infiltrators here and only two human beings, those two human beings can be more powerful than the entire apparatus of the state. Find each other and do something beautiful.
Thank you.

1) Please see www.supporteric.org for more info on this tragic case, involving anarchist activist Eric McDavid, who had at the time of writing been held in solitary confinement for over a year.

2) Not meant as a slight against honest sex workers.

By Heatscore

On May 5th, 2010, Junior Alexander Manon – a young man of Dominican descent - was brutally beaten to death near York University by seven unnamed assailants.

Witnesses claim that he attempted to flee his attackers, but was caught and viciously assaulted as he desperately cried out for help. By the time the blows stopped raining down upon his motionless body, his neck had been broken.

Manon was later taken to York/Finch hospital, where he was pronounced dead upon arrival. He was only 18 years old.

The brazen killing, carried out in broad daylight, was witnessed by multiple onlookers and the identities of the assailants are well known to investigators. Despite this, there is little to suggest that the perpetrators of this heinous crime will face justice… because in this case the murderers just happen to be members of the Toronto Police.

The cover-up started immediately; initial reports stated that Manon had died of cardiac arrest while running from the cops after the vehicle he was traveling in was randomly pulled over on the corner of Founders and Steeles Ave W.

This story was quickly contradicted by multiple witnesses, who all stated that Manon was severely beaten by the police officers.

According to one such witness, “he [Manon] was on the floor, he wasn’t resisting. Two officers on him, punching him in the face, one kicking him in the ribs… And then five more come and jump on him… He’s not that big for seven boy’dem [cops] to be on him like that.”

Selwyn Pieters, a lawyer representing the victim’s family, spoke to reporters of seeing Manon’s body in the morgue.

“There was blood all over. He had a neck brace on. His eyes were black and blue. The issue of a heart attack is a fiction. It seems that he died from physical force. He was a healthy young person.”

It’s fairly obvious that the police officers involved simply panicked after “accidentally” beating a brown kid to death, and then hastily invented an incredulous story to cover their own asses. Sadly, it is quite likely that the “independent” investigation being carried out by the pseudo-impartial collection of former cops known as the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) will overlook this glaring evidence of guilt.

In the two decades that the SIU has been in operation, the agency has investigated over thirty reported “deaths while in police custody” (i.e. murders). To date, none of these cases have resulted in a conviction.

A general lack of accountability for those wearing a uniform is not a problem unique to Canada. It is a nearly universal reality worldwide… and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand why.

Police agents are representatives of the state, charged with enforcing its laws. It is counter-intuitive for states to prosecute the individuals who carry out the application of their laws, as any resulting legal precedents are likely to diminish their moral and political authority. It is the same reason that the military consistently fails to prosecute its own soldiers for war crimes, the Catholic Church consistently fails to punish its priests for their pedophilic indiscretions… and why the mafia is not allowed to investigate the crimes of their own members.

Much like Pentagon spinners trying to cover up the collateral damage caused by an errant bomb strike in Afghanistan, the public relations handlers of the Toronto Police will likely stick to the current story until they realize the public isn’t buying it - at which time some other story will be parroted out, likely admitting some officer involvement in the death, but with some sort of mitigating circumstances. The idea with these investigations, as with similarly orchestrated military inquiries, is to draw them out, wait for things to blow over and then exonerate the criminals involved once the public’s attention has waned.

If history is any guide, the only way to see to it that these types of abuses are properly prosecuted is to demand justice – and to demand it loudly. Not until prosecuting the crime becomes less politically dangerous than continuing to ignore it will politicians and their various public relation fronts (such as the SIU) act to ensure that justice is ostensibly carried out.

Such was the case with the 2008 killing of 18 year old Fredy Villaneuva by Montreal police officer Jean-Loup Lapointe. Following Villaneueva’s death, Montreal North’s largely immigrant community was rocked by waves of rioting, looting and property destruction. This sudden outpouring of rage forced the government to concede to a public inquiry into the killing, which has since attracted widespread media attention and galvanized public interest across the country.

Similarly, the murders of 15 year old Alexandros Grigoropolous by a police officer in Athens and 22 year old Oscar Grant by a BART security official in Oakland were both soon followed by widespread rioting and social unrest. Despite government condemnation, these riots proved successful in securing the firings and subsequent arrests of those officers involved – officers who otherwise would have likely escaped with slaps on the wrist.

Riots like these don’t just come out of nowhere. They are the product of years of grinding social antagonisms, repeated abuses of authority and widespread social alienation. Taken together, these tensions create a powder keg that can then be sparked by a singular action – like the murder of a defenseless kid by seven cops.

Those in Toronto charged with investigating the death of Junior Alexander Manon would do well to heed these warnings. With the specter of the G20 looming large over the city, those who would deny Lady Justice her due may be playing with fire – in more ways than one.

By The Fool on the Hill

After reading the deeply troubling account of the beating death of Junior Manon by the Toronto Police, I took some time to reflect on this, and two things spring to mind. The first is the very different reactions by students at two London schools where police violence occurred during 2009. The second is the ominous shadow of intimidation that hangs over the G-20 gathering slated to take place in Toronto in June. This intimidation is only intensified by the shameful history of police crack¬downs and agents provocateurs in Canada.

On April 16, 2009 an occurrence on Dundas St, near Beal High School involved the police and a number of students. An altercation broke out after police started ticketing students for trespassing on a property next to the school’s basketball courts. During the subsequent argument, one of the police officers assaulted a 15 year old girl which sparked a scuffle with several other students. The next day, without any involvement from more “veteran” activists, there were more than 250 students gathered in front of the police headquarters. They took over Dundas St with their numbers, chanting various slogans, including ‘Fuck tha Police!’ Then they marched to City Hall and back. The energy and enthusiasm displayed by these high school students was inspiring.

Then on October 14th at UWO, there was an incident where a student was violently subdued while walking drunk through the Social Sciences building. Video footage of this event showed five officers beating a suspect during an arrest. It also showed the suspect being kneed at least five times, struck with a telescopic baton at least six times and punched by one officer at least 27 times, while the latter shouted at him to “stop resisting’. The response from the university administration, the University Students’ Council, and the campus newspaper the Gazette proved equally disturbing. All three should have stepped up to defend a victimized student, but instead chose to uncritically support the actions of the campus police. The only response to this incident came in the form of a handful of masked protesters handing out anti-police fliers and a relatively small anti-police brutality rally called by friends of the victim, Irnes Zeljkovic. This was despite the fact that the incident was national news.

While the reaction by Beal students was proper defiance, the response by Western students was somewhere between nil and pathetic – with the vast majority of students treating the incident with a mixture of apathy and stunned curiosity.

Police brutality is not a localized phenomenon, and in other places can be a trigger for large protests. Take the shooting of an unarmed 22-year-old black man in Oakland. Oscar Grant was executed by Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police officers during the first hours of 2009 on the platform at the subway station, as he lay with his hands handcuffed behind his back. The following days saw both peaceful and violent protests. Hundreds were in the streets during a spontaneous uprising in downtown Oakland on January 7th where numerous cars were torched and businesses were smashed during militant standoffs with the Oakland Police Department. Eventually charges were brought forward against the officers involved. Grant’s death continues to be a source of motivation for anti-police brutality activists in the Bay Area.

In December 2008 a 15-year-old student was killed by a police officer in Athens, Greece. Solidarity strikes, demonstrations, riots and, in some cases, clashes with local police spread across Greece and a large number of European cities. Waves of fear spread throughout the elites of Europe. Greece convulsed for over a month, and echoes reverberate today.

During the 1995 Ipperwash crisis, an OPP officer killed native activist Dudley George. George was there with others trying to draw attention to the decades-old land claims involving land appropriated by the government in 1942 under the War Measures Act to establish a military base. Sergeant Ken Deane was convicted of criminal negligence, but was sentenced to a conditional sentence of two years, less a day, to be served in the community (not in custody). No one higher up in the Harris administration or the OPP was held accountable for this death.

How will all of this affect the G-20 demonstrations, in the wake of this most recent police killing? Two trends seem to be at play. One is a mainstream tolerance of whatever is dealt to us by ‘authorities’. The other is a growing outrage at their continual savagery of everyday people. Enough is enough.

Never Stop Resisting!

By The Wandering Sufti

It was years ago that I was sitting through one of my university communication classes, talking about public representation. Somehow we’d gotten to the topic of the police and its PR. The university I was at happened to have a well-known Criminology program, whose students usually went in for police jobs.

I’ll never forget what the girl sitting next to me said that day. She was talking about having a number of criminology students in some of her classes, and how they often cheated in order to get through said classes. Ending her rant, she shook her head and said, “And these are the people we depend on to guard us when we sleep.”

What the girl said was a jarring wake-up call to me. I had been in Canada for less than two years and had gotten into a state of overarching comfort in a small university town in British Columbia. It took that sentence to make me realize that one cannot breathe a sigh of relief anywhere in the world where the police institution exists.

Since that day a number of instances of police brutality have surfaced all over British Columbia. Most recently, a video was leaked that showed a Victoria policeman kicking the holy jam out of a number of subdued arrestees outside a night-club. A group of Vancouver cops violently beat a Chinese man before realizing that he was not even the person they had showed up to arrest. And of course, a gang of them murdered a Polish immigrant at the Vancouver International Airport.

Being myself male, I cannot even begin to address the violence upon women that this uniformed group perpetrate and are complicit in. I will never forget walking with protesters on the last day of the Olympics and hearing a First Nations woman talk to two young policemen about the sins of their institution. In graphic detail she described to them the rape of Downtown East Side prostitutes, and the cover-up afterwards.

Both of the young cops looked at her matter-of-factly and said, “Well I don’t know anything about that ma’am.”

One of them added, “It was before my time.”

The lady was talking about an incident that had occurred fifteen years ago.

I’ve chosen to address the most serious of crimes lodged against the police here. There are many more. Friends have told me how they were arrested during the anti-Olympic convergence and routinely harassed even when evidence against them was slim. Out of twenty-seven arrestees only two are being tried in court; the rest have been let go at some stage or the other.

Intimidation, rape, murder: these are the hallmarks of a gang.

A friend who is in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has a shirt that encapsulates this well. It proclaims, RCMP: The World’s Toughest Organized Gang.

I have had several conversations with reform-minded people in Vancouver about the police. A good many of them believe very much in the idea of bad apples rather than a barrel that is rotten to the core. Some have voiced that better accountability can change everything, especially in a self-policing organization like the RCMP.

After seeing the police at work I believe otherwise. I believe that the police are built to be exactly as they are today: armed thugs that a society hires to protect itself. Better yet, foxes that are asked to guard the coop. The only solution, I believe, is for the police to be completely and altogether disbanded.

Society sees threats no matter what. In a city like Vancouver, where I can walk down the darkest alley with no problem, people have found threats where they don’t exist. Homelessness suddenly became a threat before the Olympics, and so all of a sudden the police went around harassing people for living on the street (not that the police was not harassing them before this happened).

In thinking of the police, one needs to examine the very foundations of society. If I were to hire armed thugs to guard me at all times, people would think of me as being a bit off. If said thugs were to beat and kill people, there would be some kind of ramification against me. Being a person who tries not to harm any living thing, I have no desire to have such a presence around me. In the same way, I do not want to have the police in any way “looking out” for me. If there were some way to take the taxes I pay to this institution and re-route them to, say, healthcare or education or social programs, I would. In return I would very happily rescind my right to dial the police line (though I would like to keep the ambulance and fire-fighters around).

I would like to break down and re-work the entire social contract. Perhaps, I would even like to deal with people personally and work with communities rather than relying on contracts. Once we get rid of contracts, we have no need to police and regulate them (we also have no need for bureaucracy). We might even lose the need to have a republic as a whole.

My ability to say the above comes from the fact that I have successfully negotiated my way through communities where both extremes of the above are true. I have walked through neighbourhoods in urban Johannesburg where armed gangs control districts, where you need to pay a toll to get from area to area. I found this no different that having the police around, though unsheathed of the façade that the organization exists to protect me; rather, the gangs made it plain that my physical safety depended on the contract I made with each of them as I walked through their districts.

I’m also used to far more communal structures in the Gulf Middle East (I would prefer to keep confidential the exact areas), where friendships and relationships dictate your presence in a neighbourhood. In such cases my safety and sociability depended on the people in the areas I visited; just the fact that I knew people in the area made my life easier.

People stick with the police because the alternatives they see in their minds are warlords and lawless killers. As described in the example above, I see almost no difference between a warlord and the police (note here that I talk of the police as an organization; this is because I still believe strongly in the fact that each policeman and policewoman is my brother and sister).

There is a pain and uncertainty associated with losing the police. The idea that we don’t actually give them a roll of notes to “protect” us is comforting, and makes us feel that they look after us, almost like parents. I refer here to the argument reformists use to calm anarchists about the nature of the police – to the bulk of them, it is just a job.

I think that something this important should perhaps be more than just a job, but something you commit to in terms of your love for a community rather than cold hard cash (or direct deposit these days).

Recently I was pleasantly surprised by the revolts in Kyrgyzstan and Thailand, where protesters have successfully gone up against police. These cases were supremely important because of the way in which the military is being used as police, making the very people the state is supposed to serve its main enemy.

Arundati Roy, in a recent essay on the Maoist rebellion in eastern India said that the police are becoming the military and the military the police.

In the Maoist region, seventy-five jawaans (national troops) were killed in a recent ambush. I mourned the loss of life, but understood what the Maoists were attacking. An ongoing occupation and profiteering of Naxalite land is at stake, which has in the Indian media been thrust out of the way in favour of national mourning for the soldiers. It took an essay by Roy to bring attention to the decades-long forced resettlement, rape and murder of countless Naxalites.

People around the world need to understand what the institution of police really represents: where it came from and how it remains very much the same as what it began as. Being at this point a megalith structure that incorporates several levels of bureaucracy and government associations, it can be both intimidating and painful to think that it needs to be dismantled.

But if we are to progress as individuals, communities, and a collective of people, I see no alternative.

By Gord Hill

As a Montreal police helicopter hovered overhead, speakers at the 14th Annual Protest Against Police Brutality denounced the 43 police-related killings in the city since 1987, including the 2008 shooting of 18 year old Fredy Villanueva in Montreal’s north end.

According to a call-out by organizers, the Collective Op¬posed to Police Brutality (COPB): “These ‘peace officers’ abuse their powers and sometimes even kill innocent and unarmed individuals without the least worry of being punished, since they know the system is there to protect them. This situation has a name: impunity.”

This year’s protest, held on Monday, March 15, 2010, took place in Montreal’s east end, a working class neighborhood that, according to its organizers, sees plenty of po¬lice abuse, racial profiling, as well as criminalization of sex trade workers, which were the main themes of this year’s march.

Protesters began gathering at the Pie IX subway station at 5PM (located at Parc Olympique, next to the massive Olympic stadium built for the 1976 Games), eventually reaching some 800 participants. Along with the helicopter, there were some 400 cops deployed, mostly riot police and some 10 horse-mounted cops. Even as protesters assembled, scores of riot police and horses were already positioned around the metro station, with helmets, shields and batons.

The march began at 5:30PM down Pie IX Boulevard, going a few blocks until it reached Ontario St., where it turned west. There, police were hit with projectiles, including rocks, bottles, fireworks, and paint bombs. Some twenty minutes into its start, the march was declared an “illegal assembly” by the police, who ordered protesters to disperse (few obeyed the command).

As the march approached a National Bank on Ontario St., scores of riot cops and horses ran to protect it. Other than this, there were little obvious targets for property damage, and little occurred throughout the march.

Although there was a wide range of social types in the protest, including punks, hippies, black clad anarchists, anti-racist skinheads, communists, socialists, hip hop/gangsta kids, and students, they were predominantly young and francophone (all the speeches and most chants were in French). Although mostly white, there were plenty of brown kids as well. The black-clad anarchists were in groups dispersed throughout the march and did not bloc together.

The march had a fairly rapid pace, and the objective seemed to be to get from the assembly area to the dispersal point as quickly as possible. Organizers said that when the annual march started years ago, they were usually short with militant actions beginning after the rally dispersed.

After walking down Ontario St. a few more blocks, the protest then turned north on Saint Germain (a smaller residential street) and made its way through Prefontaine Park. At this point, a dozen or so undercover cops were assaulted with punches and kicks. They had joined the protest at the assembly point posing as militants. Some wore bandanas and ski masks, but most people identified them immediately as cops.

At first spread out in groups of 2-4 throughout the march, the undercover cops had grouped together for their own safety, with some being heckled and also attacked while attempting to make an arrest earlier in the march. To defend themselves they had tactical batons and short, flexible batons. After being attacked in Prefontaine Park, they ran the last 150 metres or so to gain the protection of a line of riot cops at the far end of the park, as rocks and bottles rained down on them.

Although the protest organizers had planned on dispersing at the Prefontaine subway station, a line of riot cops instead blocked the street leading to it. They began shooting rubber balls with green chemical dyes at protesters and made baton charges. Protesters were forced back but also responded with projectiles and fireworks fired at the cops.

Some protesters began to disperse, while a mob of 150 or so began marching up Saint Germain and then back towards Pie IX subway station along Rachel St. A hundred or so others began moving uphill on a residential side street. Suddenly, forty or so riot cops came charging downhill, as cops at the bottom formed a line blocking the street. Seeing the trap closing, some protesters began running through an alley on one side and residential housing on the other. Either way, they had to climb fences and embankments to escape.

Those that weren’t able to get out found themselves encircled in the intersection at the bottom of the street. Numbering about 85, they were informed they were under arrest for participating in an “unlawful assembly.” After a couple of hours, they were searched and loaded onto city transit buses often brought in by the cops for mass arrest situations. They were given a ticket with a fine, and most were released within a few hours.

Despite this mass arrest, the other main group of protesters made their way back to Pie IX metro station. Along the route, more skirmishes occurred, with garbage bins and other debris placed in the street to slow down following police vehicles. A cart with lumber was also dumped in the street and set on fire.

Altogether, the march lasted about three hours. According to po¬lice and media, along with the mass arrests fifteen others were arrested and charged for mischief, assaulting police, and carrying weapons. Four protesters were reportedly arrested at the start of the rally after cops found Molotov cocktails. Many people were assaulted by the cops firing less-lethal munitions and batons, as well as violent arrests that led to the bloodied faces of several protesters.

This was the 14th annual march, organized by the Collective Op¬posed to Police Brutality, (COPB), the first being held in 1997. The protest has come to be associated with street fighting and vandalism, seen by some participants as a collective response to police violence. Mass arrests have been frequently carried out by Montreal police against the annual march, including in 2000 when more than 100 were arrested, 2002 with over 370 arrested, and in 2009, when over 220 people were arrested.

Days prior to this year’s march, in the early morning hours of Saturday March 13, 2010, a Montreal police station was attacked by a group of people wearing masks and black clothing. Estimates of their number range from 10-20. Using hammers, rocks and baseball bats, they smashed out the windows and computer terminals in 11 police vehicles, as well as some windows of the station itself. Graffiti was also spray painted, including the initials FTP (Fuck the Police) and ACAB (All Cops Are Bastards).

For more info on the International Day Against Police Brutality, or COPB:

www.copb.resist.ca
copb@hotmail.com

[This article original appeared in the Vancouver Media Co-op: http://www.vancouver.mediacoop.ca]

We are a group of community residents and students, outraged by the escalation of police misconduct, harassment and brutality in recent years who have joined together to fight for our rights and the rights of our community by taking on the task of directly monitoring police conduct. That’s right. We walk the streets and watch the police. Although it is important to resist police brutality by taking cops to court, filing complaints and having demonstrations, we believe that it is crucial to be in the streets letting the police know that THE PEOPLE will hold them accountable for their behavior in the community. We have no single political or religious belief. Our volunteers come from a variety of backgrounds. What we share is the belief that citizen participation in these issues and monitoring of the police is a crucial first step towards building a movement capable of stopping police violence and of challenging the increasingly powerful role of police in our society.

Copwatch was started in Berkeley California, in March of 1990 in response to escalating abuses in the Telegraph Avenue area of the city. At that time, homeless people, young people of colour and activists
were all experiencing increased levels of police harassment as part of the city’s efforts to gentrify the neighbourhood. The policy of city council was to “improve” the area and make it more appealing to wealthy tourists. (That meant getting rid of the riff raff.) The people resisted.

The original group that responded to the situation decided that it was most important to carefully document actual incidents of misconduct and to use our presence as a deterrent to these types of injustices. We have continued to patrol the Southside area and to stand with the homeless and young people whenever we see the police stopping them. Sometimes we have been arrested for observing; sometimes we have been threatened. However, the police are definitely aware of Copwatch and, we believe, our presence at certain times and places has prevented police from abusing people’s rights (at least while the video camera was on!).

While we have continued to go out on Copwtch patrols, our activities have become more varied over the years. We publish a newsletter (Copwatch Report), conduct a weekly class through UC Berkeley, provide support for victims of abuse, investigate incidents and conduct “Know Your Rights” trainings for schools and community groups.

We have a rich history. In 1991 we worked extensively to document police brutality during the People’s Park riots. We protested the introduction of rubber and wooden bullets into the Berkeley police arsenal. We held demonstrations against the brutal beating of a Berkeley Police Review Commissioner and organized a response to the verdict in the Rodney King case in 1992 that drew over 2000 people. We have participated in various coalitions such as the one that was formed when 19 year old Jerrold Hall was shot in the back of the head by BART police officer Fred Crabtree in 1993. We have worked with other groups to stop laws that discriminate against poor and homeless people. Copwatch led the campaign to ban police use of pepper spray in 1997 and we have organized to stop the introduction of attack dogs into the BPD.

Berkeley Copwatch is a direct descendent of earlier historic, grassroots efforts to control the police including the Black Panther Party, the Brown Berets and others. Many other organizations around the country are also taking up Copwatching in cities such as Denver, Houston, Portland, New York, Tuscon and many others.

The movement for community-based responses to police brutality is growing. With the 2004 release of our new training video, “These Streets Are Watching”, there has been a surge in interest in citizen monitoring of the police

Principles of Copwatch

1. Directly observe the police on the street
a. Watch and document incidents
b. Maintain principles of non-violence while asserting the rights of the detained person.
c. Be a witness for the detained person
d. Demonstrate citizen monitoring for those observing an incident
e. Educate the public about police conduct

2. Follow up with public pressure in legal proceedings
a. Support brutality victims in defense of false charges
b. Encourage and assist people in filing complaints or suing police
c. Lobby to stop discriminatory legislation and policies that increase police powers over people’s civil and human rights

II. To Empower and Unite The Community By Looking Out For Each Other

1. Educate the community about their rights
a. Distribute literature and publish findings
b. Do Know Your Rights training and any other classes, forums, and/or demonstrations that help the public understand their rights in dealing with the police

2. Expand community support for victims of police crime and community based efforts to organize against brutality.

3. Encourage people to solve problems WITHOUT police intervention. Explore alternatives to calling the police.

4. Encourage people to exercise their right to observe the police and to advocate for one another.

[Taken from the Berkeley Copwatch Handbook: http://www.berkeleycopwatch.org]