Peter Watts found guilty

Early terse reports are that the jury has returned a guilty verdict for Dr Peter Watts, a science fiction writer who was beaten at the US-Canada border when he got out of his car to ask why it was being searched, then charged with assault. Peter faces up to two years in prison. I've emailed him for comment and I hope that he's appealing. More later.

Update: More info from Peter

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Anonymous

To me this is horrifyingly corrupt and unjust, but somehow the citizens on that jury didn’t see it that way. I suppose that’s what happens when you’ve been trained to never question authority.
Anonymous

Cory, I hope you’re reading these responses.

I hope you’re formulating some plan to throw our support the way of Dr. Watts.

Please tell me there’s something I can do.
- Nelson.C
  
  If things go inconceivably bad and he gets thrown in jail for two years, then I suggest we send him care packages. Other than that, I don’t think there’s a lot that can be done to help at this point. If you have any psychic powers, you could try beaming happy thoughts at the judge, though my often-shaken faith in human nature prompts me to hope that the judge will take into account the misery that has been imposed on Dr Watts already and give him a suspended sentence.
  - Kerov
    
    America has become a country where the only legally acceptable attitude towards any police is one of cowering deference. Not even the President can get away with any public criticism. For an ordinary citizen, “contempt of cop” is an immediately arrestable offense, and as we see here, prosecutors, judges, and even juries are culturally unwilling to provide effective checks on police abuse of power.
    
    But defeatism isn’t the answer. Everybody can do something. Raise awareness. Talk and write about this within your circle of influence. Make this an issue that at least ONE member of any future juror in such a trial is sensitive to; such a lone juror could have prevented the travesty that was Dr. Watts’ conviction.
    
    The culture can be changed. Police abuse-of-power can be made as taboo and untolerated as drunk-driving or gay-bashing. It starts with raising awareness.
Ugly Canuck

In Nazi Germany, petty crimes, especially those which challenged the Authority of the Authorties, were harshly dealt with, with prison work-camp time: while crimes committed by more important people were never mentioned, let alone investigated, tried and punished.
justanotherusername

So apparently it’s perfectly OK for law enforcement to beat up ordinary citizens.

Apparently it’s also perfectly OK for law enforcement to blatantly lie about it afterwards.

None of this matters.

But asking the question: “What’s the problem?” gets you convicted to a jail sentence.

If that’s not fascism I don’t know what is.
Roofmonkey

Border officials are the worst of the worst, not only in North America but worldwide. They represent the absolute power of the state to control who goes where, regardless of citizenship. And we all know what power does.
Anecdotally, the U.S. border guards at Sarnia (Michigan/Ontraio border)are abysmally stupid, disrespectful and arbitrary in their enforcement of search rules, quarantining my house plants (WTF?) in one pass and waving me through without so much as opening the back of my truck on another.
I do not feel even a tiny bit safer knowing these arrogant nimrods are tasked with keeping our borders secure. Good luck with your appeal, Dr. Watts.
- Ugly Canuck
  
  About those borders :
  Just imagine there’s no countries
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okd3hLlvvLw
  
  it’s easy if you try….
  
  RE:Canadians serving jail time in the Great Republic to our South –
  
  As if on cue, our present Minority Government PM wants it harder for them to serve their time closer to home hearth and family:
  
  http://www.winnipegsun.com/news/canada/2010/03/18/13282151-qmi.html
  
  It sometimes appears that our beloved little leader wishes to import the US Prison-Industrial Complex to Canada, locks, stocks, smoking barrels, and all.
justanotherusername

From Peter Watts’ blog:

Someone stating he/she was a juror has commented on the timesherald website:

“proudinjun wrote:
As a member of the jury that convicted Mr. Watts today, I have a few comments to make. The juryâ€™s task was not to decide who we liked better. The job of the jury was to decide whether Mr. Watts â€œobstructed/resistedâ€ the custom officials. Assault was not one of the charges. What it boiled down to was Mr. Watts did not follow the instructions of the customs agents. Period. He was not violent, he was not intimidating, he was not stopping them from searching his car. He did, however, refuse to follow the commands by his non compliance. Heâ€™s not a bad man by any stretch of the imagination. The customs agents escalted the situation with sarcasm and miscommunication. Unfortunately, we were not asked to convict those agents with a crime, although, in my opinion, they did commit offenses against Mr. Watts. Two wrongs donâ€™t make a right, so we had to follow the instructions as set forth to us by the judge.
3/19/2010 2:01:10 PM”

http://www.thetimesherald.com/article/20100319/NEWS01/3190308/Jury-remains-out-in-Watts-trial?plckFindCommentKey=CommentKey:e3d49247-c265-47a6-9721-5713e32cc7ed

I suspect that even if a juror who decided Peterâ€™s fate tells it like it is as quite similar to Peter himself stated, there will be those who still want to make it out as what it most definitely was not.
Dr.Dawg

“What I can’t understand is why Dr Watts even asked a question in the first place. You’re crossing into another country, you should expect to be questioned and possibly searched. There are usually two sides to every story, and right now, we only have the one.”

This is a bit like Stockwell Day on the Niagara River. Watts was leaving the US to return to Canada, not entering that benighted land. He was stopped by US officials, not Canadian ones, under what authority I can’t imagine.

Now the prosecutor is seeking a habitual criminal ruling to enhance his sentence! This is fascism, pure, everyday American fascism, coming soon to a place near you.
Mad Russian

One thing that doesn’t seem to occur to many of the commentators for this article, The US is a Fascist Oligarchy masquerading as a Constitutional Republic. And with incidents like this, it may be harder for the US government to maintain the fiction of a democracy.

And to answer the comment about moving to a country that actually has real human rights protection: what country on Earth has decent protections?

To Friedrich Nietzsche is attributed the following:

“Everything the State says is a lie, & everything it has is stolen.”
- turn_self_off
  
  ah, Nietzsche, the justification for just about every supremacist, anarchist and “objectivist” out there.
benher

In USA, you do not cross border… Border Crosses YOU!
Anonymous

They haven’t any right, they just have might. Carl Panzram was wrong…

“You will find that I have consistently followed one idea through all my life, I preyed upon the weak, the harmless and the unsuspecting. This lesson I was taught by others : Might makes right.” –Carl Panzram

It’s sad to see how many people will suck up to a sociopath as soon as one manages to get a uniform. It’s not like there’s any shortage of psychos…

“We serial killers are your sons, we are your husbands, we are everywhere. And there will be more of your children dead tomorrow.” –Ted Bundy
ultranaut

If those comments from jurors are genuine then I am amazed at their capacity for doublethink. This brings to mind the experiments that have shown most humans prefer to obey authority above all else. I recall hearing or reading about French researchers who very recently made a documentary about a fake game show experiment in which 80% of participants were ultimately willing to torture another person to death at the direction of a game show host. There is of course the famous Milgram experiments as well. And all those Good Germans and dutiful bureaucrats who were just following orders…
Nadreck

Well, Watts says in his blog that it is not the job of the jury “to ignore stupid laws”. I would strongly disagree: yes it is and that’s the whole purpose of the jury system. You are guilty of a crime if you are in violation of the statute you are convicted by a jury of your peers. The jury is ultimately there to make sure that a corrupt state doesn’t game the system to put away their personal enemies. Any rule system can be gamed and if all the jury is supposed to do is robotically go through a flow-chart of rules to determine guilt or innocence then they might as well be replaced by a Commodore 64 computer.

The principle is called jury nullification and up here in Canada it’s, for example, how we got rid of our anti-abortion laws. In the States the principle is (surprise!) under attack by the corrupt state but it’s not quite dead yet.
Pipenta

No.

In my rape analogy, Dr. Wells could be a grandmother delivering a batch of cookies to a charity bake sale, or he could be thirteen year old on her way to choir practice. The point is, the frightened will look for reasons that the victim was not making herself vulnerable to attack; the grandmother looked too young, the choir girl trusted the choirmaster to give her a ride, therefore they must be guilty. This is ridiculous, and it gets harder to do when the victim is, for example, a six month old baby or a quadriplegic. Which is why those sorts of examples are invoked, to get it through people’s heads that rape is not about the victim being seductive, it is not about a desire, on the part of the perpetrator, to hurt someone. The drunken sorority girl was NEVER asking for it. All of this is an uphill battle in a society in which people can read “Lolita” and come away with the message that the child was a seductress, instead of a victim who was kidnapped and kept as a sex slave.

Ah, it’s a sick sad world indeed.

And the folks who insist that Dr. Wells should have behaved this way or that way, that this was his fault, they are the most frightened of all, you can fairly smell the fear coming off them, they are rank with it.
Anonymous

I think it’s simply disgusting that the jury blindly accepted the prosecution’s decision, despite the fact that the spoken testimony from the officer differed from the written testimony.

And “choking him”? I’m sure the 51 year old science-fiction author flew into a blind, Canadian, lumberjack rage and mysteriously overpowered the officer, dragging him into the car to choke him, before getting out of the car with his wood cutting axe to attack the rest of the border patrol. And I’m sure at some point, according to the officers, his car had turned into a moose by that point.

Needless to say, I’m advising all of my friends to stay well away from America for the next little while, and refuse to go down there any time soon. I bet you they’ll say he’s a terrorist next. :/
sic transit gloria C.F.A.

Ok, enough yelling about how horrible this is – what are we going to do about it?

Are there any grounds for an appeal? Somehow, a law that amounts to “don’t ask questions” doesn’t seem very constitutional.

Also, I’m not clear on this – was this the State of Michigan prosecuting him, rather than the federal government? It sounds like it. If he doesn’t appeal, or loses his appeals, it seems appropriate to mount a really big petition drive for a pardon. And another one to get this law fixed so that asking questions isn’t a felony.
Dr.Dawg

Send a note to the US Ambassador, David Jacobson, at embweb1@magma.ca. Correct title is Excellency. Be polite but firm about this gross miscarriage of justice.
Chorske

Never, EVER get out of your car at a border crossing.

First, the officers have every right in the world to search your car as thoroughly as they deem fit. The fact that Dr Watts was protesting such a search seems odd to me.

Second, the officers have the obligation to control the situation. My girlfriend once exited my car at the Woburn-Coburn crossing between Quebec and Maine, and she was instantly swarmed by officers. She was firmly but nonviolently put back in the car. The officers explained that they can’t have people wandering around outside their cars while they are being searched or passed through customs- this is for the safety of other travelers and the officers themselves.

I wasn’t happy about how strongly they reacted, but the bottom line is: lesson learned. Don’t get out of your car at a border crossing.

I should add that, this one experience aside, I have found the US border guards to be exceptionally polite, chatty, reasonable people. Maybe it’s because I tend to cross at rural locations (St Stephen/Calais, Thousand Islands, Woburn/Coburn)? Perhaps. But I certainly find the US guards much nicer than their Canadian counterparts, who are rude.
- MichaelC
  
  Thanks for rushing in with the defense of law enforcement officers who beat up someone for asking a question and then arrest him for it.
  - Chorske
    
    Not sure I would categorize my post as a “defense of law enforcement officers”. I have lived and worked in the USA, and crossed the border regularly for over a decade. In that time, I have had exactly one incident- the one I describe. I generally find the process effortless.
    
    What I can’t understand is why Dr Watts even asked a question in the first place. You’re crossing into another country, you should expect to be questioned and possibly searched. There are usually two sides to every story, and right now, we only have the one.
    - turn_self_off
      
      the crazy thing is, he was not going into USA, he was leaving!
    - Anonymous
      
      NO, he had already passed through the US side and was then stopped randomly without the stop having been identified as such.
    - Anonymous
      
      Maybe he asked a question because he was punched in the face, and was trying to figure out what was going on?
      
      If you actually read his post, and read what the decision came down to, you’ll discover it boils down to him not getting on the ground fast enough after being pummeled for no apparent reason by a border officer.
      
      If you feel it’s inappropriate to ask why a ‘law officer’ is trying to kick the shit out of you, then yes, I do think you are defending an authoritarian police state.
    - angusm
      
      Chorske wrote: There are usually two sides to every story, and right now, we only have the one.
      
      Those of us who have been following the case have had the opportunity to read the other side of the story as well. The local press has mostly reported the version of events given by law enforcement, including the claim that Watts choked an officer.
      
      That claim seems to be have been thoroughly discredited. It’s disappointing that the apparently questionable testimony given by the officers didn’t call into question the validity of the charges as a whole.
    - Latro
      
      “What I can’t understand is why Dr Watts even asked a question in the first place. ”
      
      … its kind of sad that you wrote it, and that I understand it, and that I try to live by the same rule, because… hell ,its sad to realize this is good advice – never, ever talk balk to officers. Not at all. Be a cowed, silent piece of meat. Dont even ask clarifications. Shut up. Be afraid. Submit. Minimize interaction time by doing exactly what they want you to do without question or hesitation.
      
      Why he asked a question? Dont know. But .. why cant you ASK a question?
      
      One would think successful, open societies would allow citizens to approach other citizens that happen to be officers with less fear.
    - Patrick
      
      The issue people keep forgetting is Peter was not entering the US. He was leaving the country!
  - Lobster
    
    Yes, because the police instantly and immediately know the intentions and situation of everyone they stop.
    
    I don’t think Peter Watts deserves jail time but he’s also not some saint who asked pretty please if the nice police officer could give him the time of day. The police behaved inappropriately. So did he.
    - Latro
      
      Funny, I didnt though we were under obligation to be “saints”, even.
      
      If what he did is not worthy of jail time… then both sides are NOT behaving inappropiately on the same degree. Mainly cause Watts faces jail time for it. So it is “Guy that maybe was a bit more smartarse/clueless/X than advisable” vs “Guys that can put somebody into 2 years of misery for that and have the law to back it up.”
      
      Again, one would thing democratic open societies are able to allow people to be smartarses, clueless, or other variations of “inappropiate” without it being a crime.
- mo-seph
  
  (and to the other’s saying you shouldn’t get out of the car at border crossings)
  
  Watts was ordered out of the vehicle:
  
  “After Beaudry had finished whaling on me in the car, and stepped outside, and ordered me out of the vehicle; after Iâ€™d complied with that, and was standing motionless beside the car”
- jjasper
  
  Second, the officers have the obligation to control the situation.
  
  They *beat him*. they beat him for no good reason. Controll the situation? IF there’s anything that puts a situation *out of control* it’s unwarranted violence by a LEO who’s beating the snot out of someone because they looked at him the wrong way. They dumped that obligation. They *lost* control of the situation. And then they *lied* about him assaulting them.
  
  You’re defending inept, brutal jerks, and doing it with no concern for the facts.
- Anonymous
  
  I would challenge your argument that the officers have “every right” to search an American citizen’s car when that citizen is entering our country. Although the protections of the 4 Amendment are slightly relaxed as you get closer to the boarders, the safe guards are still in place, provided you are person to whom the amendment applies. The problem is that citizens don’t know this, and the guards certainly won’t tell you.
sic transit gloria C.F.A.

That’s a good idea for Canadians. How about U.S. citizens, particularly those who live in Michigan?
ironix

This angers me greatly and simply equates to yet another reason why I refuse to cross the border.
lewis stoole

his blog is up
http://www.rifters.com/crawl/

*********
And under â€œobstructâ€ is â€œfailure to comply with a lawful orderâ€, and itâ€™s explicitly stated that violence on the part of the perp is not necessary for a conviction. Basically, everything from asking â€œWhy?â€ right up to chain-saw attack falls under the same charge. And itâ€™s all a felony.
*********
So what it came down to, ultimately, was those moments after I was repeatedly struck in the face by Beaudry (an event not in dispute, incidentally). After Beaudry had finished whaling on me in the car, and stepped outside, and ordered me out of the vehicle; after Iâ€™d complied with that, and was standing motionless beside the car, and Beaudry told me to get on the ground â€” I just stood there, saying â€œWhat is the problem?â€, just before Beaudry maced me.
- BookGuy
  
  Watts’ post is very classy, especially given how very shitty the situation is. From what I can tell from reading all of this, there’s absolutely NO action you can take that guarantees you won’t be beaten, pepper sprayed, and arrested, and that’s more than a little troubling.
Anonymous

Who needs anarchists with jurors like these?
Saskplanner

I cross into the US pretty much every month.

Some of these US immigration people are not mentally balanced, they have an unhealthy disrespect for people backed up by unfair, unequal laws that pretty much let them get away with anything. Bad combination. The best thing to do is to NOT confront them, let them do their thing and let them feel ‘big and then get through.

It’s unfortunate this situation took place and I hope he gets out of it without going to jail.
- Anonymous
  
  I’ll bet NOT confronting them about their behavior is exactly what the founders of this country would want us to do.
Volker

This is obvious for US citizens, but rather strange to foreigners: In the USA, you DO NOT leave the car at a stop under no circumstance. If you do, everyone outside will assume that you want to attack them.

I once was at a national park entrance with a German friend in the right back seat. Since it was very difficult to talk to the ranger at the entrance through the driver’s window he tried to leave the car… I never saw a park ranger that scared.
netsharc

So can he ask his Canadian, thank God for that, government to stop an extradition order? If he has to stay out of the USA for the rest of his life, so what, fuck that tyrannical nation.
- joeposts
  
  Doubt it. I think there are legal treaties that prevent either country from harbouring people wanted across the border. I remember reading about it when Marc Emery was accused of ‘drug smuggling’ or whatever trumped up charge the Americans got him on. Anyways, it’s the USA. If he didn’t go serve his time they’d just send some drones up to finish him off via remote control.
Anonymous

Welcome to the police state. Time to move to another country with actual human rights.
Anonymous

Too bad the jury upheld the rather broad interpretation of the statute at issue. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification
Anonymous

Watts made the mistake of wanting to visit the most oppressive, totalitarian, xenophobic disgrace of a country currently at large on the planet. I’d rightly expect this sort of treatment at the gates to Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia. Welcome to the party old U, S and A.
oohShiny

From Dr. Watts’ response, it would appear that first: the laws regarding the border between Canada and the US need to be rewritten to give some rights back to the citizens of both countries (read: so that it is not illegal to ask why you’re being searched, nor unreasonable to expect not to be assaulted for doing so) and that second: Officer Beaudry is in need of anger management classes.
Stefan Jones

Well thank goodness. I feel so much safer and secure.
[/angry snark]
Pipenta

Chorske’s comments remind me of Tom Wolfe’s book, “The Right Stuff”.

When a test pilot crashes, other test pilots assume that it could not be anything other than pilot error that caused the crash. No matter what problems there are with the air craft or with atmospheric condition, it just HAS to be pilot error, don’t you see? Because if it isn’t…

When you are a DA trying to convict a rapist, you want the jury full of men the same age as the victim’s father. You do not want young women the same age as the victim. Those young women will be frantically looking for reasons it was the vic’s fault: she shouldn’t have been wearing that, she shouldn’t have gone in that bar, she shouldn’t have been out alone, she should have had a double lock on her door, whatever. It has to be the victim’s fault, a smart girl could have avoided the situation, don’t you see? Because, if not…

And it has to be this writer fellow’s fault, doesn’t it? Watts didn’t have the right stuff. He must have said something or done something that a smart person wouldn’t have done. Yeah, sure, that’s gotta be it! Because if he didn’t, because if there are just plain crazy, abusive, criminal sadists in positions of power, and if the system does nothing to curb their behavior. Why then, why then… that means… nobody is safe.

People tell themselves and each other all kinds of baloney in order to make themselves feel safe. Feeling scared is to be avoided at all costs. Making yourself feel safe is more important than doing anything to try to change the dangerous situation. Feeling safe is certainly more important than even allowing the possibility that things are, perhaps, not so ducky.

I suspect most border guards are fine and just working to do their job. But there is a big problem if the system has no controls and the abusers are not only not prosecuted, but are encouraged.

Because if you jail someone for so much as challenging them, you are giving them a license to abuse.
- Be_Reasonable
  
  This is the best, most awful thing I have read today.
  
  You have succinctly captured the dilemma of modern life. I am going to steal it to use later when I can take credit for your genius.
- Brainspore
  
  In your rape analogy, the border guards would be the perpetrators and Dr. Watts would be the drunken sorority girl stumbling half naked through an alley at 3am.
  
  Nobody is “asking” to be the victim of a violent crime and any bad judgment on the part of the victim does not in any way mitigate the actions of the perpetrators. That’s not the same as saying everything the victim did was a good idea.
- bmcraec
  
  Awesome comment. Thanks for posting that. And please, let’s not all get onto how “dangerous” it is to be a customs border guard. I’d bet that looking at the statistics would show a greater likelihood of contacting bubonic plague from people crossing a border than the officers being assaulted by the crossers.
  
  If you assume there is a threat, there is often a threat found.
Pipenta

Bad last sentence

Meant, if you jail the ones who protest their abuse, you give the abusers permission to abuse people.
rm3154

As was already pointed out above: the incident occurred while Peter Watts was trying to leave the USA and cross into Canada. He had paid his toll and was headed over the bridge when he was waved over for something called an “exit inspection”. The border guards did not explain themselves and started searching his car without asking for permission to do so. When he stepped out of the car and requested information they swarmed him and ordered him back in the car. He complied. Another officer, named Beaudry, rushed over, struck him, and ordered him back out of the car. Peter Watts complied and got out of the car. Beaudry then ordered Peter Watts to the ground. Peter Watts asked for a reason for this treatment. This was interpreted as non-compliance. Watts was pepper-sprayed and shown a baton. At that point he got on the ground, was hand-cuffed, charged, and thrown in the cell. Today’s conviction stemmed from ENTIRELY from his Beaudry’s demand that he get on the ground. Here is another post-trial statement by a juror

Peter,

I believe your description of the trial and deliberations is more accurate than you could know. As a non-conformist and â€œlibertarianâ€ (who has had some experiences not unlike yours) I was not comfortable with my vote, but felt deep inside that it was consistent with the oath we took as jurors. I believe nearly all the jurors searched for a legitimate reason to vote differently. In the end it came down to the question â€œWas the law broken?â€. While I would much rather have a beer and discussion with you than Officer B. I never the less felt obligated to vote my conscience. I also believe most, if not all, the jurors sincerely hope that you are handled with a great degree of leniency, we, unfortunately have no say in that matter.
Ugly Canuck

Perhaps the Right Honourable PM would rather that Canadians convicted abroad be sent to say, Syria, or Devil’s island instead? Instead of, in the Government’s words, having these Canadians “being brought back here”. I mean, the nerve of some Canadians, thinking their Government wants them “back”.
or owes them anything, anything at all.
nigel holmes

Whenever someone on the internet tells of a grotesque abuse of power, there are always commentators racing in to support authority against the victim, generally by saying “we don’t know all the facts” while making up their own piece of authoritarian fan fiction to justify whatever happened. Could someone not write a piece of code to replace these (presumably) human commentators? The stuff is so predictable that it hardly feels like a human being need be involved at all.
Connie H.

netsharc, the problem is that Dr Watts being an author with a large American following, he will not be able to promote his work at American bookstores and SF cons and other venues, which could result in the potential loss of significant income.

All for pausing to ask a pertinent question in what the officer was forced to admit under oath was a non-threatening manner.
Ugly Canuck

I mean, what once was automatic, is now to be at Mr. Harper’s (personal?delegated?) discretion.
Now that’s justice! Ain’t it?
ultranaut

This is completely insane. I am amazed at how Peter seems to be taking this, I would be fleeing this fucked up country and applying for refugee status somewhere less crazy about now were I in his position.
Anonymous

Everyone seems to be forgetting an important step in this mess. These seemingly over agressive (steriod induced?) officers can only “report” the incident …

A PROSECUTOR has to actually pursue the matter in court…the real question is why the PROSECUTOR didnt have the judgement to know that these meatheads are probably trumping up a bunch of crap…

This shows this mentallity was spreading like a fungus
lewis stoole

you should be allowed to at least know why you are being detained, and to be allowed to ask if not told outright, also as to why you are being removed by your vehicle at force, or why you were punched in the face by the officer; then when hit by mace and still unaware of the original reason, i would think at this point you have earned the right to know–but that is just me.
Jardine

I just want to point out one thing that people seem to have forgotten. Dr. Watts was stopped when he was trying to cross back into Canada, not when he was entering the US. For some reason, the US has border guards that can apparently search you when you leave their country as well as when you enter.
Robotech_Master

I am given to understand that in Canada, you’re supposed to get out of your car when stopped by the police.

So an element of culture clash may have contributed to this incident.
- dragonfrog
  
  As has already been mentioned here, he got out of the car:
  
  (1) when the border guard ordered him to do so, and
  
  (2) after the guard had already repeatedly punched him in the face while he was sitting in the car.
- Susan
  
  When I was stopped at the border by the Canadian police I was required to get out of the car.
KeithIrwin

This is the real fundamental problem: law enforcement officers who are irrationally scared of almost anything they perceive as unusual. People who are frightened stop acting rationally and are much more likely to lash out. And many of our armed law enforcement officers are so very scared that they’re a very real threat to the rest of us.
angusm

When a routine interaction with a fundamentally law-abiding citizen ends with the citizen getting beaten and pepper-sprayed, that’s a failure of policing. No competent officer should ever have allowed the situation to get that far out of hand.

The sad thing is that, given that Dr Watts has been convicted, there’s little chance that the conduct of the officers will be questioned, nor that he will be able to sue them for the assault on his person.
- mccrum
  
  Precisely how I feel. The person being paid to be there has to be what I consider the “grown up.” When my child does things I do not appreciate or says things that are not inappropriate I do not physically abuse her. My job is to be responsible, get called names and keep my cool. I can physically overpower them but that’s not being a responsible grown up.
  
  The people paid to be in certain situations (police, referees, coaches, whatever) need to be the grown up and not come down to the level of the child personna. People crossing at borders are allowed to ask “Why” as much as they want and yes it must get annoying, but the job is to keep the peace. Not keep the peace by any mean necessary.
Marja

Violence: when lower-ranking people fail to submit to higher-ranking people.

Law: when higher-ranking people brutalize lower-ranking people.
pKp

“After Beaudry had finished whaling on me in the car, and stepped outside, and ordered me out of the vehicle; after Iâ€™d complied with that, and was standing motionless beside the car, and Beaudry told me to get on the ground â€” I just stood there, saying â€œWhat is the problem?â€, just before Beaudry maced me.

And that, said the Prosecutor in her final remarks â€” that, right there, was failure to comply. That was enough to convict.”

If I were American, I would be packing my stuff RIGHT. NOW. and moving to a country that stille has some pretense of human rights law.

Admittedly, these are getting rarer and rarer :/
toyg

I hope he’ll appeal.
If the evidence is really so overwhelmingly in his favour, then he was probably convicted only because the jury was badly instructed by the judge. With a different judge, the story might have been different.

Obviously he can’t say that in his blog post (scorned judges are even more ferocious than border guards), but I suspect this is what (at least) his lawyer is thinking.