Report: top Toronto police ordered campaign of illegal arrests during G20

A civil charge brought by a man who was arrested on his way to church during the Toronto G20 has revealed that senior officers ordered Toronto's police to make illegal arrests during the event. The man was held for 28 hours, 20 of them in handcuffs. He was arrested by as many as 20 officers, who believed him to be suspicious because he was wearing a bandanna. He was also subjected to a strip search.

The final report said that an unnamed officer with the Toronto Police Service wrote: “…we were given specific direction in regards to people that were wearing banners [sic], gasmask, goggles and that they were going to be arrestable or that they were to be arrested for Disguise with Intent, which is a Criminal Code Offense and as well anyone with a backpack was to be searched and if they refused to be search [sic] then they would be arrestable for obstructing police which is a Criminal Offence and as well as people, weapons including bottles and canisters of liquid were to be investigated and arrested for Possession of Weapons."
According to Wall's lawyer "the report shows that senior command directed officers to make unlawful arrests." “Wearing a bandana or refusing to allow police to look in your backpack are not criminal offences. We now have proof that many arrests were not the result of a few bad apples or overreaction by officers on the ground. The orders came from the top," lawyer Davin Charney said in a release to the media.

Man arrested during G20 settles lawsuit against police (via Reddit)

(Image: G20 Toronto, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from kowaleski's photostream)

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.

MORE: authoritarianism • canada • corruption • g20 • police • reddit • toronto

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http://facebook.com/dballing/ Derek Balling

Those damned Canadians! If only they were an actually free and civilized people like us — or, err… waitaminute, nevermind.
http://mordicai.livejournal.com Mordicai

Gosh, I hope everyone involved goes to prison. You can say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.
dragonfrog

The report also shows that there really isn’t a written test to become a police officer in this great country.
- Quothz
  
  Be grateful. In the US, written tests are used largely to weed out people with critical thinking skills.
Otherdave

My encounter with the police and subsequent detention on that weekend was minor compared to many others, but I still get clammy hands and a knot in my stomach when I read about G20 and remember.

The second worst part was arguing with friends afterwards about ‘the importance of seeing both sides.’ Sometimes the Canadian temperament is a curse.
http://twitter.com/mnsmirnoff Manuel Smirnoff

No surprise here: the police are to oppress, not to enforce the actual law. There are no good police, and they are not your friend.
sincarne

I am pleased to hear this. The Chief of Police does not get to make up his own laws on the fly to make his job easier. The fact that Bill Blair is both a free man, and still in the same position, astounds me. And the fact that TPS hung lower level officers who were following their instructions out to dry makes it even more disgusting to me.
- dragonfrog
  
  Well, the lower level officers could reasonably be disciplined for failing to arrest Bill Blair. Doesn’t address your complaint about Bill Blair still walking free.
  - sincarne
    
    The thing is, they had every reason to believe that they were following actual laws. I remember writing to my MPP after hearing about these new laws being suddenly passed overnight with no public consultation. It was terribly undemocratic. Problem was, it was a lie. No such laws were passed, at least not in the form that was used to illegally detain many people.
    - Nadreck
      
      “Ignorance is no excuse of the law” as those same police are fond of saying on a daily basis.
http://twitter.com/metrazol metrazol

Anyone else find it mildly amusing that those officers are a spitting image of the Combine Civil Protection unit from Half Life 2? Life imitates art?
- eryximachus
  
  A BEATING!
  
  ( http://hlcomic.com/index.php?date=2005-05-11 )
milkman

I just don’t understand how on a large scale of civilization that we just allow this to happen over and over. Sure, we see these articles, get pissed, and some of these people get in trouble – but why don’t we do a better job managing these on the front end?
- http://facebook.com/dballing/ Derek Balling
  
  Because the number of people who ACTUALLY become pissed makes the 1% look like huge.
  
  The majority of the populace are sheep who are happy so long as they can continue to get their Cheez-Ums and watch the latest episode of Real Housewives.
- ahmacrom
  
  The opiates of the masses are fully entrenched. (Alcohol, cigarettes, prescription “medicine” , t.v, shopping) . The “mainstream” is a shallow stream. Since we are lulled to sleep frequently, we need some new substances and mediums to wake us the fuck up.
  - Guest
    
    You do make a strong point. What an army you’d have if you controlled the oxy supply.
Sean Breakey

First of all, a simple note, wearing a mask at night without good reasons is illegal, so if the bandana was covering his face, and he wasn’t using it to say keep the dust out while drywalling, then he can be arrested, (it’s an old anti-burglary law). In the day-time it’s perfectly fine. Gas Masks could easily be excused, as everyone knew gas was being used, and the funny thing about gas is that it’s a gas, meaning it doesn’t just stay in any one area, it blows around alot.

Other then that, the only way to prevent this from happening again is for everyone arrested, (at NOT convicted), to file a wrongful arrest suit, and I do mean EVERY SINGLE ONE. If this simple thing was done, any common law country in the world would have trouble pulling off anything similar. Hell, they might even be able to pull off a class action.
- joeposts
  
  First of all, a simple note, wearing a mask at night without good reasons is illegal, so if the bandana was covering his face … then he can be arrested
  
  Unless a person is wearing a mask with an obvious intent to commit a crime (like putting on a mask while walking into a bank), the police have no right to stop you in Toronto. As the article states:
  
  Jason Wall, 25, was walking along Yonge Street by himself on the morning of June 27, 2010
  
  Wearing a bandana or refusing to allow police to look in your backpack are not criminal offences
  
  Wearing a bandana is not a crime against the state, just a crime against fashion. Mwhaha.
- Guest
  
  Sean. RTFA.
Ryan Lenethen

I blame Stephen Harper, its not like he is going to get elec…. nevermind. sigh.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_WTRPUZQ4OJEYNFACU4TSFYNCBU Stevelev

I believe the problem is that people have accepted a slave mentality allowing entities such as the G20 to have more power than the local governments. People everywhere need to reclaim local control and severely limit the rights and weapons of the large organizations such as federal governments and global entities such as the UN or G20.
Abuse will always occur. We can address abuse at a local level or we can give up our rights to large institutions such as the G20 where correction will likely require deadly force.
The difference is affecting change at a local level is far less painful than eliminating the G20(remember all regimes such as the Nazi’s can easily be defeated if struck down before it gets too large). Europe’s current crisis would be far less painful had a few individuals not gained control over it’s entire economy. Now no one accepts fault for the current problems, corruption is rampant and solutions are all severely painful.
Mister44

What kind of masks are those? Were they intentionally going for the whole Stormtrooper look?
- Guest
  
  Less stormtrooper, more blac bloc.
eryximachus

And the pigs really wonder why everyone hates them.
realityhater

What can you even say about this revelation , only until revolution nothing will change…….
http://twitter.com/ScytheNoire ScytheNoire

Police around the world are out of control. Power has went to their heads. They think they are above the law. They think they ARE the law. It’s time that police were held to a higher standard and punished for their law breaking. It’s time to end the corporate run governments. It’s time for a revolution.
- Guest
  
  There you go again.
dainel

The police that arrested him for wearing a bandana around his *NECK*, were they wearing masks on their faces like in the picture? If they were not, did they arrest their own colleagues who were?
frankiestout

Sean, it may surprise you to learn this, but there have been both individual and class action suits filed regarding many of the similar abuses of police power at large demonstrations over the last decade. A great many have been decided in the protestors’ favor. That hasn’t stopped the police from militarizing. Quite the contrary, both the amount of money spent and the degree to which civil liberties have been suppressed has actually increased for every summit. People ARE resisting, people ARE protesting, and it simply won’t do any good until they realize that significant, lasting, positive social change is absolutely impossible in our current system. Unfortunately, there are more armchair lawyers commenting on blogs than there are people willing to put their bodies in the way of the machine. For now.
- Guest
  
  The machine is designed to waste your time and demoralize you. What’s noble in being that martyr?
cdh1971

You want to become one with the gun. Feel the gun, caress the gun until it’s a living, breathing, vibrating extension of yourself. – From a police training manual.