One billion dollars, twenty thousand police officers, and over ten thousand unsatisfied protesters left last June’s G20 summit unresolved in Toronto. Those who protested peacefully accuse Toronto police officers of violating their civil liberties. On January 8th, 2011, months after the concluding meeting, these protesters marched downtown towards Toronto Police headquarters demanding a public inquiry into the summit.
The conduct of police officers, on duty, during the summit, has sparked much controversy, especially the violent conduct towards peaceful demonstrators and the lack of conduct towards radical anarchists. Many of the detainees argued that they were unlawfully questioned, searched, and arrested.
Among them is Dorian Barton, a student who claims not to have been a protester but simply an inhabitant of downtown Toronto. Barton filed a $250,000 lawsuit against seven police officers and the Toronto Police Service Board for assault and battery, unlawful arrest and detention, and “negligent investigation”.
Dorian Barton noted, “I’ve always had a lot of respect and trust for police officers, so it never would have occurred to me that the police would so severely injure me and detain me…for not committing anything that could even be considered close to a crime.”
The 29-year-old was allegedly taking photos of police horses before he was hit by an officer’s shield and baton, and subsequently dragged for further beating. Suffering a broken arm and a black eye, he was denied medical attention until hours after being arrested. The charges—which were later dropped—were laid for obstructing a police officer and for unlawful demonstration.
The seven police officers of Barton’s case are some of the ninety who are under investigation and up for a loss of one day’s worth of pay for removing their nametags while on duty. Despite Police Chief Bill Blair’s defence that the Velcro holding the tags could have come loose while detaining protesters, Blair does not deny that their main motive was to conceal their identities.
“I have a rule in the Toronto Police Service—it’s my rule—it’s in accordance with the policy of my police services board, that our officers will wear their names displayed on their uniforms,” Blair said, clarifying that they were acting individually and not under his order.
Regardless, the demonstrators marching towards the Toronto Police Headquarters demanded Blair’s resignation, chanting, “Hey Hey, Ho Ho, Bill Blair has got to go.”
The Police Chief, who has refused to resign, is conducting investigations to gather evidence that would hold his police officers accountable for their actions. He has decided that no disciplinary action would be taken until a sufficient amount of evidence is collected.
But among the protesters, this delay in punitive action is regarded with resentment and disbelief. Several photographs, with clear images of violent behaviour from the police, were published in newspapers. As well, many videos were uploaded onto YouTube (a video-sharing website), a number of them showing passive protesters being harassed by officers.
In one of the videos, a York Regional Police officer is caught telling a protester that he had no civil rights, and that he was either to open his bag and be searched or to leave the area. When he did neither and outlined his rights as a Canadian to refuse, the officer replied: “This ain’t Canada right now.”
To the astonishment of the protesters as well as citizens of Toronto, this rigour in inquiring and detaining protesters was not applied at crucial moment during the summit. When anarchists broke from a demonstration group and vandalized major streets of Toronto, not a single officer attempted to control them. With no resistance, the black-clad rioters soon took over the streets, breaking windows and setting police cars ablaze.
Although officers were reportedly ordered not to engage the violent protesters, Blair denies this: “The people that were on the ground were not restricted from making tactical deployments and responses to what they were seeing, but they also had been trained to do it safely and to respond in a way that does not jeopardize public safety or jeopardize those officers.”
While a public inquiry has yet to be granted, many different agencies are conducting separate investigations in response to the hundreds of objections to the conduct of the police force during the summit. Angered by the inaction of authorities, Torontonians struggle to put back justice into the hands of the officers who breached the rights of Canadian citizens.
