Sunday, September 12, 2010

The Toronto Star is Right. There's No Substitute for Inquiry

A reminder in the Star, that the police brutality and the actions of Harper's riot squad, during the G-20 weekend from hell, are not going to go away.

We need and deserve answers.
The lasting images from the G20 summit held in Toronto last summer are not of world leaders, heads bent together in common cause, but of police cruisers on fire, protesters penned up in the rain and riot squads conducting mass arrests. Now, an independent review by the civilian body that oversees Toronto’s police is set to probe some of the most controversial incidents and troubling police tactics including: “kettling” of peaceful protesters; mass arrests that indiscriminately deprived more than 1,000 people of their freedom; and the misinformation campaign surrounding the extent of enhanced police powers.

As proposed, the review would question what orders were given to the police who allowed vandals to run amok smashing store windows and torching police cruisers and then later appeared to retaliate by detaining peaceful protesters elsewhere. It would also address the conditions in the detention centre, where hundreds of people were held in wire cages for much of the weekend and then released without charges.
This is not going to go away, just because Stephen Harper wants it to.

2 comments:

  1. I certainly hope an inquiry leads to some answers, and the answers to some serious reprimands, perhaps even (dare I say it?) action.

    ReplyDelete