Trying to stop OWS with pepper spray : FAIL

As appalling as the first few seconds of this video are - UC Davis Police Lt. John Pike casually walking along a line of seated students and pepper-spraying them point blank in the face - it's worth watching to the end to see how brilliantly the students handle it.

Human microphone :

"Mike check ...  mike check .... We are willing ... to give you a brief moment ... of peace ... so that you may take your weapons ... and our friends ... and go. ... Please do not return ... We are giving you a moment of peace ... We are giving you a moment of peace ... You can go ... and we will not follow you ... You can go you can go you can go you can go you can go you can go ....."

And after a brief show of waving their paintguns about and shaking up their pepper spray cans ... the police retreat. Score one for #Occupy.

Later, UC Davis Police Chief Annette Spicuzza explained the pepper-spraying of the row of seated students was necessary because the police were afraid for their own personal safety :

"There was no way out of that circle," Spicuzza said. "They were cutting officers off from their support. It's a very volatile situation."

Sure it was :

Another angle showing the open expanse of lawn behind Lt. John Pike that so alarmed the "encircled" police    officers.

Up here in BC, that's known locally as the 'stapler defence'. 


Monday Update : Police Chief Spicuzza, Lt. Pike and one other pepperspraying police officer placed on administrative leave. 
Statements from the university chancellor and this from the president of the University of the California system : 

"The time has come to take strong action to recommit to the ideal of peaceful protest."

More : Dr. Dawg .  Let Freedom Rain


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Stacy Bonds "special constables" cleared

The Ontario Provincial Police has finished investigating the Ottawa Police Service for their assault of Stacy Bonds and announced no charges will be laid. You're shocked, I'm sure.

"I would like to thank the Ontario Provincial Police for conducting this investigation in an objective, thorough and professional way," said Ottawa Police Chief Vern White in a news release.

The Ottawa police officer Steven Desjourdy who cut off Bonds' shirt and bra was charged with sexual assault by the the Ontario Special Investigations Unit in March; the SIU however has no jurisdiction over the other "special constables" involved who are not officially police officers.

When the case came before Justice Richard Lajoie in October 2010, he described Bonds' arrest as "unlawful", "appalling", "a travesty" with "no reason apart from vengence and malice", and "an extremely serious breach of Ms. Bonds rights".
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G20 - Police oversight

Oversight - noun
1) the action of overseeing something
2) an omission, the failure to do something

Dorian Barton was taking a picture of police horses in the park at the G20 summit in downtown Toronto last summer when he was suddenly knocked to ground from behind with a riot shield, beaten with a baton breaking his shoulder, and stomped in the face. He was then dragged off by his broken right arm and detained without medical treatment for the first five of a total of 30 hours in detention, after which he was charged with "obstructing a police officer". The Crown dropped the charges against him at the same time it dropped all the bullshit charges against everyone else.

Ontario's Special Investigations Unit, the civilian agency charged with investigating "police actions resulting in serious injury, sexual assault or death", is reopening for the third time an investigation into allegations the Toronto police officer pictured here was one of seven who took part in the vicious assault on Barton. The photographer who took this pic is willing to testify he saw the officer blindside Barton with his shield and strike him as he lay on the ground before other officers joined in. He has provided seven photos of the assault.

SIU dropped its two previous investigations into the case in January because eleven police witnesses, one of whom was the officer's G20 roommate and two of whom were his supervisors, declined to identify him. SIU director Ian Scott reopened it today after Toronto Police Chief Blair promised to provide the name of the employee who was able to identify the subject officer.

WTF?
I'm pretty sure if me and six of my friends were caught on film beating the crap out of you, the cops would not drop the case because my boss and my roommate declined to cough up my name to go along with my photo.

According to the Ontario Attorney General to whom the SIU reports, the SIU exonerates the officer in 97% of the cases it does pursue :

"The fact that the SIU overwhelmingly clears officers should be seen by the [public] as an endorsement of good policing."

However, in Oversight Unseen, a 2008 report on the SIU, Ontario Ombudsmen André Marin saw it differently :

"[T]he Ministry of the Attorney General has relied on the SIU to soothe police and community sensibilities and to ward off controversy. But in doing so, it has also overstepped the bounds of independent governance. The Director’s performance is subjectively evaluated and rewarded, compromising the SIU’s structural integrity and independence.

Its credibility as an independent investigative agency is further undermined by the predominant presence and continuing police links of former police officials within the SIU. It is so steeped in police culture that it has, at times, even tolerated the blatant display of police insignia and police affiliation."

[T]he SIU often ... adopts an impotent stance in the face of police challenge. Delays in police providing notice of incidents, in disclosing notes, and in submitting to interviews are endemic. Rather than vigorously inquiring into and documenting delays and other evidence of police resistance, the SIU deals with issues of police non-co-operation as isolated incidents.

Police interviews are rarely held within the regulatory time frames, and are all too often postponed – for weeks, sometimes even months. The SIU will not inconvenience officers or police forces by interviewing officers off duty. When it encounters overt resistance from police officials, the SIU pursues a low-key diplomatic approach that flies under the public radar. If disagreement cannot be resolved, the SIU more often than not simply accepts defeat."

"The SIU more often than not simply admits defeat." Good lord.

The current SIU director Ian Scott was appointed just before that report came out.
In February the Toronto Star ran a series based on 300 letters Scott sent to police forces over a 14-month period beginning in January 2009. They detail "his mounting frustration at not being able to hold officers accountable", including the burning of evidence before he got to see it, and being generally ignored by the Ontario police forces.
Presumably this is why he is giving interviews about this case to the press, despite the fact SIU Regulation 13 forbids it.

Rally in Toronto on Saturday for a public inquiry into G20 police riots

Meanwhile, out here in BC, the local media was pleased to bits last week to report that in response to Justice Braidwood  recommendations following from the police killing of Robert Dziekanski in 2007, we will be getting our own civilian police-oversight agency modelled on the SIU. And just like the SIU, the Independent Investigations Office will also report to BC's Attorney General, not the Ombudsman as Braidwood had wisely suggested.

Greg Klein at TheStraight :

[I]t was the AG’s Crown attorneys who exonerated the four Mounties involved in Dziekanski’s death. That was what led to Braidwood’s inquiry in the first place.

It gets worse. The government added that incidents or complaints involving IIO staff will be investigated by B.C.’s Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner. Almost all senior positions at the OPCC are staffed by former police officers.

An exception is police complaint commissioner Stan Lowe. But Lowe is a former Crown attorney and member of the criminal justice branch executive management that unanimously decided to exonerate the four RCMP officers involved in Robert Dziekanski’s Taser-related death. It was Lowe who made the infamous December 2008 announcement that the five Taser shocks inflicted on Dziekanski were “reasonable and necessary".

And so it goes ...
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Justice for Stacy Bonds

is looking less likely by the day.

Unlawfully arrested, forcibly strip-searched in front of male officers while being held down with a riot shield, her shirt and bra cut off with scissors by a male officer, a hand put down her pants, left in a cell for over three hours in the pants she soiled in fear.

After reviewing the police tapes and emphasizing that Ms Bonds was "clearly cooperating", Justice Richard Lajoie threw out the prosecutor's case in disgust, noting in his Reasons for Judgement on Oct. 27 :

"The officers have tried to justify their actions on the principles of safety, officer safety and the accused's safety, as well as risk of suicide."

Risk of suicide. What a disgusting excuse for an assault.

Here's their boss, Ottawa Police Chief Vern White, speaking to CBC about the case on Nov 17 :

"Like other Ontario police chiefs, White said, he would like more power to discipline officers.
"I do not feel our discipline process today carries the full weight of accountability the public expects," White said. "Most of the chiefs have identified to the province that we need to have some changes in the Police Services Act."

White said the current act makes it difficult to suspend or dismiss police officers, and even those dismissed may remain on the payroll if they choose to appeal."

But as noted by Dr. Dawg, Chief White's investigation is now history, taken over by the Ontario Special Investigations Unit. The SIU mandate as per their website :

"The SIU is a civilian law enforcement agency, independent of the police, that investigates circumstances involving police and civilians which have resulted in serious injury, including sexual assault, or death."

Serious injury, sexual assault, death.
The bar for proving sexual assault is already appallingly high and what with the officers saying they were only attempting to prevent Bonds from committing suicide ...
Case closed.
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Ottawa Police vs Stacy Bonds

For over two years the Ottawa Police have had in their possession police video showing the unlawful arrest, assault, detention and brutalizing of Stacy Bonds by Ottawa police officers - including having her bra and shirt cut off with the assistance of "at least three male officers" and being left half-naked in a cell for three hours in the pants she soiled in fear - and only now that the case has gone public is Ottawa police Chief Vern White getting around to promising what he has the gall to refer to as "a swift internal investigation" ?

Stacy Bonds, 27, 100 pounds, and with no prior record, was arrested merely for asking why she was being questioned by police.

Presiding Justice Richard Lajoie describes the subsequent police station videotape.
Bonds is "clearly cooperating", "compliant", "with no hint of violence and no hint of being aggressive", yet he says the cameras show Bonds received "two extremely violent knee hits in the back", "is taken to the ground" with a riot shield, "someone has a hand inside Ms. Bonds' pants", and Sergeant Steven Desjourdy cuts off Bonds' shirt and bra, at which point she is strip searched by Constable Melanie Morris in the presence of "at least three male officers" before being thrown half naked into a cell.

And you thought if you were all compliant and cooperative nothing like this would ever happen to you.

Lajoie described Bonds arrest as "unlawful", "appalling", "a travesty" with "no reason apart from vengence and malice", and "an extremely serious breach of Ms. Bonds rights".

Smells like G20, doesn't it?

Ottawa Citizen :

"It’s not the first time Desjourdy has been under investigation. Days before this 2008 case, he kicked and Tasered a female prisoner in the cell block twice. In 2009, he pleaded guilty under the Police Act and was demoted for three months from sergeant to constable."

Which gives us some idea of what the outcome of Ottawa Police Chief Vern White's "swift internal investigation" will look like.

Dawg is offering to help Stacy Bonds finance a lawsuit. Go.
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Nov 25 Update : The Citizen has published the police video of Stacy Bonds jailhouse abuse.
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Areaman moves to Maclean's

It's been pretty difficult to find any humour in G20, hasn't it?
Inside - a billion dollar bunfest in which leaders talk about implementng austerity.
Outside - 20,000 police decline to confront a hundred or so rioters in favour of spending the following day assaulting and arresting a thousand nonviolent citizens and locking them up in cages for a day.

Undaunted by the emergence of uglier and uglier police stories, culminating in the one where police yank off an amputee's prosthetic leg and order him to hop to his own arrest, Maclean's has apparently asked Areaman from The Onion do its unsigned front page cover story this week.
Some highlights from Lock them up :

anxiety over the behaviour of police is wildly overdone ... arrests and claims of police brutality need to be kept in perspective.

Only the professionalism and preparedness of police prevented circumstances from being much worse.

Many of the complaints seem to involve the quality of the sandwiches in detention.

At the end of the day, debate over street violence, protest and police ought to be secondary to the summit’s practical achievements. ... The role of formal summits is largely to provide world leaders with an opportunity to mingle and pose for a group photo.

Yup, that's Areaman alright.
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G20 : How much worse is this going to get?

A 57 year old amputee has his artificial leg ripped off by police because he can't stand up quickly enough for them from where he's sitting quietly on the grass with his daughter at Queens Park.

"As Sarah began pleading with them to give her father a little time and space to get up because he is an amputee, they began kicking and hitting him.
One of the police officers used his knee to press Pruyn’s head down so hard on the ground, said Pruyn in an interview this July 4 with Niagara At Large, that his head was still hurting a week later.

Accusing him of resisting arrest, they pulled his walking sticks away from him, tied his hands behind his back and ripped off his prosthetic leg. Then they told him to get up and hop, and when he said he couldn’t, they dragged him across the pavement, tearing skin off his elbows, with his hands still tied behind his back. His glasses were knocked off as they continued to accuse him of resisting arrest and of being a “spitter,” something he said he did not do. They took him to a warehouse and locked him in a steel-mesh cage where his nightmare continued for another 27 hours."

No phone call, no reason given for his arrest, no charges laid after 27 hours.

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Photographer Dylan Leeder was there and blogged it :

"Throughout the day I saw a few things that I wish I never had to see. One man, an amputee, was even torn down by his neck (where they aimed for), beaten, and then had his prosthetic leg ripped off only to be arrested."

John Pruyn, a Revenue Canada employee, wonders if the idea of the crackdown was to send a message to the public at large that gatherings of opposition to government policies won’t be tolerated.

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h/t Antonia Z.

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Update : Media response

NaPo : G20 police 'yanked' off prosthetic leg

Sun : Who will stand for amputee?

The Shotgun : The time for excuses is long over

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If you go out in the streets today ...

If you go out in the streets today
You're sure of a big surprise.
If you go out in the streets today
There's cops in black bloc disguise

And every cop that ever there was
Will gather there for certain, because
Today's the day the copper bears have their picnic.

Kettling time for copper bears,
Toronto copper bears are having a lovely time today.
Watch their snatch and grab affairs,
And dodge their teargas and their pepperspray.
Watch them not put fires out
They've got illegal clout
So never have any cares.
At six o'clock McGuinty and Bill Blair
Will send them out again
Because they're wired little copper bears.

If you go out in the streets today,
You'd better not go alone.
It's lovely out in the streets today,
But safer to stay at home.
For every Charter right that there was
Will get a fright for certain, because
Today's the day the copper bears have their picnic.

Inspired by Skdadl's brilliant post at Pogge.
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This is what real journalism looks like

On June 26th Toronto Mayor David Miller exhorted Torontonians to put the previous day's G20 violence behind them and get out into the streets to enjoy their city. Theatre director Tommy Taylor took Miller's words to heart.

This is his story of his day. Arrested with his girlfriend for singing "Give Peace a Chance", held for more than 24 hours in handcuffs in a 10 by 12 by 20 foot cage along with 40 other men, wet and cold, standing room only, no phone call, having to beg for a few sips of water, eventually passing out on the filthy floor.
One of the most compelling accounts on any subject I've read in some time, not least of all for his sympathy for the police forced into this position. This is what real journalism looks like :

How I Got Arrested and Abused at the G20 in Toronto, Canada
by Tommy Taylor

via Back of the Book and Boris.

Sign the Canadian Civil Liberties Association Petition calling for an independent inquiry and "Law reform to ensure that the Criminal Code provisions relating to “breach of the peace”, “unlawful assemblies” and “riots” are brought in line with constitutional standards.
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Canadians Demanding a Public Inquiry into Toronto G20 - 41,000 members
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Happy Canada Day

June 27 G20 march - from above :



Same group of people - from the inside :



Today, on Canada Day, 2,000 people marched through downtown Toronto in support of a public inquiry into the tactics used above. Thank you to all the people in Toronto for both marches.


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G20 : Rank and file cops knew 5 meter rule was bs

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Further to yesterday's revelation that Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair knew the so-called five meter rule did not give him extra powers to violate Charter rights comes the revelation that the rank and file police performing the above actions on peaceful demonstrators also knew it :

By mid-afternoon Friday, [police spokesman Mark] Pugash said, police got new information informing them that, as both police and the province confirmed Tuesday, the regulation merely applied only to the area within the fence.

Police sent out a bulletin to police officers, Mr. Pugash said, but did not see a need to tell media or the public."

Which rather explains these officers' reluctance to cite that 5 meter rule when directly asked about it by the very people whose rights they were violating. 1000 odd arrests, the majority of them performed by police officers in full knowledge that what they were doing was both illegal and sanctioned by their superiors.
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And now Blair announces there will be an internal inquiry? Fuck that. He has seriously compromised not only his own command but the integrity of the officers under him. Fire him.
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Canadians Demanding a Public Inquiry into Toronto G20

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Cop sentenced to sleeping in his own bed for 3 weeks for beating up newsie

In January three drunk off-duty Metro Vancouver cops were arrested for assault on a newspaper delivery man.

Griffin Gillan of the West Vancouver Police assaulted Firoz Khan four times and held him down with a foot on his head while he called for back-up from his drinking buddies - all because Khan failed to give him street directions in what he considered to be a timely manner.
After commandeering a car to join in the assault, Jeffrey Klassen of the New Westminster police, a use-of-force instructor for police training at the Justice Institute of BC, punched Khan in the back of the head three or four times and yelled: "Stay down or I will kill you."
When Khan called for help and asked bystanders to call police, Klassen allegedly said: "We are the police" and one of three explained: "We don't like brown people."
A fourth police officer called in by the appalled bystanders first handcuffed Khan before it was pointed out to him that Khan was in fact the victim.

That night Global TV news floated the story that perhaps the officers' actions could be explained by their having been slipped some kind of drug. Vancouver Chief Const. Jim Chu pleaded that "the public should have confidence in the police investigation" and B.C. Attorney General Wally Oppal asked the public to "keep an open mind." till the case was heard in court.

Ok, now we've heard it.
Gillan, who has been on suspension without pay, was ordered by the court to attend counselling for anger management and substance abuse - and sentenced to being home every night between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m for three weeks.

Yes, you read that right - he's been sentenced to sleeping in his own bed for three weeks.
We won't hear how many nights Klassen has to sleep in his own bed till next year.
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Braidwood Inquiry resumes tomorrow; William Elliott is an ass

On the eve of the resumption of the Braidwood Inquiry into the homicide of Robert Dziekanski after a two week hiatus, RCMP Commissioner William Elliott said he "would ask Canadians to reflect for a minute before they jump to conclusions".

A whole minute? What did Dziekanski get? 25 seconds, was it?

"Even in situations where people make mistakes or don't act appropriately, I think there is a requirement for a sober, sound examination of the facts and circumstances."

Yes. Watching Paul Pritchard's video, it's obvious that is precisely what was missing.

"I think the expression, 'Walk a mile in my shoes,' comes to mind.
I am optimistic that the inquiry will result in an assessment and recommendations that are based on that and not based on a knee-jerk reaction to what is heard, what is said or seen."

Right. So your advice is that we should just ignore what millions of us saw on the video and heard in the bullshit testimony given so far that bears no relation to it.

Tomorrow the lead officer, RCMP Cpl. Benjamin (Monty)"Hit him again! Hit him again!"Robinson, takes the stand.
Will he, like the three officers before him, also testify that Dziekanski was throwing things when they arrived, that he came at them screaming and brandishing a stapler, that he ignored their commands and had to be zapped twice before being "wrestled" to the ground, that none of the four have ever mentioned a single word to each other about what happened? Will he also have to be walked though the video frame by frame and have their official story debunked?

Cpl. Robinson will also presumably be asked why, as the lead officer, he did not monitor Dziekanski's condition after he started turning blue, why he did not attempt rescusitation, and why he initially refused to remove Dziekanski's handcuffs for the first responders.

On Oct 25, Cpl. Robinson again failed to provide aid for a victim when he fled the scene of an accident in which he hit a motorcyclist with his jeep. The motorcyclist died of his injuries.


In other RCMP/TASER™ news, the Sun reports that B.C. RCMP Sgt. Russell Hannibal, who was acquitted after zapping a man in handcuffs six times, "received a formal reprimand, not for deploying his Taser, but for using “vulgar, inflammatory” language during the arrest.
Hannibal’s commanding officer would have reviewed all the facts in the case before deciding against a formal hearing."

Yeah, don't mention the TASER™ - I did once but I think I got away with it.
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Monday Update : P.S.A. on that whole "whack a mole in my shoes" thing.
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Braidwood Inquiry - A third officer is forced to recant

Another very bad day for RCMP credibility as a third RCMP officer, the one who applied the TASER™ to Robert Dziekanski five times, is forced to reconcile Paul Pritchard's video with his own completely different version of events.

In his statement immediately after the incident and before seeing the video, Constable Kwesi Millington claimed that Dziekanski assumed a "combative stance" and came at the four RCMP officers in a "threatening manner" while "swinging the stapler wildly". Millington further testified that Dziekanski didn't go down even after three rounds of TASER™ and continued to fight even on the ground.

Justice Thomas Braidwood asked Millington how he could possibly insist the man was still standing after the first TASER™ "when he was on the ground howling with his legs in the air."

"I was wrong about that," says Millington.

So why did he hit him a second time? Because he was "resisting".

Video is shown of Robert Dziekanski spinning around in circles on the floor like a bug all by himself. Who exactly is he resisting?

"I was wrong about that", admitted Milligan again.
And the third time? Because he was still resisting.
And the fourth time? Seems he wasn't sure the TASER™ was working properly so he tried it in push-stun mode, applying it directly to Dziekanski for what he called "pain compliance".
He could not remember having done this a second time as the TASER™ record shows, for a total of five times over 30 seconds.

The stapler defence.
Millington : "I formed the impression he wanted to attack one of the officers or all of the officers."
Asked to demonstrate the stapler threat, Millington holds the open stapler close to his body just above waist height. Jeers break out in the gallery. The video shows Dziekanski surrounded by four officers backed up against the counter and making no movement towards them.

BC Local News :

"Asked what could have gone wrong if officers had waited another second or two, Millington maintained the stapler-wielding Dziekanski posed a threat.
"We feared for our safety and we felt he was going to escape."

Vancouver Sun :

"After Dziekanski was handcuffed behind his back, face-down, Millington said he recalled Const. Bentley pointing out "within a minute or two" that Dziekanski's "ears were starting to turn blue."
Millington agreed that he did not check Dziekanski's pulse or breathing, but thought that Cpl. Benjamin Robinson, might have done so, although he agreed with Vertlieb all officers wore gloves, making medical checks difficult.

Richmond Fire Capt. Kirby Graeme has testified that as the first paramedic on the scene, he was shocked to see Mounties "standing around" not monitoring Dziekanski, who was lying motionless and blue, "not in anything remotely resembling a recovery position."

Millington faces cross-examination and then we'll hear from the fourth and last RCMP officer, Corporal Benjamin Robinson.

Still no transcripts up at the Braidwood Inquiry website since Feb. 19.
RCMP Const. Bentley's lawyer has asked that official inquiry transcripts, video, audiotapes and exhibits at the inquiry not be released without a court order because they fear Poland may bring charges against the officers. Poland has denied they intend to do so.
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Braidwood Inquiry - Dziekanski may have shot staples
Braidwood Inquiry : First RCMP testimony today
Braidwood Inquiry : A second RCMP officer recants
Braidwood Inquiry : Dziekanski compliant after all
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Live coverage of the inquiry can be found at the CBC :
Mon to Fri from 10am to 11:50am and 2pm to 4:30pm
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Braidwood Inquiry : Dziekanski compliant after all

From the very beginning the RCMP justification for stunning Robert Dziekanski has been that he was "defiant" and "non-compliant".
Constable Gerry Rundel testified on Monday that Dziekanski turned away from the officers in a "to hell with you guys, I'm out of here," stance.
Const. Bill Bentley testified he feared for his safety after "Dziekanski disobeyed a police command, threw up his arms in the air and appeared to walk away from the officers, which he saw as an act of defiance."

Yesterday the lawyer for the Polish government blew that excuse away when he walked Bentley through five frames of Paul Prichard's video which clearly show that Dziekanski turned away from the RCMP officers towards a counter because he was directed to do so. In the video RCMP Cpl. Benjamin Robinson is plainly seen vigorously pointing towards the counter with his arm extended straight out in front of him and Dziekanski turns toward it as directed. At this point the four officers surround Dziekanski and RCMP Const. Kwesi Millington fired his TASER™ for the first time.

When the inquiry resumes on Monday, Const. Millington will face tough questioning as to why he then zapped Dziekanski for a further 20 to 25 seconds after he was already on the ground.
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Update : 14-year-old girl zapped in cell for picking at paint on the wall

continued from here.

Ban stun gun use on young people, Ontario child advocate urges

Ontario Child Advocate Irwin Elman :

"When I saw the tape, we had a young person who was peeling paint off the wall of a police holding cell with her fingernail and she was quiet and on a cot," he said. "And our estimation, the use of a Taser was not proportional to the need to protect, I guess, the paint on the wall."

"We're asking for a moratorium on the use of Tasers on children and youth, certainly in our province, until there's established, full research about their use on children and youth," he said.

Ontario rejects call for banning taser use on minors

Community Safety Minister Rick Bartolucci :

"... police officers should be able to use all the tools in their arsenal when dealing with a dangerous situation.
And he says age should not be a factor in deciding how to deal with an individual.
"That police officer should have all the tools necessary to ensure that he or she chooses a course of action that protects the individual, protects the public and protects the police officer — regardless of age," Mr. Bartolucci said.

Well that's just crap.
The "dangerous situation" is a 14-year-old girl lying on a cot in a police cell.
You're protecting paint here, Rick.
Paint, and the right to use a TASER™ on children for pain compliance.
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14-year-old girl zapped in cell for peeling paint off the wall

The father of a 14-year-old mentally challenged girl who was TASER™ed in her jail cell for peeling paint off the wall is suing the Ontario Provincial Police on her behalf.

"Ontario's provincial advocate for children and youth, Irwin Elman, who has reviewed a videotape of the incident and the OPP's internal investigation, said he can't understand why police needed to stun the girl, who was lying on a cot when the two officers entered her cell and allegedly zapped her.

"I can tell you from what I saw there was no harm to herself or to any other person. It's not proportional to use a Taser... . It's a 14-year-old child in a cell, not harming herself or anybody else," said Elman, Ontario's independent children's advocate.

"The lawsuit, filed Jan. 23 at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Kenora, says the officers entered the cell without warning, "violently" pulled the girl to the ground and applied the Taser to her right upper thigh for three to five seconds."

"A doctor who examined the girl in the hours after the incident reportedly observed twin burn marks on her thigh."

"OPP spokesman Insp. Dave Ross said yesterday the force was not contesting that the girl had been Tasered, but that the OPP's professional standards bureau completed an investigation in December 2008 and cleared officers of any wrongdoing.

You're shocked and surprised at the results of the OPP professional standards bureau investigation I'm sure. Did I mention she is First Nations?
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Underwriting police brutality in BC

Lifting the arms of a handcuffed man up behind his back while tripping him facefirst onto a concrete cell floor causing skull fracture and permanent brain damage is "more force than was necessary" but not "police brutality", according to Robert Hutchison, retired B.C. Supreme Court Justice acting as adjudicator for the B.C. Police Complaint Commission yesterday.

The police constable, Greg Smith, has since been suspended with pay after being arrested last month over allegations of uttering threats in connection with an unrelated domestic dispute.

The victim, Thomas McKay, was at the time a Comosun College student arrested for public drunkenness after celebrating the end of his exams. He is incapable of attending the hearing.
The incident occurred in April 2004.

2004? Why is the BCPCC just getting to this now?

The Victoria Police Dept twice tried to dismiss McKay's complaints as unsubstantiated.
An earlier examination of the case by the Deputy Chief of the Victoria Police Department Bill Naughton in 2006 and again in 2007, which included the same police video tape of Const. Greg Smith sweeping McKay's feet out from under him, concluded that allegations of abuse against Const. Smith were not warranted, so no disciplinary measures were necessary.
The City of Victoria, however, reached an out-of-court settlement for an undisclosed amount in a civil lawsuit filed by McKay’s family. The settlement binds him to confidentiality.

Meanwhile, Willow Kinloch, who was awarded $60,000.00 in her police brutality claim against the Victoria Police when she was 15, has been informed that the police plan to appeal the jury's decision in her case.

We pay for the police, we pay for the chiefs who absolve police brutality, we pay for the hearings, we pay for the settlements to victims, we pay for the police appeals to the settlements, and ultimately we pay for lack of public trust in the police.
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Off-duty cops : "We don't like brown people"

Last night's TV news coverage of the three off-duty Vancouver area cops arrested for robbery and assault of a newspaper delivery man early Wednesday morning featured the snippet that police were investigating the possibility that the three cops had been slipped some kind of drug.

Really?
What kind of drug causes three young innocent police officers to allegedly rob a newsie and kick him repeatedly in the head while allegedly yelling, "We don't like brown people" ?
What kind of drug would make them allegedly threaten him with a TASER™ and other appalled bystanders with violence after allegedly commandeering a corvette for their alleged convenience?
Feel free to add as many more "allegedly's" as you think the situation requires, given that there were witnesses to the beating, including the taxi driver who witnessed the entire event and the municipal workers who attempted to stop it with shovels.

And the police who allegedly told the victim not to talk to the media? Were they also slipped a drug?

B.C.'s Attorney General Wally Oppal on Friday asked the public to "keep an open mind."
Vancouver Chief Const. Jim Chu says "the public should have confidence in the police investigation".

"For the sake of preserving the public's respect and belief in the integrity of that process, I believe it is important to reassure them on this matter."

Statistics released by the Office of the Police Complaints Commissioner in November showed that 106 municipal police officers were guilty of misconduct between Oct. 1, 2006, and Oct. 1, 2008. That's about one a week.

The previous chief of the Vancouver Police Department, Jamie Graham, was found guilty of discreditable conduct for failing to cooperate in an RCMP investigation into allegations of police brutality. He "retired" in August 2007 and moved to Victoria, coming out of retirement to become Victoria's police chief on Jan 1st this year.

"It's still Canada"

Zoom at Knitnut came upon a police situation she didn't like the look of yesterday :

"three police officers were trying to put an unconscious, handcuffed woman into the back of a van."

She didn't see the beginning of the incident, described to her by a bystander as :

“And the big cop, he slammed her face-down into the sidewalk just like she was a huge man,” said one of the men.
Then, he said, they cuffed her and went to put her in the van. She was part-way in when suddenly she just collapsed. Unconscious. She was bleeding from the head. That’s roughly when I came along."

So Zoom started taking pictures. That takes one hell of a lot of nerve. A 66 year old family lawyer in Edmonton was tasered for doing just that.
When challenged by police, she stood her ground, and as Bene Diction said to her in the comments at her blog :

"You were on public property (common ground) and something in your core integrity may have helped bystanders dig within themselves."

Indeed, another bystander did speak up :

“It’s still Canada,” said a young man in the crowd.
The cop wheeled around.
“You say something?” he demanded of the young man.
“Yeah,” he replied, “I said ‘It’s still Canada.’”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” demanded the cop.
“It means,” said the young man, “that we have rights here. She can take a picture of anything she wants and she doesn’t have to delete it just because you say so.”

Good for you, Zoom at KnitNut and the young man who stood up both for you and an unconscious handcuffed woman bleeding from a head wound being stuffed into the back of a van.

Continued at KnitNut ...

h/t JJ and Stageleft
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Update : Also saluted by Excited Delirium, Skdadl at Pogge, Dr. Dawg, Miss Vicki, JimBobby, and Bene Diction who has good advice for anyone who finds themselves in Zoom's position.