How to Catch Police Brutality

First, you don't rely on the police force to police itself. Here is a bit from a Toronto Star article on the assault of a citizen by the police during the G20 meeting in Toronto in June 2010:

Since the summit ended, SIU investigators had asked 11 witness officers to identify the colleague accused of beating Barton during last June’s G20 summit. Eight of them were within the immediate vicinity of Barton’s violent takedown; one of them was the officer’s roommate during the summit, according to the SIU. None were able to offer a positive identification.

“I don’t know if they’re telling the truth or not,” Ian Scott, head of the SIU, told the Star last month. “I really don’t know.”

On Thursday morning, a Star reporter approached Weddell outside his home with a large photograph of the officer under scrutiny in Barton’s case and asked: “Is this you?”

“I have nothing to say,” Weddell replied several times. When asked whether he could confirm that the officer in the photograph was him, he said: “I said I’m not saying anything. Am I clear?”

...

The SIU has never had enough information to identify the officer in question — even after bystander Andrew Wallace came forward with pictures of the incident.

But if you use a different police force to use its "investigative skills" you get a different result:

For their part, the SIU said they couldn’t get that information using their own investigative technology.

The SIU asked police for the name of the officer who made the identification. For this case to stand up in court, it’s essential for an individual witness to clearly demonstrate how the link between the badge number and the image in the photograph was made, the SIU’s Scott explained to the Star last month.

On Thursday, SIU spokesman Frank Phillips confirmed that the information the agency was seeking from police has been received.

Sounds to me like the SIU should be disbanded if their sleuthing skills don't even extend to being able to read a police badge number off a photograph! And I would say that all the buddies & co-workers of Glenn Weddell should be fired for their obvious coverup of the crime by claiming they "couldn't identify Weddell" in the video & photos of the event. Not only are the incompetent as "investigators" they are criminal conspirators in covering up a crime. Since when does a civilized country rely on criminals to be their "police"?

So what's the big deal? So the police "arrested" some guy. What could be wrong about that? Well, here's a bit that should convince you this wasn't a "typical" arrest:

Barton’s G20 saga began on Saturday, June 26, 2010, during the G20 summit. The cookie maker said he was taking pictures of police horses on his cellphone near Queen’s Park when he was blindsided by an officer’s riot shield. Barton said he was tackled, dragged across the pavement by his arms and carted off to a temporary G20 jail as he pleaded for medical attention.

Barton suffered a broken arm, black eye, bruised back and swollen limbs during his arrest. Two civilian witnesses have said more than one officer may have struck Barton with batons, according to the SIU.

Injuries still linger. Barton said he still can’t raise his arm straight over his head.

Unfortunately there isn't any really clear video of the whole event, but this video from CBC's The Fifth Estate shows Dorian Barton being hauled away as well as some other instances of "overzealous" police roughing up demonstrators.



Here is a full documentary about police behaviour at the G20 Summit from The Fifth Estate entitled "You Should Have Stayed Home".

And here is a two hour video that indicts the police riot that is being pawned off to Canadians as "security":



I'm cynical. I believe the "security" forces purposefully allowed the crazies to trash downtown to justify their heavy handed suppression of all the other demonstrations. If you look at the videos you can see peaceful protests ringed by cops 4 and 5 deep. But when you see the terrorists breaking windows in downtown Toronto, you can see a cop within a block of the riot. But these crazies came out of the crowd! How could the cops miss these hooded, masked crazies while kettling innocent Canadians? It isn't credible. This is simply a demonstration of police state tactics, i.e. allow some trashing to go on so they can cover the vicious police riots. Shame on the police! Shame on Stephen Harper for trampling on democracy.

The police car on fire made the top of the news and terrified the citizens by how a "riot" had broken out. But this was a carefully stage-managed "riot" where the police purposefully ignored the crazies and went after the peaceful protesters.