G20 Tactics

The 57-year-old Thorold, Ontario resident [John Pruyn] – an employee with Revenue Canada and a part-time farmer who lost a leg above his knee following a farming accident 17 years ago – was sitting on the grass at Queen’s Park with his daughter Sarah and two other young people this June 26, during the G20 summit, where he assumed it would be safe.

As it turned out, it was a bad assumption because in came a line of armoured police, into an area the city had promised would be safe for peaceful demonstrations during the summit. They closed right in on John and his daughter and the two others and ordered them to move. Pruyn tried getting up and he fell, and it was all too slow for the police.

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.

— "Thorold, Ontario Amputee Has His Artificial Leg Ripped Off By Police And Is Slammed In Makeshift Cell During G20 Summit – At Least One Ontario MPP Calls The Whole Episode 'Shocking'", Niagara At Large

Link via sabotabby

G20 Civilian Review

The Toronto police services board has called for an independent civilian review of the way security was handled by police during the G20 summit.

In his recommendation Board Chair Alok Mukherjee suggested an impartial civilian overseer chosen to conduct the review.

The yet-to-be-named independent reviewer will be chosen by the seven member board in time for its July 22 meeting.

That individual will then have about 12 weeks to complete the review with the power to question board and police policy and actions relating to G20 security.

Dozens of people attended Tuesday’s board meeting expecting to have their say, and many shouted out their protests but were told they had to submit written deputations to the board prior to a public forum. That won’t likely be held until sometime following the completion of the independent review.

— "Toronto police board orders civilian review of G20 security", The Toronto Star

I don't think much will come of this, but it's a step in the right direction.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Someone on the LJ Toronto community posted a link to the John Pruyn story. One commenter's response: "the only thing that screams at me is what the hell was an amputee doing downtown during G-20 where a riot was going on?"

Chomsky on Haiti and US complicity in Haiti's woes

Chomsky's historical analysis is top-notch. I find his casual dropping of racial slurs in the talk to be a bit anxious-making.

Thought for the Day

Well, y'know, that's functioning democracy. It's beyond anything we can conceive of here. And that's a problem about the United States -- and Europe and the other wealthy industrial countries. The concept of democracy has just been so impoverished that we have to go to the poorest countries in the world to see what democracy means.

— Noam Chomsky

June, in Pictures

( Cut for photos )