The downtown/suburban divide and its fetid offshoots

Doug Holyday gets grumpy about families downtown, Ed Keenan responds with facts | OpenFile:

"On a darker note, it also explains the laissez-faire attitude that so many suburban conservatives had towards the abuses of the G20, as if living downtown was itself incriminating enough to deserve the suspension of our civil liberties. After the G20 weekend, Rob Ford told his AM radio listeners "Personally, if you didn't want to be down there, then you shouldn't have been down there." "Down there," in this case, included a part of the city where tens of thousands of people live."

'via Blog this'

It's been a fun couple of days, mostly related to Holyday's Grandpa Simpson act and conviction that downtown Toronto is no place for kids. Next thing you know, little Ginny's not just playing in traffic -- she's doing crack in the alley behind the meth lab.

But this piece also draws the connection between putative suburban suspicion and resentment of downtown and the smug you-had-it-coming, you-shouldn't-have-been-there reaction to the mass arrests, police brutality and wholesale violations of civil and human rights during the G20. Remember Mayor Stupid suggesting the cops were too nice and didn't go far enough?

Related posts:

• Two years later, no accountability for #policebrutality at the #G20
• @thekeenanwire and the police / government / society we deserve
• Toronto's brutal cops and their shit-for-brains enablers

Toronto News: Protester sues ‘This ain’t Canada’ cop after York police board refuses to charge him - thestar.com

Toronto News: Protester sues ‘This ain’t Canada’ cop after York police board refuses to charge him - thestar.com: "Paul Figueiras"

'via Blog this'

Nice work, York police board. You been taking lessons or something?

In the OIPRD report, Charlebois admitted saying, “This ain’t Canada right now” and “there are no civil rights here,” but insisted it was just “crap talk.”
“I mean, (Figueiras is) going, ‘I have my rights, this is Canada,’ all this stuff. I’m just giving him gibber back, right?” Charlebois told investigators. “We do it all the time. Guys are talking nonsense and he got nonsense back.”
When questioned about why he put his arm around Figueiras, Charlebois said he was giving him a “hug.” He also explained that he was feeling for any “obvious” weapons in his backpack.

Arrogant fucking pig.

Related posts:

• How to hold them accountable: let them embarrass themselves | #policeaccountability
• Another opportunity for the healing power of public scorn | @TorontoPolice #G20
• Couple more guys who are a real credit to the badge | @TorontoPolice #G20
• The Blue BS machine

The door's this way, Chief Blair

So it seems Bill Blair isn't getting with Team Ford's austerity program.

Instead of being a good boy and implementing the 10-per-cent reduction the mayor's team is demanding of city managers, he's looking for a budgetary increase. Not a lot, mind, but the surrounding drama, already at a slow boil, has been cranked up even farther, and now there's speculation that his job's on the line.

@LornePW keeps the police accountability file up to date

Big tip of the porkpie to Lorne over at Politics and its Discontents.

There are times when the sheer inertia and toxic, paranoid self-pity at the core of dysfunctional cop culture makes you want to just give up. Fortunately, Lorne's got the energy and determination to get past those times.

SIU Concludes Reopened #G20 Nobody Investigation | #policebrutality

SIU Concludes Reopened G20 Nobody Investigation

... aaaaand, guess what? Can't find any way to charge anyone else.

Who could have foreseen such a thing?

Oh, well. Maybe the Toronto Police will actually come forward and out the other members of Team Curbstomp. Otherwise, the whining they do when witnesses don't step up and their nice words about acting to regain our trust might look ... hypocritical or something.

(Why, yes – as a matter of fact, that was a monkey flying out of my ass. What's your point?)

Related posts:

• I'm sorry, @TorontoPolice Tweeter guy - perhaps I'm being a little harsh | #G20redux
• @TorontoPolice Tweeter guy: Is this your idea of building relations? | #G20
• SIU re-opens another G20 investigation. Stop me if you've heard this before

I'm sorry, @TorontoPolice Tweeter guy - perhaps I'm being a little harsh | #G20redux

On reflection, maybe I ought to cut you a little slack. Maybe you really are committed to fixing the organizational and occupational culture.

Maybe you really do want to fix the bridges between the police and the community they're sworn to serve and protect.

@LacyMacAuley and my namesake: This is where we juxtapose, redux | #G20

"Confession is not betrayal. What you say or do doesn't matter: only feelings matter. If they could make me stop loving you—that would be the real betrayal."
She thought it over. "They can't do that," she said finally. "It's the one thing they can't do. They can't make you believe it. They can't get inside you."
"No," he said a little more hopefully, "no; that's quite true. They can't get inside you. If you can feel that staying human is worth while, even when it can't have any result whatever, you've beaten them."

George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Chapter 7 


Related posts:

• @TorontoPolice Tweeter guy weighs in | #G20
• Mistakes were made, Bill Blair says | #G20
• G20 asshole cops = schoolyard bullies

#G20 anniversary: Queen & Spadina, one year later

Hundreds of citizens arrested on bullshit pretexts.

Detained arbitrarily in conditions that were gross violations of human rights.

Subjected to racist, sexist, misogynistic and homophobic slurs and harassment.

Assaulted indiscriminately.

Beaten, tear-gassed, shot with rubber bullets, and paraded naked.

And after all this time, no public inquiry, the Blue Wall endures and only two cops charged.

Tell us again how the system is working, @TorontoPolice Tweeter guy.

@SousLePave: Best tweet from yesterday's #G20rally

Please tell me someone got a picture ...

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• Care for a chaw, S-Supt. McGuire?
• No name tag? You disgust me, Officer

#Brigette DePape rocks the rally at Queen's Park

Guess it's good to have the occasional reminder. From Jason Kenney's favourite left-wing kook.



Related posts:

• That 'disrespectful' Brigette sparks the wrath of Ottawa's Villagers
• Re Brigette DePape: I will now eat my words
• Live tweets from the CCLA's G20 hearings
• Don Davies and Bill Blair spar over the G20
• The day they turned the Charter of Rights into toilet paper

@TorontoPolice Tweeter guy weighs in | #G20

... with a few nice words about accountability and regaining public trust.

Here are some suggestions for you.

• Do something about the assholes who brutalized Lacy MacAuley.
• Out the sons of bitches who kicked Adam Nobody in the face after he was cuffed and lying on the ground.
• Press criminal charges against the pieces of shit who did what they did to Sean Salvati.

Let's see them charged, handcuffed and doing the perp walk for the cameras. You know goddamned well who they are. Talk to us when you're ready to do the right thing instead of letting them hide behind the Blue Wall.

Talk to us when you're ready to stop insulting our intelligence.

Talk to us when you're ready to abandon this whole self-pitying narrative about how misunderstood and unappreciated you are.

Talk to us when you're ready to overhaul your whole sickening dysfunctional organizational culture.

Until then ... spare us.

Related posts:

• Clayton Ruby reflects on the police abuse of power at the #G20
• So the cops are using social media?
• Gerald Caplan reflects on the #G20

New poll finds ‘monumental shift’ in public perception of Toronto police because of G20 actions - thestar.com

New poll finds ‘monumental shift’ in public perception of Toronto police because of G20 actions - thestar.com

I might just have to revise my opinion of the Star again. This is clearly adding to the pressure for a public inquiry, although I'm not getting my hopes up given the amount invested in stonewalling and resisting it.

Of course, I wouldn't be surprised to see the emergence of some astroturf group along the lines of Citizens for Police or something in response, amplified by the Sun torquing the shit out of a "grassroots" Cops are Tops campaign. Fuckheads.

So Toronto cops think they're the #G20 whipping boys?

From ... guess which piece of birdshit-catcher. The usual "police morale is low" bullshit. A sample:

The situation has worsened with each new allegation of police brutality and little has been done to restore the faith in those sworn to serve and protect Toronto.
“It’s become embarrassing to say you’re a Toronto cop,” said one of several officers who recently spoke to the Toronto Sun on condition of anonymity.
He said it has become a daily concern and many cops are fed up with being “the whipping boys” for decisions they had no hand in making.
“Cops are leaving Toronto in droves,” he said, explaining many have either transferred to other forces, are in the process of doing so, or are getting out of policing.

Sleaze, slush funds and the Auditor-General's report: This is supposed to make a difference?

With the release of Sheila Fraser's report detailing a record of malfeasance and misdirection regarding G8/G20 spending, a whole raft of familiar patterns re-emerges.

Sleaze, slush funds, money earmarked for border infrastructure spent in Huntsville (which, one hates to point out, is nowhere near the border). No transparency. No accountability. Blaming public servants. A fig for the public trust.

@thekeenanwire and the police / government / society we deserve

Over at The Grid, Edward Keenan's got a thoughtful and compelling piece about the police assault on Dorian Barton at last summer's G20, and the shameful saga surrounding the SIU's on-again, off-again attempts to investigate.

We all know how that song goes. The whole police force goes Tommy. Nobody saw anything. Nobody knows who the asshole cop is, even though his face and badge number are visible in the picture AND the force actually provided his name to the SIU, Mark Pugash says. Not even his roommate recognizes him. Chief Bill Blair can't or won't do anything about it. Mike McCormack insists that there's no Blue Wall of silence. And I'm not even going to talk about the police services board.

Accountability from the #G20? Not gonna happen

From the Tumblr a couple of hours ago.

Related posts:

• We ain't gonna have no stinkin' inquiry
• SIU re-opens another G20 investigation. Stop me if you've heard this before
• Michigan and the shredding of government of, by and for the people

More allegations of police brutality at the G20: Gabriel Jacobs

More serving and protecting by the Toronto Police. (Yeah, right.)

Via CBC and the Star, news that Gabriel Jacobs is filing a human rights complaint over the way he was treated at the G20.

Put lying cops on the stand and make them do it for the record

Not that it should take the focus off Harper and McGuinty, who bear just as much culpability as municipal officials for the abuses that took place at last summer's G20, but Rosie DiManno's got an idea about the 11 cops who, incredibly, can't identify the asshole who broke Dorian Barton's arm.

Let's review: Dorian Barton wasn't protesting or demonstrating, not that there's anything wrong with that, but simply taking pictures in a designated protest zone (and there's plenty wrong with that, but we'll leave it alone for now). He was slammed, from behind, by a cop with a riot shield and a baton. Eleven other cops on duty with the SOB have told the SIU they can't identify him.

On CBC, a further demonstration of Toronto cops' contempt for us

On Metro Morning today, Matt Galloway talked to police union boss Mike McCormack about the nameless asshole who broke Dorian Barton's arm at the G20 last summer, and about the SIU's investigation coming to a dead end.

Anyone want to guess where Mike makes his stand?

Toronto Police: Unaccountable, uncaring, unbelievable

The Star doesn't always get it right, but this time it's taken a centring pass in the slot and buried it in the top corner.

When the provincial Special Investigations Unit threw in the towel and said it couldn't identify the brutal, cowardly slimeball in a uniform who broke Dorian Barton's arm at the G20 last summer, the CBC story prompted a somewhat sarcastic response from the progressive blogosphere, including this.