By Alison@Creekside
Video to left: Protesters amuse themselves playing with the sirens and lights in two police cruisers inexplicably driven into the crowd and then abandoned in the middle of the street. Calling in to dispatch, making airplane noises on the mike for the crowd, and handing out tickets — it’s all rather jovial.
Kid lights a paper fire on the passenger seat, someone else puts it out, and a short altercation about safety ensues. Another guy writes on the cruiser in green paint: “This is bait, aka a prop.”
Kid on the mike in the cruiser: “For $1.2 billion dollars, thanks for all your photography. This will be on the news tonight justifying the whole event.”
And later when the cars were torched for real it was. But some in the media remember the agents provocateurs at the SPP protest at Montebello.
Many Canadians have become suspicious of police tactics since the Quebec police force admitted that it had disguised three of its own officers as rock-wielding anarchists in an attempt to provoke violence at a peaceful protest in the town of Montebello two years ago. Somewhat farcically, the three were exposed as agents provocateurs when they were found to be wearing official issue police boots identical to those of the uniformed officers “arresting” them.
“There are concerns that similar skulduggery may have played a part in Toronto this weekend, where the burning of three police cars quickly became the defining image of Saturday’s otherwise peaceful demonstration. Questions are being asked as to why the police chose to drive the vehicles into the middle of a group of protesters and then abandon them, and why there was no attempt to put out the flames until the nation’s media had been given time to record the scenes for broadcast around the world.”
Indeed. The other three parts to this event follow.
Related: From openfile.ca: Contingent of police abandon vehicle
From backofthebook.ca: Widespread police misbehaviour, illegal activity at G20
The Miami Model Part 1/10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEX6wNmISRY
………….……
What is the Miami Model?
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/torontog20summit/article/828876–porter-when-police-stick-to-phony-script
I called Naomi Archer to find out. She is an indigenous rights worker from North Carolina who happened to be giving a lecture on the Miami Model yesterday at the U.S. Social Forum — the G20 for community activists.
Archer, who was in Miami as a liaison between protesters and police, has a 40-box checklist to identify the Model. Here are the main themes.
• Information warfare. This starts weeks before the event. Protesters are criminalized and dehumanized, and described as dangerous “anarchists” and “terrorists” the city needs to defend against.
“Often, a faux cache is found,” says Archer. “They are usually ordinary objects, like bike inner tubes, camping equipment, but the police make them out to look threatening. It lays the groundwork for police to be violent and it means there’s a reduced accountability of law enforcement.”
• Intimidation. Police start random searches of perceived protesters before any large rallies. They are asked where they are staying, why they are walking around. Police raid organizer’s homes or meeting places, “usually just before the summit, so there’s maximum chaos organizers have to deal with,” says Archer.
“All this is meant to dissuade participants. The best way to make sure you don’t have a critical mass of people taking over the streets like in Seattle is to reduce the numbers at the outset.”
This is usually made possible by last-minute city regulations, curtailing the right to protest. In Miami, the city commission passed a temporary ordinance forbidding groups of more than seven to congregate for more than 30 minutes without a permit.
• “They threw rocks.” That’s the line police use after tear-gassing or beating protesters most times, Archer says. Urine and human feces are variations on the theme. But it’s always the protesters who triggered the violence. A popular police tactic is called “kettling.” Officers on bike or horses herd protesters into an enclosed space, so they can’t leave without trying to break through the police line. Take the bait; you provoke a beating or arrest. And of course, there are the famous agent provocateurs, outted publicly two years ago in Montebello. Police officers dressed up like militant protesters to protect the peaceful crowd, they say; Archer says it’s to instigate trouble.
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/torontog20summit/article/828876–porter-when-police-stick-to-phony-script
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_model
Seen this over and over again too. Cops throw tear gas/smoke grenade. Protester throws it back. Headline: “PROTESTERS THROWING PROJECTILES!”
I wouldn’t be surprised if this happens all the time in America and Canada and Britain and all over the world!
We spoke to cops who were definitely given stand-down orders, and told to let the cars get destroyed. Here is a clip with one of them admitting it in the trailer for our documentary
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8l66BT-3aY
i was behind the police on how they handled the situation … but, yesterday, i was chatting with a cop (name will be kept confidential) and i was told the cop cars were in-fact “props”. props. they were put there in hopes of them being damaged. i’m not saying this as a “conspiracy theory” … but as actual fact – right from a cops mouth that is “in the know”.
i have never felt so betrayed by a system i have supported and believed in. it has completely changed my views on how they handled security at the g20. actually, this makes me rethink my whole view on the police.
Those police cars were obviously planted and left abandoned so that they could be damaged.
There were police everywhere but not by the cars.
Many people now doubt there civil rights.
The police have done a lot of damage to their reputation. This is a major setback in community and police relations.