The Montebello Macarena

Since they took ownership of the three undercover "protesters" at Montebello, the Quebec Provincial Police (and probably others we don't know about) have been dancing as fast as they can. But it's a complicated dance with a lot of steps: first both the RCMP and the SQ denied there were undercover cops at the protest; the SQ fessed up to having some undercovers around but wouldn't say if they were the guys in the video (stall, stall); the SQ admitted that the guys in the video were SQ undercover cops, but said they weren't there to cause violence. The rock one of them was carrying was a prop, or or or maybe it was given to the cop by a protester, or or maybe it was a pet rock, or or... maybe it... protester... cop... the thing... or SQ... anarchist... RCMP... oh hell, I don't know!!! Shut up! They'll look into it:

"The SQ did not answer questions on whether the RCMP was involved in the summit incident or whether the Quebec police received political orders to infiltrate the protesters. But the police force did say it will conduct its own internal investigation of the incident."

A supporting actor in this little theatre of the absurd, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, entered stage right yesterday and said the whole thing was SOP, the undercovers were caught because they weren't being violent, and everyone should shut the fuck up and file a complaint with the appropriate police department's appropriate complaint department, and -- oh, look over there, it's a bright shiny thing. The whole undercover instigator cop thing is so overrated; no need to worry about creeping authoritarianism, just cops trying to heat things up a little, just like... oh, I don't know, like they were in Genoa. But surely it could never escalate into something like that.

We are owed an explanation, and the police and government won't be forthcoming with one unless we keep on their asses about it and force a formal investigation. These people aren't our bosses -- we are their bosses. They're our employees. They work for us, not the other way around. We have not only the right, but the responsibility to demand the truth and a full accounting of what procedures they use to suppress or discredit dissent, and at whose behest.

Montebello - questions

Now that the Quebec Provincial Police (SQ) has copped (heh) to owning the 3 miscreant undercover "protesters" that many suppose were planted as agents provocateurs, there are as many questions as before, maybe just slightly different ones. To wit:

(1) What was the fake "protester" saying to the police in the lineup just before his "arrest"? He didn't flash any ID, so the cops clearly knew who he was. If frontline riot cops knew who he was, somebody higher up had to know.

(2) Assuming someone higher up knew who the "protester" was and why he was there, why wouldn't the SQ brass confirm it until seeing the YouTube? (In my opinion, seeing the YouTube only confirmed that they were screwed and needed to make some kind of statement.)

(3) Who gave the order to put undercover cops in the crowd for any reason, not just as shit-disturbers? I know it's something they do on a regular basis, but they're seldom caught at it by anyone other than the people around them, so I'd love to hear their explanation for this tactic.

(4) If the intention of the undercovers was to mingle and check things out, why was one carrying a rock? Why did one respond so aggressively (pushing and shoving) when he was called out by Coles? (Again, just my opinion, but it looked like a last-ditch effort to get the other protesters to rush to Coles' defense, possibly starting some kind of uproar.) If they were put in the crowd to disrupt the protest, why?

(5) Who else besides the SQ was in on this? I am absolutely not buying that a provincial police agency did this on their own.

I had a look at the blurb about security for Montebello on the RCMP website. It's dated August 21, the day after the "arrests" of the "protesters", and the day before the story really gained traction, but it didn't mention any arrests other than the four that had already taken place. It also heightens my suspicion that more than the SQ was involved in this, as it goes to great lengths to talk about the "unified" police agencies all working together on security for Montebello. It says (in part):

Unified Police Agencies Report Positively on Security at Montebello Summit

"Papineauville, Tuesday, August 21, 2007 - The unified police agencies, which include the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Sûreté du Québec (SQ) and the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP), report positively on the security measures implemented to ensure public order and security during the North American Leaders’ Summit.

At the end of the two-day event, the police have arrested four demonstrators. Charges of obstructing a peace officer and assault could be laid against these individuals. The clashes caused little damage. Five police officers suffered minor injuries. Although the Summit ends on August 21, the police resources will remain on site until the next day, August 22." [...]

"RCMP, SQ and OPP troops were deployed to prevent any outburst and ensure that demonstrators expressed their views peacefully while respecting the law, people and property. The actions of the crowd dictated the actions of the police.

The unified police services worked closely together to provide the best possible security services during this meeting of the three North American Heads of State." (emphasis mine)

It goes on to add the Coast Guard and the Army to the list of "unified police agencies" in addition to the three mentioned above. (And I suspect it goes further than that.) If these police agencies were all working together as a unified force, shouldn't they all have been aware of any covert policing activities?

Surprise!

Quebec Police are admitting that they had undercovers at the SPP protest at Montebello -- this after vehemently denying it -- although now they deny that the purpose of the undercovers was to incite violence. Now the story is:

"Quebec provincial police admitted Thursday that their officers disguised themselves as demonstrators during the protest at the North American leaders summit in Montebello, Que.

However, the police force denied allegations its undercover officers were there on Monday to provoke the crowd and instigate violence.

"At no time did the police of the Sûreté du Québec act as instigators or commit criminal acts," the police force said in French in a news release. "It is not in the police force's policies, nor in its strategies, to act in that manner."

Really. I'd like proof that these undercover cops are who the SQ says they are, because I don't believe them. They already lied once, what else are they lying about? Oh what a tangled web we weave, when the blogosphere we practice to deceive!

(h/t A Creative Revolution)

More on Montebello body language

Further to my comments yesterday about the body language of the three mysterious protesters/cops (or whatever) at Montebello, Mike (not Mike of Rational Reasons, as I mistakenly stated before -- okay, I'm an idiot!!!), a former police officer, made these observations about their behaviour (from the comments at Dust My Broom):

"Watch the way the three ‘protesters’ stand. It is called the I stance or bracketing and is taught to police officers from day one as a way to minimise your bodies exposure to a threat. Agressive/squared off stances are what the riot officers are doing to intimidate.Defensive posturing is what the Provocateur’s are doing.They can’t help it. They are reading the crowd and smartly, trying to desingage.

Watch their left hands. They tend to stay close to their bodies center line. On most Sam brown belts that police wear, the OC spray, cuffs, etc are worn towards the center as well as for protection against threats.Their right hands stay further away, to their side to protect where their firearm would be if they were in their normal uniform that they wear 8-10 hours a day, everyday.(1/2 of all police deaths are from their own weapon. Retention is highly stressed in all forms of law enforcement training). They have muscle memory of where things ’should’ be when working.

Watch the ‘protestor’ on the right. When one of the real organisers gets too close, he grabs the organizer, deliberetly, by the wrist. This is an open handed control technique taught in the earliest days of academy training. It doesn’t get you caught up in the suspects grip while providing an easy way to index the placement of handcuffs.

All of these are taught and taught and taught some more so that they become second nature and one does not have to think about it in the heat of the moment. Having left law enforcement a decade ago, I till catch myself moving, standing and ‘looking’ at people the same way I was taught.

Going ‘plain’ cloths does not change the person wearing them.I don’t like bad cops since it made things difficult for us good ones.A good cop would have laid low and been a good witness instead of becoming the story."

Interesting! Mike's comments would certainly seem to bear out the notion that the behaviour and body language of the three "protesters" was not that of typical protesters, but of policemen.

Mike (the Real Mike of Rational Reasons) makes another very salient point in the comments here:

"Well, having lived and gone to school in Ottawa, knowing cops I can safely say that when you are on duty that is guarding the President of the United States - one of the most hated Presidents of the US, I might add - you don't take a shit without orders from Secret Service adminisphere. You certainly don't pull a stunt like this on your own."

Which obviously makes one wonder, IF these guys were, as it appears, undercover cops sent into the crowd to cause trouble and instigate arrests, who sent them? IF it was the Secret Service, is it acceptable for our government to attempt to suppress our dissent at the behest of the White House? Of all the questions surrounding this situation, that one should be the easiest to answer.

Who are you

my inquisitive little visitor from the Public Service Commission?

Why do you technorati my obscure little blog? Don't be shy: bark! I won't bite (unless you bite me first).

UPDATE: Nothing to see here, move along. I'm heading out to the store to get some new tinfoil for my hat.

The boot goes on

The three mysterious "protesters" at the Montebello SPP protest: cops or not? The evidence favouring the former seems to be piling up.

The boots with the telltale little yellow rectangles have become a big issue: the chance that the 3 suspect "protesters" and one of the cops who "arrested" them would all be wearing the same type of boot is so small as to be infinitesimal. But it wasn't the boots that sealed the deal for me, it was the body language.

Watching the video before I saw the boot pictures, it was obvious that these guys were cops. They looked stiff and uncomfortable, not at all like the full-of-piss-and-vinegar troublemakers they were supposed to be. They're not actors, after all, they're cops. But it really fell apart when the union guy called them out as cops; they got a stunned, deer-in-the-headlights look and momentarily froze up as if to say "You got us". Right there, I thought "Busted". But then, as if to banish any lingering doubt I might have had, they immediately moved close enough to the police line to talk to them, which could only have been a "Get us out of here!" Their subsequent "arrest" and removal from the scene was a badly-choreographed joke. Whoops. Cops behaving badly.

Dave at TGB has an interesting take on the body language aspect of things based on his own personal experience with the armed service, which in a very real sense, policing is. After reading it, the question isn't whether these three "protesters" were cops or not, it's whose cops they were. (And even that's becoming more apparent, as the RCMP refuses to comment on the situation.) The bigger question is who gave the orders for this bullshit little charade? And more importantly, why?

I've always believed that it's not only our right, but our obligation to peacefully protest government actions and policies we don't agree with. Any attempt to suppress that right, whether overt or by proxy delegitimization, we tolerate at our peril. This isn't going away, nor should it.

Who dis?

Someone from the gc.ca in Gatineau, Public Service Commission is technorati-ing SPP:


Unless this is one of my gc.ca regulars, I can't help noticing that the PSC is responsible for investigating improper political activities by government employees.

Still provocateuring after all these years

I'm not all that surprised to find that cops still do the "agent provocateur" thing at protests and other gatherings; what's truly astonishing is that after all these years they're still so bad at it.

The evidence coming out of the SPP protest in Montebello is becoming well-documented and damning. Three faux-protesters, probably cops, were trying to cause protest havoc so the riot squad could let slip the dogs of war... and make the whole "peaceful protest" thing look bad. The real protesters fortunately took issue with the rock one was carrying, then recognized the three for the sleazy undercover shit-disturbers they were. If you watch the video below, the faux protesters end up totally giving themselves away by moving ever closer (one of them with rock still in hand) to the lineup of riot cops and engaging them in some kind of discussion. Looking for tickets to the Policemens' Ball? Watch:

More likely they were saying something like "Shit! They made us! Arrest us and make it look good. But not too good -- don't hit us or anything." They were pushed to the ground (gently), "arrested" and led away moments later, but although there were other arrests made at the protest (2 men and 2 women), there's nothing to be found about the "arrests" of these three bozos.

I've seen 30-odd years of "undercover" cops trying to "infiltrate" protests, festivals, biker bashes and the like, and their learning curve has yet to even qualify for "curve" status. I find it hard to believe that with all those years of experience behind them, they haven't gotten any better at it than they were in 1970. You'd think by now they'd at least know that it's considered bad form to run crying to the uniformed cops when the going gets tough. D'oh!

(h/t & video: stage left)