G20 POLICE FINALLY IN CRIMINAL COURT

Today's Waterloo Region Record carrys this story "Man claims he was blindsided at G20". A 32 year old man testified that he was peacefully taking photograhs of mounted officers at Queen's Park three years ago when he was beaten and arrested by Toronto police. He received a broken shoulder, bruises, sprains, cuts and scratches. To this day his shoulder is not back to 100% capability. The officer charged is Const. Glenn Weddell of the Toronto police. An independent witness came forward who had seen and partially filmed what he alleges was a completely unprovoked attack by Const. Weddell.

The eye witness and coroboration by the victim paint an extremely disturbing picture of some police behaviour at the G20. While this article refers to this as the first criminal trial of any police officers, in fact there have been both civil as well as Police Act charges heard already. To date a small number of police officers appear to have been out of control and nothing more than street bullies in their behaviour. Above and beyond civil and criminal penalties they must be removed after due process from their jobs as police officers. Anything less and we may as well admit that we are living in a police state that would condone unprovoked attacks upon citizens.