What were the police trying to pull this aft when they blocked the Justice for Our Communities march at Elm and University for a good 45 minutes, at some points trapping demonstrators and sending a chill of fright through the crowd.
What was the point of full helmeted riot police appearing to box in participants?
Psychological warfare, that was the point.
Sure there were some young men with their faces covered – but, you know what? There was only a sprinkling of them in a peaceful, noisy, enthusiastic crowd. What a difference 24 hours makes – while all the manouevres at the native rights march Thursday were annoying – all that bunching up of police at intersections – there were no trapping tricks.
Can we accuse officers of having two standards of policing – one for demos that include OCAP and one for everyone else?
A sense of proportion is in order but for all chief Bill Blair’s fine talk about protesters rights, he’s retreated to the methodology of the chill: just make folks nervous being in the streets. It has to be said: those who continued to march beyond Elm and University, staying with their affinity groups and chanting, banging drums and singing were very brave souls, indeed.
But, the problem is, expressing ones rights isn’t supposed to be only for the ultra-courageous.
No, there was no mass attack on demonstrators-but if the police leadership thought their showing would discourage errant action on Saturday, they should think again. The price of playing with people’s fears is that the angriest among them only get angrier.
Now the truth is out if we give police too much cash in their budgets, they will certainly spook us.[rssbreak]
