Police Intimidation Tactics: The Knock At The Door And The Telephone Call

The other day I wrote a post based on Thomas Walkom's column detailing the intimidation tactics being utilized by the Ontario Province Police againt those in the Kincardine area opposed to their land being the site of a proposed nuclear waste dump. Many of those planning to make their opposition known at hearings into the matter received knocks on the door from the police asking if they were planning any demonstrations. No groups in favour of the site received such visits.

In today's edition of The Star, Thomas Walkom reports that the OPP is now exporting its tactics to the United States, but instead of the knock on the door they are using the jarring ring of the telephone:

Toledo, Ohio resident Michael Leonardi says he received a phone call at home from the OPP’s provincial liaison team asking about his scheduled appearance before the federal review panel looking into plans to bury low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste along Ontario’s Lake Huron shoreline.

In particular, police wanted to know if any protests were planned, he said.

“The officer was very nice,” Leonardi, a member of the Toledo Coalition for Safe Energy, told me Sunday. “He said there was some possibility that organizations like Greenpeace might demonstrate and that police didn’t want any fatalities.”

And yes, Leonardi insists that the word used was “fatalities.”

As Walkom notes, it is not unusual for the police to be proactive when large groups are planning demonstrations, working with them to coordinate traffic stoppages, etc. What appears to be unprecedented is their contact of people merely planning to attend a federal hearing to express their opposition.

Says American Michael Leonardi:

... he has testified at Ontario nuclear hearings before. But this is the first time he’s been vetted by police ahead of time.

“I was just kind of surprised,” he said. “The guy was nice enough on his own. But I couldn’t help but think the call was meant to deter me from testifying.”

But of course, that is surely a mistaken impression. Our police trying to interfere with our Charter Rights? That could never happen in this country. Of course not.

"I Am The One Who Knocks"

For the past several years, my attention has been riveted on a show called Breaking Bad, without doubt one of the greatest television series ever produced, ranking right up there with The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, and The Wire. The tale of a chemistry teacher (played by the incredibly talented Bryan Cranston) who becomes a high-level meth producer and distributor after being diagnosed with lung cancer, the show has become increasingly dark over its five-year run, which is about to end with just two episodes remaining.

In a famous scene, shown below, the protagonist, Walter White, talks to his wife about the knock on the door, something we very frequently associate with either bad news or something deeply unsettling. Well, as reported by Thomas Walkom in today's Star, that knock on the door has come to Kincardine residents opposed to the plan to dump nuclear waste nearby. Who was knocking? The OPP "Provincial Liaison Team":

When Beverley Fernandez came to her front door one day last week, she found two Ontario Provincial Police constables patiently waiting.

Fernandez, who opposes plans to bury nuclear waste on the Lake Huron shoreline near her Kincardine-area home, was scheduled to testify at an environmental assessment hearing into the scheme.

The officers had tracked her down. Now, they told her, they were there to help. In particular, they wanted to help by knowing if her advocacy group, Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump, was planning any demonstrations.

They told her that plenty of plainclothed officers would be present at the hearings. They said they weren’t trying to stifle anyone’s free speech. And then, very politely, they left.

This performance was repeated with several dump-site critics but, curiously, none of the advocates of the plan except for Kincardine Mayor Larry Kraemer received such 'courtesy calls.'

Former provincial deputy environment minister Rod McLeod, who lives in the area, said he knows of at least six dump critics who were approached by police for a quiet chat.

The subliminal message, he said, is patently obvious: Behave yourself; we’ll be watching.

Who instigated these obvious attempts at intimidation? According to OPP Sgt. David Rektor, the liaison team took it upon themselves, as the OPP likes to have a “proactive approach” in situations where there might be “two ideas opposed to each other.”

Unfortunately, this version of 'the truth' does not square with that of the spokesman for Ontario Power Generation, Neal Kelly's. In an email, he said that the OPP’s “engagement” came at the request of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and “local municipalities.”

Perhaps the question of who instigated the 'visits' is ultimately of secondary importance. What is of paramount significance is the fact that the Ontario Provincial Police are attempting to intimidate and stifle the expression of an opinion that some do not like, clearly evidenced by the fact that none of the groups advocating for the nuclear dump site were visited.

Obviously, that Saturday knock on the door by Jehovah's Witnesses is not the only thing citizens of Ontario have to worry about.

Police Power - UPATED

While the title of this post may seem a bit of a tautology, since the power of police on the streets is obvious, there are other arenas where they wield their influence in ways that may not be consistent with an open and democratic society.

For example, police are known to arrive at courtrooms en masse when one of their own is under judicial scrutiny. An egregious example occurred earlier this year when both a criminal lawyer and her client allege intimidation occurred during the trial of Raymond Costain on charges of impaired driving and assault to resist arrest; these charges followed Costain's severe beating by police in an episode captured on video:



Leora Shemesh, defence lawyer for Raymond Costain, tells a tale of what can only be described as collective police intimidation:

Shemesh said officers showed up en masse at court, surrounded her and Costain in an elevator, followed her to her car after a hearing and even took cellphone pictures of her in the courthouse.

The judge, Ford Clements, eventually tossed out the charges against Costain, but also experienced some truculence at the hands of the police"

When the camera incident was raised in court, it caused such an uproar it almost brought the case to a halt, she said.

The officer who took the picture was put on the witness stand and refused to show the judge his cellphone to prove he had not taken the picture. Shemesh said it so enraged the judge that he raised his voice with the officer before ordering him out of the courtroom, raising questions about whether the judge should recuse himself.

Yet police muscle extends far beyond the street and the courtroom. In response to Durham Police Detective Dennis Scott's attempt yesterday to intimidate Ontario Ombudsman Andre Marin via Twitter, The Star's Rosie Dimanno has a column today that reveals something truly chilling about the 'long arm of the law." It is an arm that reaches into the very heart of our democracy, our government, revealed in the latter's reaction to Marin's proposal, in 2011, that the SIU (Special Investigations Unit) be taken out of the Police Services Act so it can operate as an entirely independent body:

“Take the SIU out of the PSA, with consequences for failure to co-operate. If you don’t co-operate with the SIU, you face prosecution — that simple.” This, of course, would not apply to subject officers, who would retain the right to silence shared by civilians.

In Marin's view, that would end the frequent roadblocks to investigations of the police, who frequently simply refuse to co-operate with any probes conducted by the SIU under its current legislative configuration.

The reaction of the Ontario government to this proposal? An internal Ministry of the Attorney General briefing note is telling:

“As you know, the decision was made at the time of the Report’s release that — largely due to vehement police opposition — we will not be considering the recommended legislative changes in the near term.

The note goes on:

“At some point, we may have to communicate that we will not be legislating, however that time is not now. Marin typically does not conduct any public communications regarding ‘report-backs’ — he usually gets his media hit off report releases and then moves on. We need not be overly concerned that he will criticize us on the basis of this letter.”

The motto of the Toronto Police Force, and many others, is To Serve and Protect. Perhaps it is time for civilians to ask to whom this motto is really meant to apply.

UPDATE: Many thanks to ThinkingManNeil for pointing out the following video entitled Cherry Beach, the reference, as explained here, being as follows:

The song is about local lore of how the Toronto police used Cherry Beach as a location to beat suspects. The police tried to have the song banned.[5] Hardcore punk band Career Suicide also references the slang phrase "Cherry Beach express" (referring to the supposed police practice) in their song "Cherry Beach".

Durham Police Abuse Of Authority

I'm not sure what is more disquieting, the conduct of constable James Ebdon or the very timid sanctions Durham Police Chief Mike Ewles imposed on the errant officer. Neither exactly cultivates confidence or trust in those who 'protect' us.