Self-Serving Rhetoric From The Toronto Police

As one who strives to be a critical thinker, I am loathe to make absolutist or ill-informed statements and assertions, even as I admit to frequently falling short of the mark. Nonetheless, after the debacle of the G20 Summit of June 2010 held in Toronto, I find myself frequently dubious of statements from the police that may serve to conceal or excuse instances of brutality and blatant violation of our Charter Rights.

It is for this reason that I am very skeptical of assertions by the Toronto Police, as reported in today's Star about Sean Salvati.

Readers may recall that Salvati, a paralegal, was arrested, stripped naked, paraded in front of a female officer and left without his clothing in a jail cell in June of 2010, allegedly for public intoxication, a claim he vigorously denies. According to him, his humiliating treatment was prompted by an innocuous remark to a couple of RCMP officers about the task that lay ahead of them the next day, the Saturday of the G20 Summit.

Even if one chooses to disbelieve Salvati's claim, his lawyer's protracted and frequently frustrated efforts to obtain some basic documentation and the video of his client's ordeal is a testament to police obstructionism.

I hope you can spare a few moments to read the entire article.

The Star: Police Strip Searches On The Rise

As reported in today's Toronto Star, "Toronto police strip searched roughly 60 per cent of the people they arrested in 2010, compared to 32 per cent 10 years ago, according to police statistics."

Given recent high profile incidents of this practice, some have suggested that the authorities are using the searches as a tool of intimidation and humiliation, yet another indication of a creeping authoritarianism insinuating itself into our social fabric.

But there may be another explanation. Given the high profile evidence of faltering police facial-recognition skills, and since we all come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and endowments, perhaps they are merely employing an adaptive strategy to more definitively and completely identify us for future reference, whether that be in a court of law or elsewhere.

Canada's Quasi-Police state

While the Premier of Ontario continues to blithely and glibly disavow any responsibility for the horrendous abuses of Charter Rights that took place during last June's G20 Summit, admitting only that he "could have done a better job of communicating," evidence continues to mount that we are living in a quasi-police state.

Thanks to the Toronto Star's superb ongoing coverage, the issues arising from the illegal actions police took during the Summit continue to raise profoundly disturbing questions about the erosion of our freedoms and the almost complete impunity enjoyed by the police responsible for that erosion. The latest revelation, found in today's Star, has the headline, Police sued over hellish 11-hour G20 arrest ordeal. The story reveals how Sean Salvati claims he was arrested, strip-searched, beaten, denied access to a lawyer and left naked in a cell for nearly an hour.

What was Mr. Salvati's 'crime'? Speaking to two female RCMP officers who did not care to be spoken to on the eve of the Summit. Although the term is perhaps used too much, 'Kafkaesque' is the only one that seems appropriate for what followed. Please read the entire article to see what you think.

Tangentially, I guess there is one thing that people do like about Premier McGuinty. He recently promised to make the (GO) trains run on time. And for some, I guess that's all that matters.