Portland Snatch-and-Grab Operations Practiced During Toronto G20 Protests

- Steve Rutchinski -

Police snatch-and-grab on Eastern Avenue in Toronto during the G20 Summit, June 27, 2010.

Everything about the recent events unleashed by U.S. federal policing agencies in Portland Oregon, from the unbridled violence, to the para-military style snatch-and-grab operations, smacks of the experience at the time of the Toronto G20 in June 2010. As shocking as these actions are, it is not a matter of police inadequately trained for crowd control or some bad apples or a rogue president. These are conscious, deliberate, planned activities to suppress the people's opposition and resistance. In the current circumstances in the U.S. it is the resistance that has swept the country to state-organized racism and racist killings by police with impunity. In the context of the G20 in Toronto, it was the mass opposition to the anti-social offensive by the governments of the G20 countries.

Seeing protestors in Portland brutally assaulted, snatched off the street and stuffed into unmarked vans by unidentified assailants -- who turn out to be federal police forces under the direction of Homeland Security -- has so many parallels with what happened in Toronto in 2010. Anyone who was at the rallies out front of the makeshift detention centres on Eastern Avenue in 2010 when the snatch-and-grab operations went down will never forget it. Backed by huge numbers of riot squad police, squads of plain clothes police charged out of unmarked vans, assaulted any peaceful demonstrator in their way, grabbed "a person of interest" forced them into unmarked vans and sped away.[1]

TML Daily pointed out at the time of the G20 Summit, the events of police violence in Toronto were not an aberration but part of a developing pattern of state activity meant to block the people and workers from having their say in the society -- whether it be on the right to health care, education and other social programs, opposition to war or a direction for society that serves a pro-social aim -- and turning the situation around in their favour. The violence against the students and people of Quebec who stood up against the dictate of the Charest government and the passing of the Special Law there was further evidence of the increasing state repression against the people and their right to conscience and their collective right to organize politically.

The G20 was moved to Toronto by then Prime Minister Stephen Harper, to create the opportunity for a para-military exercise against the people. The G20 was just that -- a massive paramilitary exercise orchestrated by Homeland Security, involving multiple federal, provincial and municipal police forces and authorized by the U.S. as well as the Canadian federal and Ontario provincial governments.

There were several investigations into how it came to pass that so much police violence was unleashed against the people but no matter what wrongdoing was identified, none of those responsible was ever held accountable.

One such investigation was conducted by the Ontario Ombudsman. TML Daily wrote on December 15, 2010:

"The Ontario Ombudsman issued a damning report of the Ontario government invoking war measures legislation by regulatory Cabinet decree last summer to suppress political dissent of the G20 summit held in Toronto. The report details that police and government officials knowingly acted in violation of the rule of law, democracy and the rights of citizens and strategized how to do so with impunity. Equally damning, if not more so, is that even when they are Caught in the Act, as the Ombudsman's report is entitled, those responsible are not held legally accountable.

"... This conspiracy of government, police and other security officials to break the law, suspend individual and collective rights and unleash a wave of violence and terrorism -- which continues to this date in the unjust, trumped up 'conspiracy' and other charges against G20 protestors -- are to go unpunished!"

TML Daily continued: "The Ombudsman concluded the regulation was illegal and that the powers given to police do not even exist under the Public Works Protection Act (PWPA) because they were used not to protect public places but to suppress public dissent. In other words, by regulatory decree, the Cabinet of the Government of Ontario illegally invoked the PWPA, violated people's right to dissent and unlawfully extended extraordinary powers of detention, search and arrest upon the police.

"The investigation also reveals that both police and government officials were aware that using the PWPA as it was used during the G20 in Toronto was illegal and unconstitutional. They took great pains to hide their activity from public scrutiny."[2]

Five Ontario cabinet ministers and Toronto Police Chief Blair were never held accountable for their activities. For services rendered, Blair was rewarded with posts in the federal Cabinet, first as Minister of Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction and now as Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness. As well, the role of the Integrated Security Unit (ISU), comprised of the RCMP, OPP and Canadian Armed Forces (represented by Canada Command, which includes U.S. Northern Command) was dismissed by the Ombudsman's Report simply because ISU spokespersons said they knew nothing and had no responsibility for the police violence unleashed on demonstrators and pedestrians alike in Toronto. They claimed it was all a "communications breakdown" with the Toronto Police.

One conclusion TML Daily drew was that "It is clear that not one of the Cabinet Ministers involved at the federal or provincial level, nor any of the police, military and other security officials involved took a stand when circumstances called for it, to defend democratic principles, the rule of law or individual and collective rights of the members of society"

A year-and-a-half after the Ombudsman's Report was issued the Toronto Police Services Board (TPSB) issued its own report, on June 27, 2012, entitled Independent Civilian Review into Matters Related to the G20. The main criticism of that Review was that the TPSB did not do the job required of it, as mandated by the Police Services Act.

TML Daily summed up that report saying: "What this Review shows is that the rule of law is held in disrepute by the Canadian state. In the face of the resistance to the anti-social offensive, the Canadian state uses force and violence to criminalize the struggles of the people who are demanding their rights and the rights of their collectives. Not only must the working class and people of Toronto and Canada reject the bogus Review done for the TPSB, but continue to demand justice for the victims of the G20, continue to raise high the banner 'Let Us Together Defend the Rights of All!,' organize to renew the political arrangements in Canada and bring in a modern rule of law that protects the rights of the people from impunity."[3]

These conclusions are as fresh and appropriate today as the day they were written. Let one and all stand firm with the American people in unequivocally condemning the unbridled state-organized violence and terror being unleashed to suppress resistance to state-organized violence, racism and police killings with impunity.

Notes

1. For videos of snatch-and-grab operations at the Toronto G20 summit see:

- G20 Snatch and Grab Toronto 2010
- Police Snatch Squad At G-20 In Toronto
- Police Kidnapping in Toronto

This article was published in

Volume 50 Number 28 - August 1, 2020

Article Link:
Portland Snatch-and-Grab Operations Practiced During Toronto G20 Protests - Steve Rutchinski

    

Website:  www.cpcml.ca   Email:  editor@cpcml.ca