More thoughts on the Toronto violence

[henchminion]

That's my city and my university campus you're seeing on the international news there. How embarassing. On the other hand, I think I have much more respect for our Toronto police services than I did 48 hours ago. It says a lot about their professionalism when we have a full-scale riot and not one person gets seriously injured.

Comments

[henchminion]

Now that the Monday morning hangover has set in, I'm hearing about a number of incidents that don't sound good and definitely need to be investigated thoroughly and dealt with. (People who saw abuses can file official complaints here.)*

At the same time, with all those people taking video, a lot of the "abuses" I'm seeing, like the selection posted here, are not nearly as bad as I thought they would be. What I'm seeing are police officers with a really shitty set of marching orders behaving in a very professional manner under pressure. When they're given the opportunity to use their weapons, again and again they use time, space and psychology to avoid actually touching people. When they arrested people--with the important exception of Jesse Rosenfeld's case--you can see them using soft restraint even when the arrestee is actively resisting. I think that deserves kudos.

See also the notes from the AEMMA seminar on use of force and the law to help write a better report. This seminar really gave me a clearer picture of the police guidelines for this sort of thing.