So They Were Cops
Via email
La Sûreté du Québec précise certains faits concernant le Sommet de Montebello
23 août 2007
À la suite de la diffusion d’un extrait vidéo sur le site Internet Youtube.com, impliquant possiblement des membres de la Sûreté du Québec lors du Sommet de Montebello, cette dernière aimerait apporter certaines précisions.
Après avoir analysé son contenu, en plus de prendre connaissance des vidéos enregistrées par les corps policiers, elle est maintenant en mesure de confirmer que ces individus sont des policiers de la Sûreté du Québec. Ces derniers avaient le mandat de repérer et d’identifier les manifestants non pacifiques pour ainsi éviter les débordements. Les policiers ont été repérés par les manifestants au moment où ils ont refusé de lancer des projectiles.
En aucun temps, les policiers de la Sûreté du Québec ont agi comme agents provocateurs ou commis des actes criminels. De plus, ce n’est pas dans les politiques du service de police ni dans ses stratégies d’agir de cette manière. À tout moment, ils ont répondu à leur mandat de maintenir l’ordre et la sécurité.
Translation via Babel Fish, if anyone can translate this more accurately please feel free to do so.
The Sûreté du Québec specifies certain facts concerning the Summit of Montebello
Following the diffusion of a video extract on Internet site YouTube possibly implying members of the Sûreté du Québec at the time of the Summit of Montebello, the latter would like to bring some specified.
After having analyzed its contents, in more of taking note of the vidéos recorded by police bodies, it are able now to confirm that these individuals are police officers of the Sûreté du Québec.
The latter had the mandate to locate and identify the nonpeaceful demonstrators for thus to avoid the overflows. The police officers were located by the demonstrators at the time when they refused to launch projectiles.
As any time, the police officers of the Sûreté du Québec acted like provocative or made agents acts criminals. Moreover, it is not in the policies of the service of police force nor in its strategies to act of this manner. Constantly, they answered their mandate to maintain the order and safety.
(emphasis mine)
So there, it appears, we have it. SP police, dressed as masked anarchists, running around at a peaceful demonstration, with rocks in hand.
This is what Canada has become.
[UPDATE] Some changes going on at The Star?
When checking to see if our government had anything to say on the matter comrade Google showed me this
But the link showed me this, which is the link that appears for the description.
Day rejects call for probe of summit allegations
Toronto Star, Canada – 1 hour ago
WINNIPEG – Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day today rejected opposition calls for an inquiry into accusations that police used three undercover agents to …
I wonder if someone jumped the gun, or if the Minister of Public Safety has realized that people just aren’t going to buy the idea that with the three amigos in town something like this happened without the feds knowing about it.
[UPDATE 2] Gods I love email, this just arrived from a mailing list I am on
Yup, it’s the pulled Toronto Star article, a screen shot here, the full article in PDF on my desktop.
Bonus points to NOWAR-PAIX
EMERGENCY MESSAGE SWAP:
To all Blogging Tories:
Switch immediately from “Stupid Tinfoil Hat Paranoid Lunatic Leftwing Blogger” Defense to “So What? Of COURSE the Grand Omelet That Is The Defense Of Our Land Requires The Sacrifice of An Occasional Ethical Egg” Defense.
From the translation:
The police officers were located by the demonstrators at the time when they refused to launch projectiles.
Hmmmmm….
Doesn’t quite square with Dave Coles (and others) yelling at them over and over and over again to ‘put the rocks, down!’ does it (see original, non-Surete video).
.
Wow. You certainly responded to the emergency message swap quickly, didn’t you?
So let me get this straight. These guys show up in a green zone, one with a rock in his hand, but they are there to keep order? Reminds me of Mayor Daley, Chicago 1968:
“We are not here to cause disorder. We are here to preserve disorder.”
At this point it doesn’t matter what they say, given initial denials by the Quebec police anything they say at this point is suspect.
They had way more than just rocks! ZOOM in on this
See the beer bottle in his back pocket? See the baton at his feet? See the gas mask!?
Tell me again how he was just there to observe. What’s the bottle for?
http://www.cupe.ca/gallery/albums/montebello-monday/Montebello_20_ao_t_049.sized.jpg
Image link
Good eye on the bottle Mark, I haven’t seen anyone else mention that yet – and you’re right, IMO they weren’t there to observe, they were there to get shit started and discredit an otherwise peaceful protest.
They were doomed before they started. How do you discredit an idiotic protest like that?
No wonder they got spotted. They are the only ones looking like they have more than one braincell – albeit a few more wouldn’t go amiss.
Let me guess shlemazl – you don’t believe in the right to peaceful protest.
Shlemazl – you may find that nobody bothers to discredit your post.
I am worried that this government release will disappear once the press meeting in Montreal today tries to distance the involvement of the RCMP in the security with the QPP at Montebello.
http://news.gc.ca/web/view/en/index.jsp?articleid=346399
Thanks for keeping it out in the public domain.
[...] Stageleft noticed one of three police officers who posed as Black Bloc protesters right down to the prop of the rock has a beer or wine cooler bottle in his back pocket. Like the bottle in the back pocket noticed by a commenter at Stageleft. There may be a reasonable explanation, it may not be a beer or wine cooler bottle, and the three undercover police may have been stone cold sober. [...]
A public inquiry is definitely de mise, here …
The media conference is over.
An Surete du Quebec inspector says a protester gave them the rock.
Stockwell Day says today it was the protesters fault.
The bottle in the back pocket can be seen in more than one photo btw.
Wouldn’t an empty glass bottle be handy for making a Molotov cocktail? Why on earth would a policeman even if he was undercover be carrying that?
I looked at some other photographs of that bottle and it isn’t a beer or wine cooler bottle.
http://www.cupe.ca/gallery/montebello-monday/Montebello_20_ao_t_043
Go to CUPE’s website if that photograph isn’t clickable for enlargement.
On closer examination, it appears to be a soft drink bottle with a white screw top. I withdraw my suggestion it could be used for a Molotov cocktail. The provocateur most likely drank from it to quench his thirst.
Canada.com has some more quotes from Inspector Savard (who really doesn’t seem to get the whole being on Youtube thing and how that might make it difficult to rewrite history):
“The SQ did not arrest the three officers, but handcuffed them and removed them to question them.”
So the handcuffing did not arrest them how? Even legally it is arrest unless the undercover officers gave them permission to do that. Now maybe the Inspector is saying they weren’t lawfully arrested thereby admitting more crime by his officers.
“The officers on the front line did not know (at first) that they were undercover officers.”
Not half. View the video.
Interestingly, when googling this, I noticed that coincidentally the Canadian Police Association AGM is in Quebec this week (ending tomorrow).
Also, There’s an interesting interview with a former Canadian police officer specialising in crowd control about the incident. Basically, in his experience, he doesn’t think anyone high up would have been stupid enough to order this.
Also, The Green Party of Canada have condemned the incident and called for an investigation in an interesting blog post, and the union leader who confronted the officers is considering pressing charges against them for pushing him (as shown in the video).
What idiots (the cops). You were right, I was wrong (although if you recall, I was on the fence of wishful thinking).
I don’t have a problem with u/c cops in a demonstration. I DO have a problem with the behaviour of those caught on tape, and with the initial denials etc.
Right…. a protester gave him the rock, and I guess another one shoved a bottle into his pocket, and someone else tied a banana around his face and told him to never take it off, and forced police boots onto his feet — all while he wasn’t looking no doubt.
If they initially lied about their involvement why should anyone believe what they say now?
It is possible, but if so, let’s see the video footage the police claim they have. Until they do so, Occam’s Razor combined with the footage we do have suggests the protestors account is more accurate.
I’m also more inclined to believe the protestors as the police initially denied they were officers when they saw the video and they are still making statements that are almost certainly falsified by the video.
It sure as heck looks like a beer bottle to me (Sleeman’s Clear?). Here’s a blow-up I did:
http://tinyurl.com/2zt4o9
Now, Savard keeps changing his story. First, an “extremist” gave the cop a rock. Now, the cop was carrying it to blend in:
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=8268c26b-d410-4233-bcde-5dafc369b077&k=42424
As people these days say, I call bull$hit.
Canuck: Two important things I noticed about that high-quality photo you posted.
There are two different bottles. There is a later photo of the same officer (jeans and black shirt) being arrested by his fellow officers in the same gallery . This clearly shows that he has an empty glass wine-type bottle in his right back pocket. In the photo you posted his right pocket is obscured but his left back pocket contains a plastic bottle containing a clear fluid (probably water).
Also, in the photo you posted, the tall undercover officer (who attempts to push over Mr. Coles) can be seen with his left sleeve rolled up, arm raised to the eye level of the riot police and the letters “SQ” felt-tipped on his arm (the next letter is almost totally obscured but a small part is visible that could be the end of final stroke of a P that has crossed slightly over the initial stroke).
From this, I can only assume the master plan B in the event of these not-so-smart undercover officers being caught was to write the name of their police force on their arm and point it at their fellow officers.
I’ve made a Flickr gallery with closeups of the bottle and arm mentioned in my previous comment.
Joe,
That’s a hell of a nice gallery. How did you get the blow-up so clear–enhancement software? It’s a Corona bottle, by the look of it.
Dr. Dawg: It tooks 15 seconds in the GIMP using the oval select tool. (I didn’t even bother to match up the pixel proportions in the blowup which would improve it a lot).
Most of the journalists (inc. bloggers) who covered the bottle got a still from the video uploaded to Youtube. Those who did use the image from the still photographer (who i think is the one you can see in the video) used the thumbnail from the gallery instead of clicking on it to get the original image.