The night I delivered this speech, the cops literally chose to add two more incidents to the list, which is some impressive dedication to being utter bags of shit.
During arrests, one cop gouged the eye of the arrestee, badly enough to merit hospital care, and then the other arrestee was denied her asthma inhaler after they caused an attack through their manhandling.
Hi I’m Gisela (Gigi) and I’ll be your potty mouth host for the evening.
First I just want to acknowledge those of you who thought that when I stepped back from the MDC you would never see me again. (bowed)
I like to think of it as moving from the Movement Defence Committee to the Movement Offence Committee. I mean, it’s a committee of one at this point, but people are free to join!
A bit of housekeeping: Remember where you are and that they love spending our $$ on their expensive surveillance toys. If someone seems a bit too determined to have space-inappropriate conversation here, walk away from them.
You’re welcome to add a message to the boards, I highly recommend using block letters to anonymize your writing.
And now for the reason we’re here.
We don’t talk enough about the everyday, harms cops do in our community. We talk about the big things, when they commit the most egregious acts, but we don’t talk about just the everyday bullshit that comes with interacting with police.
The one thing I’ve learned is that a lot of cops are very confused by this stance. I often say it’s the burnish/tarnish dichotomy: they see their uniform as being burnished (or big upped) by the ✌🏾brave✌🏾 activities of one or two cops.
But what they forget is that the thousands upon thousands of shitty acts that they commit tarnish the entire force.
So let’s talk about some of these shitty things as it pertains to protest.
I have seen a particular move they like to do where your arms are held up by two cops and your feet are swept out from underneath you towards the back, so you go down face first. At least two women have been knocked fully unconscious by this maneuver.
I have been present for 14 concussions delivered by TPS in the last year, and I have been informed of another 17;
There have been
Countless soft tissue injuries
Nasal fractures
Bruised orbital bones
Wrenched and dislocated shoulders
Fractured foot bones
Sprained ankles
Meniscal tear
Broken rib
They’ve stolen people’s walking canes, broken people’s glasses, and intentionally stepped on someone’s hearing aid.
They’ve pulled hijabs off women. They’ve “accidentally” torn and yanked items of clothing off men and women.
They’ve refused to give people clean water while in the holding cells.
They have used the knee on neck move made famous in the George Floyd case.
And this is just what I know about.
They’ve caused enough injuries that even the SIU is investigating. And while no one expects that the self-investigation unit will actually do anything, the fact that even the cops think the cops have gone too fucking far says something.
Speaking of investigating cop misconduct and overreach, let’s talk about the avenues that we have to address the shit that goes on such as they exist.
In every last one of them, people get to be retraumatized because the person investigating is a cop. It doesn’t matter if it’s the OIPRD, the SIU or this new body that they’re touting: it’s cops investigating cops.
And because they’re cops, when they ask for photo or video evidence of their own misconduct, it can be used to criminalize others or used against yourself if they decide to charge you later.
When talking about the Neptune Four situation, a police brutality case against four Black children, The Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) said:
“The OHRC remains concerned that there is no effective mechanism to hold police accountable for systemic discrimination.”
I would take that one step further and simply say that there is no effective mechanism to hold police accountable for anything.
And I remind you:
The system isn’t broken, it was built this way.