The Preamble
It has been a little over a year since the Ontario Human Rights Commission released a report on anti-Black racism and the Toronto Police Service (TPS). Their conclusion?
Black people are subjected to systemic racial discrimination, racial profiling, and anti-Black racism across the range of interactions with the Toronto Police Service.
It may seem unlikely that every possible type of interaction with policing in the City of Toronto could be tainted by anti-Blackness, but I am here to tell you: it most definitely can be.
I waited to tell my story until the court case was over. I am free to do so now. This is a long one, so buckle up. The time stamps are important to understanding that the only reason two WRONGLY ARRESTED people had their charges dropped was because I have zero faith in the “justice” system and reflexively document everything.
It’s also wild to see how fast a situation can go from typical to wtf.
Please do not use it to push for increased carceral bullshit.
The Incident
We were at a Search the LandFill solidarity march on a sunny August day in 2023, calling attention to the situation in Manitoba, where a serial killer had openly declared that he had literally treated four Indigenous women like trash, and then the system had continued his horrible handiwork by refusing to search for their remains.
Their names are:
- Morgan Harris, 39;
- Marcedes Myran, 26;
- Rebecca Contois, 24; and
- Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe (“Buffalo Woman”, age unknown).
The march began at the Pape subway station, planning to wind its way down to the Commissioners Street Transfer station, with intermittent stops along the way to raise awareness through drumming and singing.
I was there to legal observe (LO) in case of “interactions” with the police.
At the time, I was part of the Movement Defence Committee, a group that provided legal support to progressive activists. Part of the function of LOs is to document problems that could lead to police interactions. Because I find it easiest to use the timestamps to write up what happened later (should I need to), I take photos of cops, counter-protestors, and other potential problems — and then, if nothing happens, I purge everything later.
I volunteer in this capacity because the chance of “interactions” between the Toronto Police Service — hell, ANY police service — and racialized groups is substantially non-zero. I just didn’t expect to be one of the racialized people having a special moment with the cops, myself.
Photo: Approaching the intersection, 12:41
The march had turned off Danforth onto Carlaw to make its way south, stopping for a few minutes here and there to drum and sing, and talk to passers-by about what was happening. It was a smallish group, maybe 30 people all-in, and aside from a few impatient drivers turning off and taking a different route, it was well-received.
Until we reached Gerrard Street.
These demonstrations follow a pretty standard pattern: along the route to the destination, they typically pause for no more than 15 minutes at any one intersection.
As the demonstration at Gerrard began, a streetcar arrived. The driver gave the riders the option to get out and walk, or wait a few minutes until the group moved on.
And that’s where angry white guy Josef Picken entered the fray.
Given that the photo above is timestamped 12:41 and we hadn’t yet reached the corner and the one below 12:46, when he started throwing his tantrum, I think it’s fair to describe him as “not a particularly patient man”.
Photo: Getting impatient 12:46
Tired of waiting on the streetcar, he opted for the bizarre strategy of telling Indigenous people to “go back where they came from”. Some barbs were exchanged back and forth, and the organizer opted to keep to the schedule, instructing the truck, drummers, and main banner to move south. About half the group followed immediately, while I waited with the stragglers.
However, he completely ignored that the demonstration had begun moving.
And then…
Video: Picken throws a tantrum, 12:47
Apparently, I called him a “colonizer”.
.
Good.Racist asshole.(And I am not a lawyer. I just work with a shit-tonne of them at the MDC.)Post by @Gigi@kolektiva.social
I feel the need to reiterate: I am NOT a lawyer. I don’t even play one on TV.
(I was honestly surprised to discover I had filmed that, and didn’t even figure out that I had until we were sitting outside 55 Division later.)
Photo: Documenting his handiwork, 12:53
It’s odd: I’m the one who’s there to document anything that happens, but it took me a while to even think about documenting what happened to me. The photo was taken at 12:53 pm, after we had moved south and passed under the bridge (visible behind me in the photograph) to catch up with the rest of the group.
It’s my blog, so I get to editorialize:
This is just what it means to be Black in Canada.
The unwritten, unspoken assumption for Black and Indigenous people in Canada is that:
Help is not coming.
But that was okay because, as far as I was concerned, I didn’t need help.
I was going to finish the march, go home, take a long shower and then a hot bath, throw my clothes in the garbage and move on.
When the cops yammer about certain communities experiencing an uptick in hate-motivated interactions, you need to remember that they are talking only about REPORTED incidents. And there was no way in hell I was going to report this, so it’s just a fluke that I asked someone to take that photograph. Why?
I don’t like cops.
They don’t like me.
I will only talk to cops if it is absolutely necessary. Doesn’t matter, though. They’re still not going to listen.
They should probably learn that when somebody who doesn’t like cops as much as I do is saying something to them, there’s a very specific reason.
Anyway, this mutual contempt is about to be illustrated a few hundred metres south, when a troupe of them swarm us.
The (First) Arrests
While help may not have been coming for me or the Indigenous activists, Picken is white, so help was coming for him.
Unbeknownst to us, Picken was back at the site of the incident, telling the cops that he was the victim of an assault. (He later insisted that he hadn’t called them.)
Over the next forty minutes or so, we found ourselves with an ever-increasing police “escort”.
They unhelpfully performed such activities as: directing traffic to squeeze past the protestors while turning onto Carlaw from Dundas, instead of just waiting for the demonstration to finish; and: pretending not to see me.
13:04 to 13:29
13:04 Just after Ossifer Blondie decided to help by directing traffic in the most incompetent way I have ever witnessed.
13:04 I ask for and document her badge number in case someone gets injured
13:29 a cop car pulls up to the rear of the group to block traffic
13:19 Oh okay, not suspicious at all.
I am a dark-skinned woman in BLACK clothing, literally covered, head to toe, in WHITE latex paint.
That latex paint was drying on my skin at my neck line, and arms, but it had seeped through my clothing, covered my bag, my shoes, my hair, my hat.
And somehow, the cops can’t see me.
Looking back, what’s wild to me is that I didn’t even catch the implications of the photo of the cops deliberately ignoring me until a white person pointed it out. I am just that used to being ignored. Being Black is like being invisible — as long as you don’t seem to be “up to” anything.
Anyway, we were about to learn why we had the police escort.
I am still unclear what exactly Picken decided to tell the cops, but they chose to arrest the truck driver and an Indigenous youth who was holding the banner at the front of the march: two people who weren’t even present by the time he threw the paint.
Photo: 13:42
I did the usual routine of giving the on-call lawyer a heads up about what was happening.
And then I broke my personal rule and spoke to the cops, albeit briefly. I suggested that they were making a mistake and that they might want to ask the complainant a couple of key questions.
I literally said, “You can see me, right?”
Well, they chose to ignore my snarky ass, telling me that they were doing their “investigation”.
And that’s when I realized, I was going to have to do it my damned self.
The Social Media Campaign
I had made my first post about the action, at 13:28 – just before I took the photo of the cop car flanking our rear. By that point, it was pretty clear that it was probably a good idea to have some external eyes on the situation. I made a simple post about what the action itself was.
I had been covered in paint for about 40 minutes at this point.
And then as soon as the arrestees were taken away, and we made a plan to complete the march then head to 55, I posted (with the photo of me holding my paint-covered hat):
Angry white guys are a trip.
Imagine coming to an Indigenous action, picking the lone Black person and throwing a can of white paint on her.
I could only hope it would gain some traction in the meantime. (It always takes time for the cops to book arrestees, and these charges were serious enough that we knew they weren’t going to play catch and release.)
17 minutes later as the action paused at another intersection, I posted his photo, with the text:
This guy.
#LightHimUp #FindTheRacist
It worked.
By 14:47 we had reached the transfer station, the banner had been affixed, and a short ceremony held. I posted a photo of thee banner on the gate, saying simply:
This is what it’s supposed to be about.
#SearchTheLandfills
And then we headed to 55 Division for jail support.
A friend met up with me along the route to bring clothing that they didn’t mind being ruined. Another couple of friends met me at 55 Division. We were there from just after 3pm (15:00) until well after 7pm (19:00).
We tried filing a police report to correct their error THREE TIMES.
I was still covered in latex paint. (I had a large t-shirt over my top, but it was very obvious.)
The Desk Sergeant said they were “too busy” to take the report, and I should wait outside.
On one of the forays inside, I showed the video of the incident.
It didn’t matter.
Now, I’m not entirely sure how long they imagined I was supposed to just sit there, entertaining myself by peeling white paint from my skin, my phone, and my belongings, but once the people who were arrested were released after 7pm, we all left.
All I wanted was to go home and get cleaned up.
By the time I got home, the incident had jumped platforms and was taking off on Twitter and we had Picken’s name.
I posted:
Meet Josef Picken.
⬆️ ⬆️ ⬆️ ⬆️ ⬆️He threw white paint all over me, then claimed he was assaulted.VIDEO:
https://kolektiva.social/@Gigi/11091817609370675455 division took his word for it and didn’t even take a report on what he did. Maybe they would like to talk to some other people instead of me.Here are some phone numbers:Contact 55 Division
24 hours/day, 7 days/week
416-808-5500Superintendent Kim O’Toole
Unit Commander
416-808-5514Inspector Michael Hayles
2nd in Command
416-808-5500Staff Sergeant Murray Barnes
Neighbourhood Officer Unit Manager
416-808-5437https://www.tps.ca/my-neighbourhood/55-division/#IAlreadyDidntLikeCops
#PoliceDontKeepUsSafe #PoliceDontPreventCrime #DefundThePolicePost by @Gigi@kolektiva.social
Turns out some people actually enjoy calling cops. Hundreds of people, really.
I worked with a friend to create some additional nessaging for Tiktok that garnered over 100K views.
And then the situation got an international boost.
On Saturday, while I opted to hang with friends at a long-planned antifascist BBQ, TizzyEnt, a prominent social media influencer in the “find this person” space posted a really well-done recap of the case, putting the time into explaining the background of the protest.
Hey Toronto, who is he?
— TizzyEnt (@TizzyEnt) August 20, 2023
This quickly added another half-million views to the situation. And while we already had his name by this point, in the comments people began sharing my request that people call 55 Division — with the phone number.
Sunday I tried AGAIN to make a report, sitting on hold for 45 minutes
This is just one more of the many ways the policing system advantages those who have copious amounts of time to dedicate to pursuing “justice” — or, better still, an assistant to sit on hold for them — because every time they get a budget increase the money goes to new toys rather than, say, operators to answer calls from the public.
Monday we took to Tiktok to release an update (that got removed for naming the racist who threw white paint all over me):
UPDATE FROM GIGI!
And it’s not good.#SearchTheLandfill pic.twitter.com/erBYDglnPB— joemorin73 (Find me!) (@joemorin73) August 22, 2023
And then, apparently, the cops had enough.
Or as they would put it, they “finished” their “investigation”. Which, oddly enough, seems to have consisted of watching the same video that I showed the desk sergeant the same day it happened, in comfort of their very own police station, except online.
Now, if they weren’t a bunch of racist assholes, they might have not had to backtrack a few days later, and attempt to fight social media with social media.
Because guess how I found out that they realized that OOPS WE ARRESTED THE WRONG PEOPLE?
“But Gigi! You’re an abolitionist! I thought you didn’t want the man punished in our carceral system!” you might say.
Don’t worry, he’s a white guy who threw paint at a Black woman. He’s not going to be. It’s just how he’s going to reach the “not getting punished” portio of the festivities that’s a trip.
In case you missed it, that was Tuesday.
Do you know what I never ended up doing? Making a statement to the police.
And yes, this is good, and what I wanted, but you know they’re going to squish their racism in here somehow, right? You absolutely know that they’re going to hang their racist asses out because they can’t help it, right?
Timecheck: We’re on day four of their bullshit. And this goes on for another year and a couple of months.
Later that afternoon, I get an unknown caller call. I do not answer unknown caller calls.
And then I saw that I had a text from early morning. To their credit, they did try to catch me before posting that video to the world.
The text from the Officer in Charge (OinC as I like to call them) Burgin leads to several days worth of conversations with lawyers, because all I really want is for them to drop the charges against the other two people, and given his Public Mischief charge, they clearly understand on some level that they shouldn’t have been arrested. But they’re also activists, or at least “activist-adjacent”, and cops feel like this is something that should be punished.
We play phone tag for a couple of days, finally connecting on the 31st, when he officially tells me that there has been an arrest. Which I know, but I guess it has to be official. There’s no need for me to make a statement.
This call was particularly illustrative because it opens with him informing me that he is recording the call, to which I answer, “Me too.” But I don’t think he quite caught what I was saying because after he gave the official spiel, he says he is stopping recording, and I didn’t make a corresponding announcement.
After he stops recording, he threatens me.
Twice.
The first one is a little joke he makes about Picken looking for me to “apologize”.
The second threat was for me to stop taking to social media “or the charges could get dropped.”
Well, I was waiting for the two wrong charges to get dropped, not for this jerk to go to jail, so I am content to be quiet until that happens.
Now here’s where more editorializing from me is going to come into play. The discretion as to whether something is classified as a hate crime — and again, this is not something I wanted, or I would have made a big fuss about it, and trust me, it would have happened — is largely based on how the cops write up the report. This one made zero reference to the racial dynamics of the assault. None.
When I point out that the Indigo paint-throwing incident being classified as “hate motivated” is a result of deep biases within the TPS, this is exactly what I mean.
I’m not going to lie: I’m getting tired of writing this article. I started it in NOVEMBER, then I had to make sure buddy had done his anger management class so I could post it, lest the jerk get more shit because I wrote this up.