Police Brutality in Canada: I'm Not Making This Up

The brouhaha in Winnipeg on Sunday was a people's uprising against police brutality.

It's an annual affair, organized by Montreal's Collective Opposed to Police Brutality (COPB). That's right: annual. Apparently the Collective Opposed to Police Brutality sees Canadian police as so constantly brutal, that they have to schedule regular protests.

This isn't, I think, entirely unrelated to the War on Terror. Canada is one of the nations in the coalition that overthrew Saddam Hussein's regime. You know, that "unilateral" invasion by America?

And I've noticed over the decades, that the same people tend to be socially conscious activists against both war and police brutality. To hear the more enthusiastic coffee shop philosophers, back in my college days, "police brutality" was a redundant term, since police were brutal: by their very nature.

Let's see what impression the socially-conscious Collective Opposed to Police Brutality left, day before yesterday:

"MONTREAL — Seventeen people arrested during an anti-police brutality demonstration that turned into a riot are facing charges including mischief, theft, assault and possession of weapons, Montreal police said Monday...."

The Winnipeg Sun article doesn't make clear, whether that short-range ballistic table counted as a "weapon."

Ramsey Clark's Legacy

That's one of the fuzz, ducking a table, by the way. And it wasn't a cop throwing it.

For raw, out-of-control, violence, it's hard to surpass the dedicated peacnik: or, in this case, socially-conscious activist against police brutality.

I remember the good old days, when then-Attorney General Ramsey Clark decided that the 1968 peace riot in Chicago (or the police riot, or the spot of unpleasantness that didn't have anything to do with the Democratic convention - take your pick) decided that the nasty Chicago police had been brutal to the nice MOBE and YIPPIES.

Forty years later, it looks like COPB is still carrying the torch. Or throwing the table.

More-or-less related posts:

• "They're Following Me! Another Digression"
  (March 12, 2009)
• "Palestinian Plays Bocce Ball With Bulldozer and Police Car: Blast from the Past"
  (March 5, 2009)
• "Gimme Peace, or I'll Punch Your Kid"
  (April 25, 2008)
• "Embrace Peace or I'll Kill You! More Violent Peace Lovers"
  (March 7, 2008)
• "Embrace Peace or I'll Kill You! Times Square Blast Linked to Peacenik(s)"
  (March 6, 2008)

In the news:

• "17 facing charges in violent Montreal protest"
  Winnipeg Sun (March 16, 2009)