During last week’s G20 summit, police arrested or detained over a thousand people. With guns drawn, they kicked people awake, they threatened, pepper sprayed, TASERed, tear gassed and beat those in the streets. Although the politicians declared the policing at the summit a success, popular anger at the police is at an all time high. At such moments, it is important to look closely at the tactics and strategy that were used to police dissent, not least because the models that are considered successful, tend to spread.
How was the summit in Toronto policed? Thewebsite for the Integrated Security Unit argues that “The approach to the Summit would be best described as an expanded version of our approach to previous events based on best practices and the lessons learned.” This seems obvious. However the ‘expansion’ included some new and worrying elements.
If the goal of the summit security strategy was to secure the summit, of course expansion makes sense. This was an extraordinary event. The superlatives were everywhere. It was the first combined G8 and G20 summit, and the security operation was the largest of its kind in Canada, with a record-breaking budget of $1.2 billion dollars. Even before the summit this figure raised concerns – given that security costs at larger cities like London, with larger protests, had cost far less. Although defenders of the budget argued that the spending was due to the threat level, other senior intelligence officers argued that there was no credible threat of terrorist attack during the summit. Almost twenty thousand security personnel policed the summit, only 5000 of whom were Toronto Police Service officers. Instead, policing of protests in the summit was largely under the control of the Summit Integrated Security Unit (ISU), which was created by the RCMP and comprised of the RCMP, the OPP (in the G8 context), the Canadian Forces, Toronto Police Service, Peel Regional Police and other law enforcement and security experts.
The results of this massive operation were significant. While the summit itself was not disrupted, the security operation disrupted life as usual in Toronto’s downtown core, it resulted in the highest number of arrests at a single Canadian event, its’ practices injured numerous people, and left a high level of fear in the city. In its wake there are sixteen people facing serious charges of conspiring to commit an indictable act. Now, amidst lawsuits and public condemnations, the police are facing significant pressure for an independent inquiry into their practices and strategy during the summit.
Standard Practice
Some of police tactics and strategy were standard practice for Toronto’s public order team. As expected, there were attempts to communicate and negotiate with protest groups in advance of the protests. Bicycles were frequently used to surround demonstrations, with public order units hidden out of sight. At times, the British strategy of horses and batons were used to disperse crowds.
While often, and rightly deplored, Toronto’s protesters are used to such police tactics. They understand how they operate. Even the pre-emptive bag searches and arrests used before the demonstrations on Friday, Saturday and Sunday had precedents from the heyday of large Toronto demonstrations in the late 1990s, when over a dozen were charged with ‘breach of the peace’ in advance of the October 15, 2001 protest. The use of conspiracy charges against organizers were not new either; three organizers from the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty after protests against the Provincial government in 2000 faced similar Conspiracy to riot charges.
Imported Strategies and Tactics
In addition to local routines, the policing strategy in Toronto during the G20 included elements from elsewhere. Some were clearly introduced from past summits in Canada and worldwide. The fences around the summit that were introduced in 2000 around the Organization of the American States summit in Windsor, were used again in Quebec City around the Summit of the Americas, and the G8 summit in Kananaskis in 2002. The rumoured infiltration or use of informants in activist organizations that was recently revealed at the protests against the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis appears to be a renewed trend. Similarly, pre-emptive raids of organizing spaces and places where activists are being housed has been seen before in the US and Europe. However, the pre-dawn raids on sleeping activists staying in activist housing – police with weapons drawn woke activists at both private homes and sleeping spaces – are something new in Canada.
Controversial crowd control manoeuvres were also imported from abroad. “Kettling”, or the trapping of people within police lines, and subsequently arresting them raised many concerns. Police in the UK and US have faced a great deal of criticism for using this in the past. Its’ use became particularly controversial at the 2009 G20 summit in London, where it was blamed for escalating tensions between the crowd and police – and resulted in a formal inquiry. In both the US, this tactic has faced numerous lawsuits and legal challenges. A class action lawsuit by 400 people against the DC police department who surrounded and arrested them in 2002 was recently settled for $8.2 million dollars.
Police also introduced a number of “less-lethal’ weapons from elsewhere. A Toronto Star article on Sunday June 27th reported that Const. Tim Garland confirmed early Sunday that plastic bullets, pepper spray guns and ARWEN launchers, which shoot a special kind of bean bag or plastic projectiles, were deployed against protesters. Earlier the police had admitted that they had used muzzle blasts of tear gas, but not canisters, against the crowd. Only pepper spray had been used before in Toronto, and that was in a different form. In Canada as a whole, the only time police have used plastic projectiles against protesters was at the 2001 FTAA protests in Quebec City where the crowd was much larger, and successfully breached the fence around the summit of the Free Trade Area of the Americas. This time, these projectiles were used against a crowd rallying outside of the detention centre, who had negotiated with the police about their right to do so. It appeared that weapons that were ostensibly intended only to stop aggressive crowds were being used against peaceful ones.
In addition to these new weapons, police used existing equipment against demonstrators. Particularly disturbing was the alleged use of a TASER on independent journalist Adam MacIsaac. MacIsaac reported being TASERed after videotaping police despite the fact that he needs a pacemaker due to a heart condition. While TASERs have been used on occasion in the US over the past few years, this is only the second time Canadian police have used them against demonstrators. The first time was against non-status Algerian protesters and their supporters occupying a government office. Like pepper spray ten years ago, it appears that TASERS, marketed as a defensive tool, are now being used as an offensive one – and such slippage is ominous.
Shifting Strategies
What is less immediately comprehensible at the G20 was the curious combination of approaches the police took to crowd control. There appeared to be four stages to the policing of the weekend. The first was the period of intimidation in the weeks leading up to the summit. There was a significant and unsurprising public relations campaign apparently intended to show the level of force police were prepared to use against protesters. Almost daily, new weapons were displayed for and in the media – Arwen guns, sound cannons, water cannons and the fences. The message was clear – anyone who tries to protest in this context is a fool or a criminal. This was combined with high profile arrests of people suspected of protesting the summit. Most of these were quickly revealed to be unrelated to the summit protests. Finally there was the announcement of a new Public Order Act that gave police extended powers to search and ask for identification. Police Chief Blair later admitted that no such Act had existed.
The second stage took place from Monday through Friday before the summit during which the police closely contained the crowd using bicycles, horses and crowd control teams. The protesters were closely contained by lines of police, and negotiations for a lane or a route were extensive. The third stage began on Saturday during the day, during the largest march of the summit. During this time the police didn’t engage with the demonstrators, despite the breaking of shop windows and the burning of police cars. Indeed, there were many moments where it appeared that the police could have quickly surrounded the crowd, as they had on the previous days, but chose not to do so. In the days that followed, there are widespread rumours that members of the Toronto police were complaining about the ‘strict orders’ from the ISU not to interfere with the black bloc on Saturday.
The strategy changed once again Saturday evening. After the black bloc had moved without hindrance away from the security perimeter, the police moved in to encircle any large cluster of protesters around the city – regardless of their involvement in any property destruction. Over the next twenty-four hours, any and all gathering of protesters – sleeping, meeting or protesting was targeted for arrest or detention. It was during this period that the majority of beatings, and arrests occurred.
A strategy of containment and subsequent targeted repression is not unheard of. In standard riot control manuals, this is indeed what is often recommended as a way to minimize the spread of property destruction. But this doesn’t seem to be what happened here. There was little attempt to contain the crowd on Saturday afternoon. What is unclear is whether the decision to allow the bloc to move freely was a result of a lack of preparation or capacity or by design. A lack of preparation seems unlikely, given the numbers of police and the resources they had available to them. But if it was by design, what was the strategy intended to achieve?
It is possible that the police believed that if property destruction was visible and dramatic, there would be greater tolerance of future police actions. This may have been intended to increase the likelihood of convicting people they believed to be organizers of the protests – most of whom had refused to negotiate with the police in advance. With the public onside, and concerned about the threat from protesters
This bears some similarity to what happened in Genoa at the G8 protests in 2001. In Genoa, public outcry at the extensive property destruction was widespread. This may have fuelled the police’s belief that they could crack down on protesters with impunity. This led to police kicking and beating protesters sleeping in activist spaces in the city – leaving three of them in comas. Nine years later, on appeal, twenty five police and prison officers were convicted of the raids. In statements during the trial, the prosecution cited "the terrible injuries inflicted on defenceless people, the premeditation, the covered faces, the falsification of statements by the 93 anti-globalisation protesters, the lies about their alleged resistance [to arrest]” as reasons convict the officers.
Only a week after the G20 summit, we don’t yet know what the intention and planned police strategy was. But what we do understand is the police did act in unprecedented ways, adopting, altering and expanding tactics and strategies from past summits, and making choices that have opened a new chapter in policing. With no nearby summit on the horizon, does this mean we can breathe a sigh of relief and set our sights on an investigation into police practices at the summit? Unfortunately that will not be enough. Instead, we need to remain vigilant to ensure that the expanded use of new and existing less lethal weapons, and practices of surveillance, intimidation, repression and public relations do not become easily incorporated into the day to day policing of communities in our city.
Lesley Wood is a professor of sociology at York University, and a member of the Toronto Community Mobilization Network, and the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty.
