Canadian police disguised as protesters try to manufacture a riot

[netchicken]

Amazing....
http://www.youtube.com/v/St1-WTc1kow
http://torontoist.com/2007/08/bon_cop_bad_cop.php

Earlier this evening, The Star reported on what might somehow rank as one of the strangest videos on YouTube.

Recorded on Monday afternoon at the protests in Montobello, the video shows the tail end of a confrontation between Dave Coles (president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada) and three masked men who seem hell-bent on rilling up him, his fellow protestors ("old guys, grandmothers, grandfathers"), and the line of riot-ready police.

For a minute or so, it's just Coles being a good samaritan, trying to stop a potentially-violent confrontation and demanding that one of the men who picks up a rock put it down. It's already extremely tense by the time that someone starts pointing at the masked protestors and chanting "policier!" Coles demands that the men take off their masks, and the majority of the crowd join him––some even reach for the bandannas themselves––and accuse the masked men of being cops, police provocateurs hired to start a riot.

When Coles actually looks at one of the men dead-on and says "you're a police officer," the masked men all freeze, seemingly dumb-struck. And then, they kind of start being aggressive again, until a little over two minutes in, when there's the weirdest police take-down you'll probably ever see.

[netchicken]

Below from http://politics.reddit.com/info/2hj5a/comments


Proof they were police - wearing police boots

http://www.cupe.ca/gallery/montebello-monday/Montebello_20_ao_t_050

And if you look at the second link, you can see that the police *(allowed them to) continue wearing their masks and sunglasses as they are walked off.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/katerkate/sets/72157601589225450/

Image in question: http://www.flickr.com/photos/katerkate/1196683266/in/set-72157601589225450/

[JAILER]

looked a bit dodgy

[Mu-Meson]

Dude, thats just paranoid. Leaving aside a lack of any reasonable motive for such a thing, it didn't seem to me like it was staged. Sure, the other protesters tried to remove their masks but so what? I don't see any of the other protesters taking their own masks off. Perhaps its because none of them wanted to be ID'd by the cops? Struck dumb? Looks to me like they weren't expecting to be turned on by other protesters (ie the good guys to them). Weird takedown? Whats weird about it? They were led away handcuffed with those plastic tie things. As for still wearing masks and sunglasses when they were lead off. So, I'm sure the police are more interested in dealing with these guys away from the rest of the mob before taking their clothes off. And of course we must ask ourselves "why would the police take these 3 guys into custody?" Of course it is because they are cops themselves. It couldn't be that these guys are troublemakers, and that the cops don't want a riot????

[nullterm]

I have to say, those guys were in too good a physical shape to be hippie protesters. :)

[Mr.Flint]

I call BS on this.
I had a chance of reviewing all the material available on the incident, and the claim that they are cops is highly questionable, more like Black Bloc provocateurs...

[Bombtrack]

Disregard.

[Firetxmi]

I don't really know much about the story behind it, but it does appear that those three guys could have been cops and when they were "found out" they decided to cross the police line so as to be "arrested" (or extracted- depending on how you view it).

I know of police agencies who do this often with their undercover officers (narcotics, gang, vice, etc) when they arrest all of the bad guys they arrest the UC but use a little less force with him.

Just an observation.

[pascalywood]

I don't really know much about the story behind it, but it does appear that those three guys could have been cops and when they were "found out" they decided to cross the police line so as to be "arrested" (or extracted- depending on how you view it).



Exactly what i thought. they were way too soft with the 3 dudes and it took the SQ guys some time to react before arresting them imo

[LMAV]

I have to say, those guys were in too good a physical shape to be hippie protesters. :)

I hate to admit it, but I was thinking the exact same thing. It does look mighty fishy.

EDIT: On second viewing, its odd that the old guy instantly labels them cops. What exactly led him to make that charge? Maybe the protesters set this up to get more attention to their cause?

[Fade]

Wondering if those 3 guys are just anarchists wanting to break shyt.

[ßå$tĮТHÏ¿ð]

I don't see how they were police. Looks like they just wanted to get out of there when they realized nobody else wanted to cause trouble and turned on them.


As for still wearing masks and sunglasses when they were lead off. So, I'm sure the police are more interested in dealing with these guys away from the rest of the mob before taking their clothes off.

They do have a right to some privacy. I remember thats why they blurred all the faces on "To Serve and Protect" (long defunct Canadian cops show like cops). Innocent until proven guilty, although people have started the "evil conservative conspiracy" chanting way before any legitimate evidence is brought up.

[chas]

Wow... we got:
1) Three bodybuilders whose body size is more like the cops than ANY hippies

2) Extremely agressive but dont really do nothing.

3) Only agressive to the old man but not towards the cops.

4) They are clearly calmly talking to the cops, probabilly discussing what to do.

5) Even the other covered protestors say they are only there to give polce an excuse for enterveining.

6) As soon as the bearded man calls them cops they try to pass the lines (wich makes no sense at all) and get (oh! surprise!) arrested and taken away from peril.

7) 4 or 5 cops (3 usually detain 1 guy) are enough to arrest 3 guys like bulldozers.

8) So they wanna throw rocks and cross a line of 20 cops but dont struggle when being arrested and cuffed, right?

I would say its pretty obvious, but if you wanna lie to yourselves, its up to you.

BTW: same thing happened it Barcelone on the WTO: TV filmed hooded protestors coming out of police vans, vandalize shops and city material and talking to cops while holding metal bars in their hands. At the end of the demo, you can see about 20 of these cops walking through the police lines talking on their radios and going back to the vans.

[Bombtrack]

As you can get from many sources, it's pretty standard for police to go undercover in any organised protests with reasonably expected trouble,to gather intelligence on who the real instigators are... There's no doubt in my mind these guys are coppers... these guys just f'ed it all up.

[chas]

Just to gather information? Whats the hoods and the stones and the provocation then for?

[Bombtrack]

Re-read what I said.

[BugHunt]

That looked VERY fishy too me......the "protestors" definitely took refugee in the police lines!

Makes you wonder the depths the government will go to to control peaceful protests......cant believe they were thinking of going in heavy handed against that mob of grannys and granpaps :(



What was the protest over?

[Bombtrack]

Jellybeans. (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070822.wamigosinte22/BNStory/Front)

[Firetxmi]

I'd much rather buy anything from Canada any day, than a Chinese product of dubious quality.

And for those who have doubts as to whether their gov. would do certain things to protesters, consider this:

Anti-terror program criticized for storing information on peaceful protesters
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20375361/

[Flounder]

I don't understand why the police would even bother to try something like this in the first place.

If you really want a riot to start, seems to me that all you have to do is wait about 5 or 10 minutes and some asshole anarchist in the crowd will start to throw rocks anyways. When's the last time there was a protest against globalization, WTO, USA, whatever that DIDN'T end up in a riot?

If all the police wanted was an excuse to shoot off tear gas and club hippies, well, this is Canada. Ever since the "Sgt. Pepper" incident at the APEC summit a few years back I would've figured if the cops really wanted to club hippies they would just go ahead and club hippies, and not worry too much about the political consequences.

[khukuri]

anyone who has any expirience of this kind of "demonstrations" and rioters in general could clearly see that these guys were deffo cops. Jeez look at the big clean cut guy, anarchist my ass, The cops are always easy to spot.

[EvanL]

The UC's were probably tasked with inciting a scene in the hopes of bringing the real trouble makers out of the woodwork so that they can be arrested. The SQ just ended up ****ing everything up. Sadly that old dink is now goign to be viewed as some kind of hero for finding them out.

[Kaapeli]

As someone already pointed out it's perfectly normal to use undercover police officers to infiltrate riots. They identify the dangerous individuals and ringleaders for arrests, gather information etc.

Maybe they took their act too far to appear as provocateurs themselves.

[p$ycho+log!cal]

haha they fked up the plan when they tried to go back and hide behind police ...

rookies.
nice reaction by the protesters.

[Kingswat]

Either way, no hippies were harmed in the filming of this video, nothing interesting to see here. Move along.

[Fade]

Looks like they were cops afterall;


Quebec police admit they went undercover at Montebello protest

Quebec provincial police admitted Thursday that three of their officers disguised themselves as demonstrators during the protest at the North American leaders summit in Montebello, Que.

However, the police force denied allegations its undercover officers were there on Monday to provoke the crowd and instigate violence. "At no time did the police of the Sûreté du Québec act as instigators or commit criminal acts," the police force said in French in a news release. "It is not in the police force's policies, nor in its strategies, to act in that manner.
More (http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/08/23/police-montebello.html)

[netchicken]

Wow, now thats a confession.....

So its not the Quebec's policy for their undercover officers to pick up rocks and try to intimidate and provoke a scene?

I wonder where they learned how to do it then, because they certianly were...

[PaulClift]

Theres a good chance they were just there in a police role thats not so sinsister, at international matches where England fans have been rioting in the past, you will often see a couple of people who you thought were part of the hooligan crowd suddenly take down the main trouble maker and then drag them off to the police lines, these guys could of been doing the same, and naturally when that situation happened they needed to get out of there.

There is one difference though, you wont see them with weapons or rocks.

[Rictor]

I don't know who's idea it was to disguise three built dudes with identical bandanas as anarchists amid a crowd of scrawny middle-aged protesters, but it's a really, really bad one.

[Firetxmi]

Usually if you are there to gather info or arrest violent individuals you do not hold a rock in your hand.

The irony is the the older gentleman (who appears to be a leader in this demonstration) was actually trying to calm the situation down by asking these UC's (who at first he thought were regular protesters) to put there rocks down so as not to escalate the situation.

[BugHunt]

Police said the three were told to monitor protesters who were not peacefully demonstrating to prevent any violent incidents, but they were called out as undercover agents when they refused to throw objects.

I think the vid proves that to be BS.....

[Mailman]

Oh dear god. The only thing this video and this thread has confirmed is just how moronic people can be.

So lets all size this up...with VERY little, well saying very little is being somewhat gentle here so lets rephrase that. With NO evidence what so ever the numpty accused some guys for being cops. From there it seems Pavlov type response kicked in with a number of posters where these three guys ARE COPS BEYOND REASONABLE doubt!

No wonder the cult of the 9/11 is so well established when so called reasonable adults can start talking sh1t with no evidence to back themselves up with :D

Mailman

[netchicken]

Did you actually watch the video?
If so how on earth could you draw that conclusion, when the police were the focus of the protesters asking them (the police) to calm down and put the rocks down.



Theres a good chance they were just there in a police role thats not so sinsister, at international matches where England fans have been rioting in the past, you will often see a couple of people who you thought were part of the hooligan crowd suddenly take down the main trouble maker and then drag them off to the police lines, these guys could of been doing the same, and naturally when that situation happened they needed to get out of there.

There is one difference though, you wont see them with weapons or rocks.

[nullterm]

Nevermind, already posted.

[Firetxmi]

From there it seems Pavlov type response kicked in with a number of posters where these three guys ARE COPS BEYOND REASONABLE doubt!

No wonder the cult of the 9/11 is so well established when so called reasonable adults can start talking sh1t with no evidence to back themselves up with :D

Mailman

Read above Mailman, the government of Quebec confirmed to the media that they were cops....

:roll:

[PaulClift]

Did you actually watch the video?
If so how on earth could you draw that conclusion, when the police were the focus of the protesters asking them (the police) to calm down and put the rocks down.

Yes, its just a video though, does not show what was happening just before, got to take into account that whoever was making that video has there own agenda.

[Kingswat]

like stockwell day said, they were fingered as cops by other masked protesters because they were refusing to throw rocks at the police.

[Bombtrack]

Yesterday, a senior Quebec Provincial Police officer, Inspector Marcel Savard, said the clip shows only a portion of the events.
Earlier, the undercover officers had infiltrated a separate group of "extremists" and one of them handed an officer a rock, he said.

The officers left the group and ended up in a crowd of peaceful demonstrators.
"He had a choice, a very quick choice to make," Insp. Savard said. He held onto the rock because "he was still hoping that his cover was good ... [but] he never had the intention of using that rock."

He added that undercover work is a legitimate, and standard, form of police work. "If there are methods or procedures that need to be changed or adjusted, you can be reassured, that will be done," he said.

I couldnt copy the whole article because the pcitures screwed it all up so here's the rest: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070825.YOUTUBE25/TPStory/National

[shadower]

They even wore knee pads.

[Mailman]

Read above Mailman, the government of Quebec confirmed to the media that they were cops....

:roll:

Peow peow...so it appears so! The dirty bar...stards! :D

Mailman

[homerjsimpson94]

Yes, its just a video though, does not show what was happening just before, got to take into account that whoever was making that video has there own agenda. +1 to PP
See, thats the great thing about video editing, you can make it look like whatever you want......sure would like to see the whole video.:roll:

[homerjsimpson94]

They even wore knee pads.
WTH does that proove?, nowadays most protesters wear them themselves, along with gas masks (urine soaked rags, in lieu of), helmets and a miriad of other things that you would normaly take to a PEACEFULL protest.:roll:

[toowoozy]

The reality is the cops got pwned by individuals who were exercising their legal and moral right to protest. It's a freedom we can never allow to be usurped, especially by agents of the state.