Alexandre Popovic, a member of Montreal's Collectif Opposé à la Brutalité Policière (COBP) and part of the Coalition, calls it a day to challenge the apparent impunity of law enforcement.

He believes the local trend toward "community policing" is little more than a campaign of "social cleansing," targeting the poor, homeless, sex workers, drug users, street youth and other marginalized groups. "To us, it's a sign of harder times to come," he says.

Popovic also cites last summer's mass arrests in the anti-WTO "Green Zone." The demo against police brutality is again intended to be a peaceful event, although "the police are always looking for any little excuse to kill the march."

He encourages people to fight wrongful accusations and abuses, whether tickets downtown, racial profiling in St-Michel, or secret trials, detentions and deportations taking place across Canada in the name of security.

On March 5, No One Is Illegal reported that "at least fifteen police officers" broke into a Quebec City church and arrested Mohamed Cherfi, a spokesperson for Montreal's Action Committee for Non-Status Algerians, who took sanctuary there on February 18 to avoid deportation. Cherfi's supporters denounce this first-ever violation of sanctuary in Canada. They argue that he is being persecuted for his advocacy work, and that deportation could mean joining more than 150,000 Algerians who have "disappeared," been tortured or killed in the past decade.

These and other causes will bring people into the streets on March 15.

While events take place in cities worldwide, local demonstrators will meet at 5:30 p.m. at Papineau metro.




 
 

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Police brutality     Around the world, police are deemed as violent and terrible people, abusing their power to all sorts of ends. It disturbs me deeply to know that the police force who is meant to protect, actually causes a good deal of harm, and similarly, when the criminally-acting officers (or whatever rank they may be) get away scott-free I am sickened and completely disheartened with the criminal justice system. However, I know many good cops who are out there every day trying to make a difference, working in horrible situations and sometimes risking their lives for others. I think that people can be too quick to paint all the policemen with the same brush. If we're so self-righteous, how come we haven't applied to be a member of the police force? They're not exactly flooded with applicants. This leads me to one last point to mull over: what kind of people apply to become a police-officer, what are their motivations, and how should the policeforce deal with this? Should they turn away people who seem a little megalomaniac? Should they have intense mentorship programs to ensure that none of the apples in the academies turn bad? The issue of police brutality goes a lot deeper than we think
Ellen Reid	{3 votes}	March 17th, 2004
Police problem in Montreal is a laugh     If you think that the police are bad in Montreal, try living in Cincinnati. The fact is, you're never going to have a pristine and pure police force, and the Montreal PD is actually a very decent staff. They're generally helpful and have done a lot of good (I didn't see anyone complaining when those officers stopped and rescued people from the burning building a couple of weeks ago, nor last month when the police officer single-handedly worked to get his brothers and sisters on the force to help repay that child's experimental cancer treatment money stolen from a resto...) Yes, there are some members of our blue and whites who need a little policing themselves, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. People sometimes have a tendency to get militant the minute they hear the word 'police'; expecially if there's a chant of 'brutality! brutality' involved...
Ben Kalman	{3 votes}	March 15th, 2004
A brotherhood of thugs     As an ordinary citizen I've never had anything to do with the police or the criminal system,except on two what would appear as very mundane occasions.The first time my car stalled on a very busy intersection,it was not my intention to stall during peak traffic time.Anyway there was a cop directing traffic who noticed that I was stuck.He came over to me and instead of helping me to maybe move the car out of the way this arrogant overexcited cop started hurling all kinds of obscenites at me. On another occasion a policeofficer started to harass me for the way I was parking my car.He was not able to say exactly what it was that I was doing wrong.He reached the point of handcuffing me and threatening to arrest me ,for what I still don't know.Anyway on both of these occasions I should have launched a fomal complaint but I regretfully didn't.So, I think if we want to improve the police force it is our duty to be involved and take the time to complain.
Mary Libby Talevi	{5 votes}	March 18th, 2004
Don't Move to Hartford!!!!     Seems we have our priorities in the right place...to continue with the The International Day Against Police Brutality tradition, a manifesto downtown Montreal, a peaceful march with a few exceptions as usual, and I thank the lucky stars that I do not live in Hartford, Conniticut, where 90% of the police force up until last year was a 'dirty cop'.
Gregg Rowe		March 17th, 2004
Give Them Some Credit? I think not!     According to some, cops generally aren't given enough power. Aren't given enough? Are you kidding me? The police we have can barely handle the power they have now! How many professions do you know where you're allowed to carry a gun and trained to use them in the execution of your job? We aren't talking about an Ice Cream Man or a Sanitation Engineer, we're talking about a Police Officer. Corrupt policemen in power should be punished for any crimes they have committed but they rarely are. Clearly, if you've never been on the receiving end of a crocked cop you'd think otherwise but I'm not that lucky. A lot of us haven't. I'd rather be safe than sorry and hand the law more power over us.
Eric Bertrand	{1 vote}	March 17th, 2004
Abuse     It is much publicised all these dirty tricks by those in the establishment but we have to look deeper also if our DEMOCRACY is being abused by so many around us just to satisfy their own vested interests, legal or not.
Renato Silvestre	{5 votes}	March 14th, 2004
Getting Worse.     This article reminds me about what happened to a man named Michael Kibbe who was an acquaintance of mine... This was the man who was arrested, brought into custody at the Guy Police Station, ran away from the police once they got there, and tragically died when he fell off a 10 foot wall in handcuffs. Police are supposedly there to "Protect and Serve", but it seems to me that they protect and serve a select chosen few, and don't hesitate to neglect, or specifically brutalize others, such as drug users and street youth. Something needs to be done before things get out of hand, it is steadily getting worse. That's why I'll be there on March 15th.
Jessica McGillis	{6 votes}	March 13th, 2004
Bringing down the blue wall of silence...     The International Day Against Police Brutality is upon us once again and ironically just about every police officer in this city who's ever been involved in an "unfortunate lethal incident" against a minority of some sort is *STILL* at work. Isn't it nice to see that justice is color-blind to the color blue? I know I swell up with pride knowing that you can get away with murder as long as the blue wall of silence is there to protect you. Comas, fatal shootings, near-fatal beatings, drugs, racketeering, prostitution rings...you name it and they've done it but invariably when the gavel of justice comes down 'The Brotherhood' steps in with their spin doctors and well-paid lawyers and like magic, the guilty parties get away with a slap on the wrist and re-assignment to a desk job. Some even manage to wiggle their way back on the streets. This sort of behavior isn't exclusive to Montreal. Go to any major city and you'll find this sort of sick crap go on and on and on... Look, I'll give the devil his due; there are a lot of good, clean cops that bring pride and dignity to the calling, heck, I'd even go so far as to say that they are the norm--I have no problems with fine men and women--no, my problem begins and ends with the rotten ones who are utterly drunk on their own power and who's only definition of justice is "so long as you don't get caught or can get away with it it's not REALLY a crime". You know exactly the kind of bastard I'm talking about...you've seen them on the evening news often enough. I've never gotten why some people call police officers 'pigs', I mean, even pigs display better conduct than some of the police officers out there. Besides, animals have an excuse for their conduct--what's the police's?
Pedro Eggers	{16 votes}	March 12th, 2004

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