A Crack in the Blue Wall

One officer has been charged for misconduct at the G20 summit. So ... that's it?

In the wake of an assault charge being laid against a single G20 police officer, the Toronto Star continues its full-court press on the issue and calls for a sweeping public inquiry into what went wrong at the summit. Charges against the officer are a good first step, says the Star, but “should not be the end of the story … What happened on the weekend of June 26-27 in our city was not the fault of one police officer – or, for that matter, of one police chief. Plenty of others were involved, including the RCMP (who were in charge of security at the summit), the provincial government (which promulgated the so-called secret law expanding police powers), and Prime Minister Stephen Harper,” who reportedly gave orders to politicians to crack down on protestors. Given that 1,000 protestors were arrested without charge, and that the police have been incredibly reluctant to investigate their own conduct, we in The Mark Newsroom join the Star in hoping this single charge is not the last we hear on the issue.

Cops who refused to give evidence on police misconduct at the summit are “no more admirable than any other callow, cowardly law-breaker who depends on fear to keep them safe from justice,” blasts the National Post’s Kelly McParland. Only one of the 15 officers interviewed by the Special Investigations Unit managed to identify their colleague who was videotaped assaulting a protestor named Adam Nobody, an unacceptably low number from a force supposedly dedicated to keeping civilians safe. “These are men and women trained to identify evidence for use in prosecuting criminals, but they are apparently incapable of recognizing the faces of their own colleagues while standing no more than a few feet away,” writes McParland (he doesn’t mention the fact that officers reportedly, unbelievably, also claimed they couldn’t even recognize themselves in the video). “A rational person might argue this disqualifies them from their jobs, and they should be fired for incompetence, if nothing else.” True, but given official response to this scandal so far, let’s hope McParland’s not holding his breath.