The two-wheel cart known as a tumbrel was developed originally for agriculture work as it could be pulled by a single draft animal and the simple, two-wheel design made it easy to dump contents, such as manure. The carts came into renown because of their use to haul prisoners to the guillotine during the French Revolution. There would be a form of justice to use one to haul Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair before the courts for his actions during the days of the infamous Toronto G20.
While the Toronto Police Chief is hardly the only unindicted participant in the extremes of abuse of Canadian law at the time, he remains the loudest hypocrite. The police were under his command and he has never been called to account for it.
It does no good that finally one of his policemen has been convicted for using excessive force. Despite Blair’s denials, the videos of the event clearly showed the brutality of the officer beating the citizen. And the other police in the video were allowing it. They were all equally guilty.
Blair’s police enabled and participated in inappropriate treatment of Canadian citizens. They failed to protect our citizens and our property when a few anarchists were running wild in downtown Toronto. The police had enough personnel available to set 100 trained policemen to capture and arrest each of those criminals and they stood back and watched. They used it as provocation against the curious, the gawker, the innocent and the citizen going about legitimate business. The police under Blair abused us all.
There is nothing new in the Police Services Board failing to do its job. It is a badly structured system of control. It can be a sham. Police like to be a power onto themselves.
But there must always be a time of accounting. Bill Blair, this is your time.
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Copyright 2013 © Peter Lowry
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