National Post (National Edition)
Court hears constable’s tearful tale
The huge crowd, having left behind a trail of torched police cars and vandalized businesses, was now outside police headquarters on college, and moving west, toward him.
“The entire team stood there,” const. Andalib-Goortani said, “and looked east. It was a sea of black [the Black Bloc members]. … All I could see is black.” He said he thought there were thousands (there were at least several hundreds) and he could hear the “roar” of the crowd.
“The dispatcher said, ‘Whoever’s at university and college, don’t walk — run!’,” he said.
His team got in two unmarked vans and was told to report a couple of kilometres north, to Bloor Street West.
It wasn’t the first time that day, the 33-year-old officer testified, that he and his fellows were told to turn tail.
earlier, the original protest had left Queen’s Park and headed south, turning at Queen Street and moving west to Spadina Avenue.
const. Andalib-Goortani’s team did some traffic blocks, then was ordered to the Spadina Avenue/college Street area.
It was at that time, he said, that he saw a red flare, and then a cloud of smoke, further south at Queen.
Here, astonishingly, the big officer was overcome and began to weep — so much so that the judge called a 10-minute recess.
When court resumed, still emotional, const. Andalib-Goortani said he could hear through his earpiece that “there was a lot of officers coming on the radio, asking for help. They were saying they were being attacked, they were out-numbered, they were being hit.”
He said he remembered “one officer come on the radio. He was screaming. He said, ‘10-33, 10-33 [it means emergency], I need help!’
“I didn’t know where he was. He
Const. Babak Andalib-Goortani. needed help, and there was nothing I could do.”
The dispatcher said that only those from the Public Order unit (POu), with their better training and equipment, could respond to the pleas for assistance.
const. Andalib-Goortani and his team tried to get down to Queen Street, he said, but the dispatcher was reporting “’they’re smashing police cars … then they’re burning police cars.
“‘don’t confront them,’ ” he said the dispatcher warned. “’Just run away from them.’ “We were told there’s just too many of them,” the officer said, “not to go close: they’re violent, they’re smashing things up.”
At some point, his team stopped a man walking backwards on university, a massive pack on his back. When they searched the backpack, const. Andalib-Goortani said, they found a “Mexican wrestling” mask and a wine bottle with “shredded bits of fabric” taped to the neck.
const. Andalib-Goortani said it looked like a Molotov cocktail to him. He seized the bottle, but the man was let go.
When his unit was told it would be acting as an extraction team at Queen’s Park, the officer said he asked what that meant. (What it meant was that they were to stand behind the POu line, and then arrest those the POu identified.)
Now, the area was teeming with protesters, const. Andalib-Goortani said; people were tossing golf balls, bricks and rocks. He heard the poppop-pop of POu members using pellets of pepper spray.
Mr. Nobody, he said, was one of at least five people his little unit was told to arrest, and while Mr. Nobody maintained he had not been resisting, the officer said he was — in fact, he said Mr. Nobody offered the most resistance of anyone the unit arrested that day.
In a painstaking frame-by-frame examination of four videos that are now in evidence, const. AndalibGoortani pointed out to his lawyer, Harry Black, where Mr. Nobody was at one stage either on top of or enmeshed with another officer and split seconds where he appeared to be struggling.
Such videos, it turns out, may be the new statistics, in that they can be made to say whatever one wishes.
The constable also identified places where other officers either kneed Mr. Nobody in the face or head, or kicked him in the face.
The officer has acknowledged using his nightstick on Mr. Nobody four times — each time aiming for his thighs — but denied prosecutor Philip Perlmutter’s suggestion that he was angry at what happened that day and “you broke, you snapped and lashed out” at Mr. Nobody.
“No sir,” the constable said, admitting he disliked the violence and found it “distasteful” and that he had felt helpless not being able to rush to his fellows’ aid. But he only used his nightstick, he said, because he thought Mr. Nobody was resisting and that “I needed to do something to help those officers.” OTTAWA • The French-language CBC is adjusting its rebranding efforts in the face of a backlash over a decision to drop the name radio-canada and replace it with the word “ICI,” French for “here.”
The idea, announced last Thursday, triggered complaints from one of its employees’ unions, and condemnation from Heritage Minister James Moore. It also earned widespread scorn and ridicule in social media.
cBc president Hubert Lacroix said Monday the crown corporation was “sorry” about all of the “confusion” caused by its announcement and was “listening” to its viewers and listeners.
“It was never our goal to completely empty out radio-canada of all that it represents,” Mr. Lacroix said in a statement initially released in French without translation. “However, radio-canada has heard the message well that the public has sent us in recent days. We take notice of its profound attachment to everything that radio-canada represents.”
Mr. Lacroix said that “radio-canada” would be subsequently part of each of its brands on television, radio and on its website. “Ici” and “radiocanada” will appear next to each other on the various platforms. For instance its website, currently radio-canada. ca, was supposed to become ici.ca, but will instead turn into Iciradio-canada. ca. The TV network will become “Ici radio-canada Tele.”
The Heritage Minister welcomed the name-change reversal. He had warned the broadcaster last week that taxpayers would only accept paying for the service if it was canadian in content and in name.
“One of the mandates of radiocanada is to be there in each region of the country and in French equally,” said Mr. Moore on Monday.
The crown corporation spent about $400,000 on two private firms for work on the “IcI” rebranding exercise, but said it believed this was a “reasonable figure.” “The expertise they provided helped our teams develop the brand architecture, related logos and on-air graphics of radio-canada’s 10 platforms, and ensured a coherent approach to our visual identity and advertising campaign,” said the broadcaster in a statement on Friday.
A radio-canada employees’ union issued a statement last week saying it was “firmly” opposed to the new name. The union called it inappropriate to have spent more than $400,000 on marketing at a time of budget cuts. ther details about this issue as well as what actions it may be planning or have under way in relation to the metadata program.”
Mr. Hutchinson added Ms. Stoddart also had “significant concerns” about the scope of information reportedly being collected by Prism, though it was unclear how far an investigation might be allowed to go.
“Based on the limited information we have, it is difficult to assess the merit of the allegations and how American law may apply to the situation,” Mr. Hutchinson said.
“In addition, while this is an issue with privacy implications, it also involves issues in which our office lacks specific specialization.
He said the privacy commissioner’s office plans “to express our concerns to and seek information from the commissioner of the communication Security establishment to determine how the personal information of canadians may be affected.”
Ms. Stoddart’s office will also contact counterparts around the world to co-ordinate investigations into Prism.
Mr. Mackay found himself under fire in the House of commons Monday, when he said canada’s surveillance program was “specifically prohibited from looking at the information of canadians.
“This program is very much directed at activities outside the country, foreign threats, in fact,” he said.
“There is rigorous oversight. There is legislation in place that specifically dictates what can and cannot be examined.”
But the defence minister sidestepped opposition questions over whether the government knew if Prism was collecting information on canadians, and whether cSe had access to u.S. information if it was.