Riot act read to police

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 17/5/2012 (2932 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Ontario's independent police watchdog issued a scathing report Wednesday about police misconduct during the G20 summit in downtown Toronto two years ago. More than 1,000 people were detained in what was described as the largest mass arrest in Canadian history. Police acted illegally, used excessive force and were responsible for creating "a cycle of escalating responses from both sides."

In other words, according to the report, police didn't do anything right, and their conduct only made the situation worse.

The report says Toronto police, who were responsible for maintaining order outside the summit security zone, suffered from poor planning and weak communications, which contributed directly to increased tensions on the street.

So the outstanding question, still unanswered, is why were police so unprepared, so poorly trained for an event they knew would attract some of the world's professional protesters?

It's not like violent demonstrations are unknown in Canada. There have been scores of riots and disturbances in Canadian history, several over hockey, but many related to politics, too. On the same day the report was released, protesters stormed a Montreal university and terrorized students in their classrooms, part of a continuing series of demonstrations over tuition increases in Quebec.

The report says Toronto police inexplicably assumed that providing security would be "business as usual," despite the fact previous summits had led to violence.

Some of the same problems were identified a year later during the Stanley Cup riot in Vancouver. Police were unprepared for the mass hysteria that gripped hockey fans and were hopelessly unable to bring it under control in a timely manner. The same sense of helplessness and poor planning has affected the policing of many other major riots in Canadian history. Police, it seems, routinely overestimate their ability to control crowds, probably because they are often successful.

Proper planning, however, means police should have contingencies for worst-case scenarios, which did not exist in either Toronto or Vancouver. In fact, Vancouver police were hampered by an inability to mobilize reinforcements.

There's no question that thugs and hoodlums share a lot of the blame when street demonstrations get out of control. That was certainly the case in Vancouver, but less so in Toronto, where hundreds of innocent people were arrested and abused by police.

The police are entitled to some consideration for facing a difficult situation under threatening conditions. When crowds get ugly, someone is bound to get hurt. The risk of injury and property damage, however, can only be mitigated if law enforcement has planned and trained for the worst.

The fog of war is a term that applies to street riots, too, since even the best plans will rarely survive the first volley. That is no excuse, however, for failing to take even rudimentary measures. Toronto police, for example, did not even ensure there was enough food and water in the event they had to detain large numbers of people.

The lesson for all police departments is that they should never underestimate the mob mentality or exaggerate their own abilities to defuse a powder keg.