My Letter to the Toronto Police Services Board re: the #G20 Inquiry

Yesterday I received an email from Councilor Adam Vaughn asking for input for the Toronto Police Services Board review. More information can be found at oiprd.on.ca and you can send your own email to board@tpsb.ca. The following is what I sent, please do send them your thoughts and if you'd like to borrow anything from mine feel free.

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To the Members of Toronto Police Services Board;

Thank you for the opportunity to submit my questions, concerns and thoughts regarding the events surrounding the G20 in Toronto. I believe that what happened in Toronto will leave lasting scars. The damage done by the black bloc was minor compared to the damage done by the response to it. The incident has left a much of the public, otherwise law abiding, proud, civic minded Torontonians feeling alienated from the police and the one sided response of city hall has caused that alienation to spread to City Hall.

Sadly, and with all due respect to the TPSB, I do not believe that you have the power to answer my questions or address my concerns. What happened during the G20 involved police from across Ontario and Canada including the Ontario Provincial Police and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and a worthwhile review of what happened must include all of them as well as the political decision makers for whom they worked including Mayor David Miller, Premiere Daulton McGuinty and Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

What is needed is a full accounting of exactly what happened, to whom, when, why and on whose orders. We need a full accounting of everything that happened at the G20 starting with the decision to hold it in Toronto, through security decisions leading up to it and a full accounting of what happened on the ground including a minute-by-minute blow-by-blow account of the protests and the police response to them. In answering these questions absolutely no evidence must be withheld including any and all documents, minutes and notes of all meetings, and all photos, videos, eye witness accounts and physical evidence held by the police, the public and any and all political or bureaucratic bodies.

Among the many questions that need to be answered:

1) Why was downtown Toronto chosen as a location in the first place?
2) Why did the PMO reject the idea of holding the meeting at the Exhibition Grounds?
3) Why was the public mislead into believing that the police had extra powers during the G20
4) Why did the police exercise even greater powers than we were lead to believe that they had, conducting random searches much farther than 5 meters from the fence?
5) Why did Police Chief Blair attempt to mislead the media and the public about special police powers, about weapons seized at the G20, and about the repatriation ceremony of a Canadian Soldier?
6) Why did the police stand down during the black bloc riot?
7) Were Quebecers and Francophones specifically targeted by police and if so why and on what grounds?
8) What planning was done in preparing the Eastern Avenue Detention Facility and why were police not better prepared to handle the number of detainees? Why were detainees denied adequate food, water and medical attention - rights granted even to prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention and were prisoners in any way mistreated or threatened at the facility?
9) Did police have appropriate warrants for the search of the University of Toronto housing facilities?
10) Why were journalists, charged with being the eyes and ears of the public, told to leave certain areas and events, were journalists specifically targeted by police and why were identified journalists arrested?
11) Why were demonstrators repeatedly told to leave certain areas only to have every means of doing so blocked by police?
12) Why was the designated 'Free Speech Zone" at Queens Park attacked by police and cleared of protesters?
13) What exactly happened at Queen and Spadina, what decisions led to that event and what happened during the event that left so many police, protesters and passersby standing in the rain without anyone on any side knowing how to end the stalemate?
14) Why are some of the instigators of the black bloc riot, photographed and caught on video by witness' not being sought by police?
15) What lead to the decision to fire rubber bullets and tear gas into a peaceful assembly at the Esplanade?

Additionally every case of alleged police brutality must be investigated thoroughly, and every arrest or detention, each seizure of property and every search conducted must be investigated to insure that police had both the authority and sufficient grounds.

If you cannot fully answer all of these questions, and hold accountable those who are responsible for violating civil liberties or, in the case of police brutality, committed crimes then I urge you to suspend your inquiry and join Amnesty International, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the Green Party of Canada, the Ontario Provincial NDP, the Canadian Criminal Lawyers Association, CUPE, law school professors from across Canada, as well as numerous other organizations, and thousands of individuals, myself included in calling for a full, independent, impartial, federal inquiry that can.

Sincerely,
Justin Beach
Toronto Ontario