07) RAMPANT ABUSE OF POLICE POWER

(The following article is from the August 1-31, 2008, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

People's Voice Editorial, August 1-31, 2008

The litany of abuse against civilians by various Canadian police forces keeps mounting ever higher. But despite demands for justice, right-wing politicians and the corporate media keep giving the cops a free ride, with the occasional slap on the wrist for the sake of appearances.

     The July 22 Taser death of a Métis teenager in Winnipeg and taser assault against another Manitoba teen (see page 3) reconfirm that racism often lurks behind such attacks. When Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski was killed by taser-wielding cops at Vancouver airport last November, we wrote that such cases were not exceptional. Now an internal RCMP report has found that in 2006, only one-third of shootings by its officers met the RCMP's own standards for the use of deadly force. This is little consolation for the family of Ian Bush, shot in the back of the head after a confrontation over an open can of beer by a B.C. RCMP officer who was absolved of any blame.

     Trigger-happy cops are also keen to use other weapons. Some were on the job July 24-25 in Toronto, using pepper spray two nights in a row to attack young people without warning on Queen Street during the Beaches Jazz Festival.

     Equally serious is the scandal of illegal wiretaps installed by the Ontario Provincial Police on the cellphone of indigenous protester Shawn Brant in the summer of 2007. The resulting transcripts of phone calls reveal a bullying OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino threatening to "destroy" Brant's reputation.

     This list could be extended for many pages. Canadian police forces regularly use their weapons and their power to bully, intimidate, torture and even kill people who have not been convicted or even charged with any crime. It's time to treat the boys in blue as criminals when they break the law. Instead of "investigating" and absolving each other of wrongdoing, all police forces must be placed under democratic, public control and oversight.