My wife, my friends and I were held at Queen and Spadina last sunday June 27, 2010 . I had been in London, Ontario the day before watching the mess unfold in the news. We wanted to see how our city was faring after that and to witness what was going down. We did not want to join any groups, I almost felt like a tourist in my own city.
At around 6pm cops on bikes led hundreds of people to Queen and Spadina, some of them had a sit in blocking the intersection.
My friends and I stayed out of the street watching from a balcony near some Manicure places as a line of riot cops started to form. At that point we tried to leave before things got bad and the cops told us they were going to lead us to an exit but the exit never happened and they cop lines got closer and closer giving no warning and no request to leave.
Vans and the fabled sonic weapon arrived, we had guns pointed at us and the storm came down on us so hard. My wife pretty much went through all stages of grief and we were calling my friends, family and co-workers telling them that it seemed that we were gonna get taken to the detention centers. We wrote legal aid numbers on our arms and tried to not get them smudged in the downpour. People were freaking out and surrendering themselves just to get out. For the first hours cops would come in and grab random people they deemed suspicious and then they kept holding us for hours. Also they filmed us all.
Many buses arrived as well later on and they cops told us we were going to in the buses. Twenty minutes went by and people started cheering because they let us go, the line opened and we got the hell out of there. Soaking wet and shivering, so happy to be free again. By the end there I was just hoping they would take us away just to be dry. It was such crazy overkill for such a peaceful group I still feel Completely disappointed at the complete disregard for the rights of a group of people they clearly had no charges on. Such an action was illegal.
At around 6pm cops on bikes led hundreds of people to Queen and Spadina, some of them had a sit in blocking the intersection.
My friends and I stayed out of the street watching from a balcony near some Manicure places as a line of riot cops started to form. At that point we tried to leave before things got bad and the cops told us they were going to lead us to an exit but the exit never happened and they cop lines got closer and closer giving no warning and no request to leave.
Vans and the fabled sonic weapon arrived, we had guns pointed at us and the storm came down on us so hard. My wife pretty much went through all stages of grief and we were calling my friends, family and co-workers telling them that it seemed that we were gonna get taken to the detention centers. We wrote legal aid numbers on our arms and tried to not get them smudged in the downpour. People were freaking out and surrendering themselves just to get out. For the first hours cops would come in and grab random people they deemed suspicious and then they kept holding us for hours. Also they filmed us all.
Many buses arrived as well later on and they cops told us we were going to in the buses. Twenty minutes went by and people started cheering because they let us go, the line opened and we got the hell out of there. Soaking wet and shivering, so happy to be free again. By the end there I was just hoping they would take us away just to be dry. It was such crazy overkill for such a peaceful group I still feel Completely disappointed at the complete disregard for the rights of a group of people they clearly had no charges on. Such an action was illegal.
