Watching Cops: Advice for Activists
The Orange Hats join host Jessa McLean to share some of the knowledge they've acquired by documenting the Toronto Police harass, intimidate and brutalize activists at actions.
Hear stories from the front lines, learn some of the dangerous trends in policing, and get LOTS of tips on how navigate the tactics being deployed against our movements.
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Transcript
Someone giving the police department the business, huh? We know which precincts, police precincts,
Speaker:are prone to use pepper spray. We also know where a lot of the most violent cops are. Boys,
Speaker:boys, piggy, piggy! We're gonna make your lives shitty! Boys, boys!
Speaker:Welcome to Blueprints of Disruption. I'm your host, Jessam McLean. Just before that classic
Speaker:chant, you heard one of the Orange Hats speaking about the very unique set of knowledge they've
Speaker:acquired by being legal observers in Toronto, watching and documenting police behaviour,
Speaker:particularly during protests and other direct actions. As we've discussed here on the show...
Speaker:police and prosecution tactics have shifted greatly over the past year and a half. And
Speaker:although it has been Palestinian solidarity activists bearing the brunt of these changes,
Speaker:it's become clear that anyone disrupting the social order or challenging power will have
Speaker:to deal with increased police surveillance, harassment, and brutality. Knowing your rights
Speaker:just isn't enough anymore. The situation is so fluid. And as we know, cops do not always
Speaker:follow the law. This isn't to discourage anyone from disrupting. That is the whole premise
Speaker:of our show. No, we need folks out there on the front lines. We cannot let up. I don't
Speaker:know about making their lives shitty, but we can sure make cops' jobs harder. To that end,
Speaker:we've asked the Orange Hats to join us today to provide insight into how police are acting
Speaker:on the ground and give some advice on how to navigate it all. This way, we can go into situations
Speaker:best prepared to keep each other as safe as possible while still remaining effective as
Speaker:a movement. Before we hear from them, this is just another reminder that we do rely on word
Speaker:of mouth to grow our audience. And this episode is full of practical advice for anyone organizing
Speaker:for power right now. So please share it widely and be sure to check out the show notes for
Speaker:more ways to support the show. and to learn about our next guests. Let's get to it. Welcome.
Speaker:Now I'm gonna have to let you introduce yourself to the audience today. Go ahead, please. Okay.
Speaker:I'm identifying here as Orange Hat Guy, which is a reference to the organization I'm speaking
Speaker:on behalf of, the Orange Hat. Where that name comes from is that we started as a group of
Speaker:legal observers for the MDC, the Movement Defense Committee. To be identified at actions, we
Speaker:would wear orange hats. Now, for people who are not familiar with legal observing, the
Speaker:easiest way I've come across to kind of describe it is if you remember the ancient quote, who
Speaker:watches the watchmen, that would be us. We go to protests and we are there to watch police,
Speaker:essentially, and watch how police interact with the protesters. There is a public narrative
Speaker:about policing that rarely gets countered. And my experience with police, as somebody who
Speaker:has observed actions for The last five years or so, and who's been at, by my estimate, at
Speaker:least 200 actions, probably more, is that the narrative, the public narrative about policing
Speaker:is dead wrong and needs to be countered with things like interviews like this. But we have
Speaker:an expanded idea of what our organization, our new organization, will do. There will be outreach.
Speaker:There will be more training. One of the things that's really important to us is to train people
Speaker:within the different protest communities to do their own LOing. There's a lot of good reasons
Speaker:for that, like for instance, they know all of the people in their organization already, so
Speaker:if any of them get in trouble with the cops, they know exactly who those people are. We
Speaker:often don't when we are first asked. LO at protests, right? Could you maybe share with us some tidbits
Speaker:for folks who maybe can't get you out to an action because you guys are too busy or maybe
Speaker:they're not in Toronto and maybe it's not a large action? Like what should folks be doing
Speaker:at the bare minimum perhaps without a trained legal observer? And then maybe you can talk
Speaker:about the training that you're going to be doing. First of all, and we talked about this a little
Speaker:before we started taping, don't talk to the police. The police are not your friends. I
Speaker:actually had one incident a couple of months ago where it's LOing at a March and this bike
Speaker:cop comes up to me and he starts talking to me. Hey, how you doing? And I'm like, don't
Speaker:want to talk to you. What is this? Right. The thing you have to understand is that the police
Speaker:are an arm of state power, and they're there not to serve and protect you, they're there
Speaker:to serve and protect the interests of the state, right? And anything that they can get from
Speaker:you, they will use against you if they have an opportunity to do so, right? The only things
Speaker:that you absolutely have to tell police are your name, your date of birth and sometimes
Speaker:your address. If you're just talking to them, name and date of birth. That's it. If you get
Speaker:arrested, then you have to give them your home address, I believe. But that's it. If you get
Speaker:arrested, you have the absolute right to a lawyer, use it immediately. You might think you're
Speaker:smarter than the cops, but keep in mind that the cops have been trained in ways of getting
Speaker:information out of you. The pros, you're an amateur no matter how smart you think you are,
Speaker:and you are going to give them information that they're going to use against you. Don't do
Speaker:it. Clam up, not speaking to you, want to talk to my lawyer. Another basic thing, and this
Speaker:is something that most organizers I assume know, but always know where your exits are, always
Speaker:know routes that you're going to take. And alternate routes. And alternate routes if necessary.
Speaker:One of the things I've seen, it's not supposed to happen, but I've seen Keddling happen because
Speaker:people went down a side street and they got hemmed in on both sides, right? So always be
Speaker:aware of potential for cop misbehavior and avoid it as much as possible. Honestly, keep your
Speaker:distance. The cops will set up a line in front of you, like, you know, in your face in front
Speaker:of you, inches away from you, back off your line if you can. Break the line or just back
Speaker:it up? Back it up if you can, break it up if you have to, because when they get that close,
Speaker:their next step is gonna be to start pushing you back. Pushing you back, I've seen this
Speaker:happen several times now, and the moment someone sort of stands their ground, and refuses to
Speaker:be pushed back, they're going to be taken down. Okay. So, I mean, the cops, you know, they
Speaker:telegraph this. This is a, you know, a very simple and common playbook. Be aware of it
Speaker:and don't aid it. You guys have been watching Toronto police extra closely. Is there any
Speaker:behaviours? that they have adopted because we have seen such a shift in policing and prosecution.
Speaker:But like, let's focus on the policing part for today. But any behaviors, I know that other
Speaker:cities are due to see, some are already seeing, you know, Ottawa and Hamilton, you know, from
Speaker:Ontario here have just been dealing with horrendous behavior on the part of police in terms of.
Speaker:trying new ways to thwart the protests, stop the marches, and criminalize the folks that
Speaker:are holding them. But is there any... any trends that you can point to there that you've seen
Speaker:in the Toronto police that you think maybe folks aren't on to? You mentioned, you know, lines
Speaker:of cops, 50 across, being used to dictate the route or attempt to dictate the route, things
Speaker:like of that nature. Let me just say about that, that it is absolutely glorious when rally organizers
Speaker:take the march in a direction that the cops didn't want them to go into. Not necessarily,
Speaker:you know, trying to break the cop line, but just going off down a side street that the
Speaker:cops weren't prepared for and watching all the cops scramble to catch up with the march. That
Speaker:makes my day every time it happens. I can hear you smiling. I will say yes.
Speaker:more prone to violence, more willing to provoke violence. I've been at over a couple hundred
Speaker:protests and I have never seen a protester on our side initiate violence. My estimates is
Speaker:that somewhere between 30 and 40% of the violence at protests comes from counter protesters and
Speaker:the rest comes from the police themselves. That's not scientific, that's just my opinion, but...
Speaker:Either way, it's not coming from the protesters. And I think that what happens is that over
Speaker:time, the cops see that they can get away with shit and it emboldens them to do more shit.
Speaker:I will give you an example of something that I was a part of that happened, I think, last
Speaker:year, sometime, early last year. It was a protest at, I'm not sure if it was the Manulife Center
Speaker:or, but somewhere on Bloor Street in Toronto, where the most of the protest was outside the
Speaker:building, but a few protesters went in and briefly occupied one of the, the entrance foyer to
Speaker:the building. And I tend to be the person who goes inside with the protesters. Now, ordinarily
Speaker:at other sort of occupations that I've been at, even pretty tense ones. When the cops say,
Speaker:move out, go, or you're going to be arrested for trespass, we leave. When the cops say,
Speaker:leave within 15 minutes, we might leave at the 13 minute mark, but we do, we are out by the
Speaker:time they want us to be out. And that's, you know, that was the way it was until this rally.
Speaker:And I've been told that this is not the first time that this has happened. The cops essentially
Speaker:made two lines that led to the door out. And as people were leaving, people got shoved,
Speaker:people got pushed, and there was one cop in particular who was actually standing next to
Speaker:the line. He wasn't part of the line of cops, but he was just punching people in the head
Speaker:as they were leaving. Do we know that cop's name? We do, but I'm not sure I should be saying
Speaker:this. Okay, fair enough. What I will say, and this should give a hint to people who are familiar
Speaker:with this, I was told afterwards that was the cop who, um, shot a guy, killed a guy, and
Speaker:got off. And if he can get off- I'm pretty sure that's every cop. If he can get away with-
Speaker:That's shot. If he can get away with murder, punching people in the head is like, yeah,
Speaker:I can totally do this. Right? Well, that goes right to your point where if they get away
Speaker:with shit- They keep just getting away with more and more shit. Yeah, exactly. On the most
Speaker:individual level and on an institutional level. Absolutely. Now, I will say that, and this
Speaker:is no secret because there are lots of us, I'm an old white guy. So one of the cops actually
Speaker:took me aside and said, leave by this door. Most of the protesters, pro-Palestinian protesters,
Speaker:it was a pro-Palestinian rally. And you're clearly a legal observer, right? You're not just, he's
Speaker:not just pulling old white guys out of the crowd, or does he know you're a legal observer? I
Speaker:was wearing the orange hat, so he probably does know I'm a legal observer, but that has never,
Speaker:like, there were legal observers out West who've been arrested. Legal observers can be targets
Speaker:of the cops for the obvious reason, they don't like being watched, right? No, that's white
Speaker:old guy privilege. Totally, totally privilege. But here's the thing, I get outside, and everybody
Speaker:gets pepper sprayed, yay! Inside? So, outside. Okay, once they were outside, they pepper sprayed
Speaker:everybody. Oh good. Yeah, so, gee, thanks for that. The privilege didn't help me. First time
Speaker:in my life that I've been pepper sprayed, and it's quite the experience. It is and like that's
Speaker:part of the injuries that you folks reported on in the press release that will link in the
Speaker:show notes just from January 27th, I think. And there's quite a list of injuries and I
Speaker:imagine even though you do very good work that is probably still just a fraction of the actual
Speaker:injuries that occur. Like not everybody's going to come back to the organizer and be like,
Speaker:you know, I sprained my ankle or, you know, the cop did this or that. I mean, we observe
Speaker:what we can observe, but that can't be everything either. So And this, like you say in the press
Speaker:release, that, you know, hopefully we'll get more traction than cop press releases, but
Speaker:they don't. Right? So, like you said, when you're trying to fight this narrative and we hear
Speaker:about police dispersing people in the news, it is made to sound quite innocent and that
Speaker:it happened very quietly and peacefully, unless of course they don't want it to appear that
Speaker:way and justify something else. But most of the time. And you folks have a lot of evidence
Speaker:to the contrary. Do you want to talk about how you are trying to make these injuries and this
Speaker:type of police behavior part of the narrative? Because I think we've talked about it on the
Speaker:show before and when journalists, especially like they're really stretched, this is not
Speaker:to excuse all their behavior, but they often just take the press, the police report or police
Speaker:release, you know, that gives the name and age and somewhat of the circumstances. Maybe the
Speaker:police even make a statement about it if it got enough. hoopla around it, and they just
Speaker:like reprint it, uncritically just regurgitate it. Are you folks doing work to try to get
Speaker:in these news reports, or is that kind of futile? No, I don't think so. I mean, we do know a
Speaker:small number of journalists of goodwill who would like to have another point of view on
Speaker:subjects like this. But keep in mind, our organization is still relatively new. This is the first
Speaker:interview I'm actually doing on behalf of the Orange Hats. We do hope to be able to get some
Speaker:more of the counter-narrative in there. You don't mind, I have a story about, kind of related
Speaker:to this subject, of kind of the police attitude towards people in the narratives that aren't
Speaker:getting heard. Please. I was at a Defund the Police rally that was outside 52 Division in
Speaker:Toronto. The organizer of the rally was painting a banner, a big banner that said Defund the
Speaker:Police. A cop comes out of the station and he's stereotypical, he's over six feet tall, he's
Speaker:blonde, he's got broad shoulders, he's like, you know, he's a cop, man. No way of the...
Speaker:thinking he's anything else. He's not going undercover. No, God no. He comes over, he takes
Speaker:one look at the banner and he says, gee, good luck if you need any help from us. Okay, and
Speaker:he storms back into the police station. And I'm watching this with a couple of people who
Speaker:were talking to her about the organizer, about the banner. One of them is a black man. The
Speaker:other was an indigenous man. And one of the highlights is really the wrong word. But one
Speaker:thing that I look forward to every year, one thing that I'm very proud of being at is the
Speaker:strawberry ceremony outside of police headquarters, which is specifically for missing and murdered
Speaker:indigenous women. And specifically to get the fucking cops to do something about it. Because
Speaker:the cops have dragged their feet for years on this issue. And, you know, it really drove
Speaker:home to me this idea that, you know, the cops are there to serve and protect. Well, they're
Speaker:only there to serve and protect certain groups of people, because there are whole groups of
Speaker:people in this society. And those are only two, right? I've also been at rallies for disabled
Speaker:people. I've also been at a drag queen story time. There are lots of communities in this
Speaker:city, the unhoused. Oh, God, I could go on about. know, encampment clearings. Don't worry, we
Speaker:have. Good. Huge numbers of groups in this city that the cops do not help and in fact they
Speaker:are, as I said earlier, they are part of the apparatus of the state and they are part of
Speaker:the oppression of the state of these groups. That's such an old trope used by the cop to
Speaker:come out there but it has real implications too, like you mentioned before And maybe we
Speaker:can also talk about being outside of police divisions and doing jail support. We had one
Speaker:incident in Toronto, maybe many more, you could tell me, where folks were actually arrested
Speaker:doing jail support, which then created the need for, you know, more jail support. Is there
Speaker:advice you could give for? folks again not operating in Toronto, but have people that have been
Speaker:picked up and not from a lawyer's perspective, you know, like how to you've already kind of
Speaker:talked about staying silent as the person arrested, but what about the comrades outside? What are
Speaker:things that they can be doing besides getting them legal help? What is what is jail support
Speaker:to you folks? Absolutely. I was actually at the incident you mentioned, and not only did
Speaker:people get arrested, but the crowd got pepper sprayed. Yay. That was also... I didn't. I
Speaker:was well enough, far enough back at the time the pepper spray came out. But there are...
Speaker:See, this is something else. This is information that is knowledge among us, but really needs
Speaker:to be disseminated among the general activist population. We know... which precincts, police
Speaker:precincts, are prone to use pepper spray. We also know where a lot of the most violent cops
Speaker:are. And so if you're unlucky enough to have to deal with people from that division, um,
Speaker:you need to be aware that, you know, you're more likely to encounter violence with them
Speaker:than with other divisions. So again, this is the sort of information that we need to codify
Speaker:and get out to the public. But yes, I will tell you in terms of jail support, see the thing
Speaker:that happened there was that they had just come from the protest and they were still in protest
Speaker:mode. And jail support is not a protest. So I would, you know, strongly urge people to,
Speaker:if they're going to do jail support, they're there to quietly and calmly wait for their
Speaker:comrade to get out. And that's all they're there for. Okay. The problem with the event you brought
Speaker:up was they were taunting the police. They were still sort of in activist mode and we could
Speaker:see the police line developing in front of them and, you know, we could see that maybe this
Speaker:is not a good idea and this is not the place and time for this. So. in terms of advice,
Speaker:if you want to do jail support. Jail support is like, treat jail support like a vigil, you
Speaker:know, go light candles in front of the jail. Do not be vocal or in any way, uh, piss off
Speaker:the police to the point where, well, I mean, there is never an excuse for police violence,
Speaker:but don't piss off the police. Not there. Just want to make sure folks that are like, this
Speaker:isn't victim blaming in any sense, like those folks. It's kind of understandable why folks
Speaker:get to a division angry, especially after a protest maybe been broken up by cops and their
Speaker:friends have been arrested. So perhaps some of the advice there is, you know, maybe jail
Speaker:support isn't for everybody. Take note of your mentality, you know, when it's time to go for
Speaker:jail support. Can you offer this kind of support? Because I don't think anyone's also advocating
Speaker:for... It's going to be impossible for some people listening out there to never taunt the
Speaker:police, especially if they're in a certain mind frame. So, you know, perhaps at that point,
Speaker:jail support isn't your strong point. Oh, definitely. Like I said, never any excuse for police violence.
Speaker:And it's never the fault of the protesters. But choose your moments. And jail support is
Speaker:not one of those moments. When you were at this event and when you're at actions, do the orange
Speaker:hats provide advice or just legal observation? Because in part, your press release, and I
Speaker:know you're encouraging the dissemination of this information to activists to better equip
Speaker:them, but a lot of this is very fluid, right? You could give me tips right now, we can give
Speaker:our audience tips, but eventually you'll have people trained. But it's a- Do you ever see
Speaker:these circumstances unfolding? And like you say, you see the police line getting agitated
Speaker:and you've watched them so many times that you can anticipate their movements. Are you able
Speaker:to advise organizers or do you strictly observe and then untangle it all after? Well, yes,
Speaker:this is this was one of the issues that eventually drove us into our own organization, because,
Speaker:yeah, when you're on When you're on the ground and you see things developing that you know
Speaker:are going to end badly You want to warn people now as orange hats We feel much more comfortable,
Speaker:you know doing that and honestly, I think that will Hopefully keep more people safe and effective.
Speaker:I want to give an example from the recent Cup w strike and the community lines. We talked
Speaker:about an action. I think on rabble rants where police showed up to a hard picket line, which
Speaker:I don't know the legality of it, okay? But they showed up and they asked folks to disperse.
Speaker:And they immediately dispersed. And one of the folks that were there had the kind of opinion
Speaker:that had they known how to read police behavior and numbers, I think it was like just a handful
Speaker:of cops that had showed up at the time, that they had time. that they could have stretched
Speaker:it out, like done the 13 of the 15 minutes like you described. I don't know if even that's
Speaker:a question, but it just I think speaks to the need to have more people have that knowledge
Speaker:of how police are behaving. Like, it's just more proof that it would be so hard as a legal
Speaker:observer to obtain all of that knowledge, all of that knowledge, and then not be able to
Speaker:do something preventative or... That wasn't necessarily to keep the protesters safe, but
Speaker:it was just to lengthen the time they could hold that hard picket line to make the action
Speaker:more effective, rather than folding to police right away. Like the advice can go both ways,
Speaker:can it not? You know, like you could probably get away with this. I know that's not like
Speaker:great advice or, you know, if I wanted to break a police line, I would go this way. Hypothetically
Speaker:speaking. I think like we need an orange hat everywhere. Is that the goal? Like, should
Speaker:folks be calling you to small actions? Or how are you going to get all this knowledge out
Speaker:there? Yeah, no. Well, so as a practical matter, we're still a relatively small organization.
Speaker:We can't possibly, you know, go to every action. And this is, again, this goes back to the idea
Speaker:that... really we need to train people. It would be brilliant if all the unions had their own
Speaker:people who were trained, right? Don't have to call on us, just go to Ed and say, Ed, do we
Speaker:have to break up or can we stay here for a few more minutes, right? Is Ed the hypothetical
Speaker:legal observer? Ed is the hypothetical union member who's had legal observer training. We'll
Speaker:call him Ed, yeah. Bob is overused, so let's go with Ed. So that knowledge would definitely
Speaker:be helpful, yes, it would definitely help make protests more effective, could definitely do
Speaker:that, but you know, one of the things that has come up for us is burnout, and it can be brutal,
Speaker:especially the last couple of years, last year. year and a half maybe, there seems to be a
Speaker:pro-Palestinian rally like every second day in Toronto. They happen quite frequently. And
Speaker:absolutely necessary and totally worth supporting but we don't have the resources to legal observe
Speaker:at daily protests or even twice, two or three times a week protests. So again, our answer
Speaker:to that is education. Get the organizations to... have the knowledge themselves so that
Speaker:all of our people don't get burnt out. Your people and their people. I mean, if we could
Speaker:all just share our tips on burnout, that would be really helpful. But even the tips, some
Speaker:of the tips that you've offered here today, but like, let's say you are training, someone
Speaker:showed up at a rally and you need a legal observer partner. It's a rookie. What are like the three
Speaker:things you can tell them to do at a rally? as a designated legal observer? Because it's going
Speaker:to happen with folks having no training. So what kind of training can we give them? For
Speaker:ourselves, when we train legal observers, the first couple of times they go out, we make
Speaker:sure they shadow somebody with more experience. So they kind of learn stuff that they wouldn't
Speaker:necessarily have learned in the training itself, but kind of on the ground stuff that you need
Speaker:to really be there to see. One of the things that I often do before the rally starts, and
Speaker:this is actually a good practice, is to just do a circle around the neighborhood and see
Speaker:where all the cop cars are and where all the bikes are and where all the cops do it. A number
Speaker:in my head, just get a sense of how many cops there actually are there. Before we even start,
Speaker:we need to know, so have the cops really prepared for this? And... they're coming in force or
Speaker:are there just a handful and maybe, you know, it won't be such a big deal. So, you know,
Speaker:I have quite the collection of photographs of cop cars and cops in lines and cops drinking
Speaker:coffee and eating donuts and, you know, all that great, great cop stuff that they do. Well,
Speaker:especially in the city, folks don't maybe realize that they will be maybe two blocks away. Sometimes
Speaker:there's like a large vehicle that's housing a few of them, so they're trying to be discreet
Speaker:about it, or they're in a park with all their bicycles ganging up, and you may stumble across
Speaker:them on your way to the action, but you might not. So like, that's a good tip. I guess not
Speaker:just are they there at the address that you've decided, like there'll be a community liaison
Speaker:officer there, somebody probably. But it's the other cops. It's the battalions that will be...
Speaker:Especially in Toronto with the tall buildings, you can't see them if they're even a block
Speaker:away. So that kind of walk around is good advice. Well, and also the vehicles. Make note of the
Speaker:vehicles. Do they have the... I forget the name of the vehicle, but the vehicle that they actually
Speaker:take people away with when they arrest them. Well, the paddy wagon? Kind of, yeah. I don't
Speaker:know if we still call it that. It has an official name, but I'm blanking on it at the moment.
Speaker:But yeah, I mean, is that there? And then... there are the horses. I remember the first
Speaker:time I saw the horses was at a rally at Nathan Phillips Square. And I'm standing there kind
Speaker:of away from the crowd because I was observing. And another piece of advice is you can observe
Speaker:better from across the street, right? Because you can see the whole picture of what's in
Speaker:front of you, whereas if you're actually there on the line, and there should be somebody on
Speaker:the line as well. you can only see the smaller part of what's going on in front of you. Right.
Speaker:So it's good to have somebody across the street or a little distant from the action itself
Speaker:to get a picture of the whole of what's going on. But yeah, to tell my, to finish my horse
Speaker:story. So yeah, the horses came trotting out and I was looking at them and they're magnificent
Speaker:animals and they're really kind of beautiful. And when it was, when they were about 10 feet
Speaker:away from me, I should really move now because I don't want to get squished. They're big.
Speaker:They are big and the cops don't care where they ride them to. Right? You want to talk about
Speaker:budgets? There is absolutely no fucking purpose for mounted cops. The only purpose they serve
Speaker:is to intimidate protesters. Right? That's the only reason they exist. We could cut that line
Speaker:item out of the cop budget. And that would never, ever be a problem. What is the official line
Speaker:from police? Surely they don't admit that they need that part of the budget to intimidate
Speaker:protesters. Do they have an argument that they try to say that these mounted cops are needed?
Speaker:Is it just like tradition? They need their own mounted police everywhere? Or do crowd control?
Speaker:Well, they'll just say it in a real sanitized way. They need it for crowd control. Yeah,
Speaker:that sounds... They say crowd control. Yeah. Okay. That's the experience. But any advice
Speaker:if you see the horses come out? Like same as if you see a police line forming inches from
Speaker:your face, maybe back the fuck up? Oh yeah, definitely back up. Stay away from them. Because
Speaker:like I say, the cops generally, the mounted cops will keep their distance, but they are
Speaker:not immune to violence if the situation calls for it, right? And that is not something you
Speaker:want to tangle with. You cannot win an argument with a horse. So, yeah, stay as far away from
Speaker:them as you can. The amount of money. Yeah, like not just the horses, but all the cops
Speaker:and the vehicles, the drones and the helicopter. Like it's been so long since I've been out
Speaker:of action, no matter how small, that doesn't have drones flying above it, even in Barry.
Speaker:Even going to an Action and Bury with like 12 people, there was drones. Every police force
Speaker:has drones and drone operators and all of these things going to these funds and Toronto police
Speaker:are getting even more money. Surely that is infuriating, especially since you're a group
Speaker:with limited resources trying to watch them all and they just keep getting better equipped.
Speaker:Any new technology out there being used against protesters? that we should be wary of. I know
Speaker:back in G20 days we had like this, the sound cannon and there's been all kinds of things.
Speaker:One toy that you didn't mention was facial recognition cameras and software. So I mean- Is that on
Speaker:their vehicles or are they holding those? That's on their vehicles actually. Okay. And so one
Speaker:of the- I think I mentioned earlier that, you know, one of the cops tried to come up to me
Speaker:and be buddy out of March. Actually a couple of minutes before that, a different bike cop
Speaker:rode past me and just shouted, hey, and my name, which was the first time the cops had ever
Speaker:called me out by name, right? They're doing that on purpose, right? To let you know, I
Speaker:know who you are. Yeah, I suppose that was supposed to be an intimidation tactic, but it's like,
Speaker:you know. Having been at rallies and marches and other actions for years, I had already
Speaker:assumed that they knew who I was, so I don't think it had the effect that he thought it
Speaker:would have on me. Was that their lame attempt at good cop, bad cop? I also think it was,
Speaker:yes. That occurred to me afterwards, right? It doesn't just happen in movies. You don't
Speaker:think I've ever watched an American cop show? You don't think I know how that works? Anyway,
Speaker:yeah. Oh, Lord. Well, we didn't say they were smart, did we, Orin Chet? No. And in fact,
Speaker:one of the other members of the group points out that in the States, and I think in Canada
Speaker:too, there is an intelligence cap on who they hire. So if you have an IQ of over, say, 130,
Speaker:you are not allowed to be a cop. No critical thinking skills allowed. Well, that's it, right?
Speaker:It's all about. chain of command and heaven forbid you should actually think maybe the
Speaker:commands you're getting aren't legit or aren't you know aren't the best idea. They want people
Speaker:who don't question. Now they know why they want to keep us stupid. I also you know in this
Speaker:context I've said this to many activists. If you want to understand sort of cop psychology
Speaker:uh read or find the film version A Clockwork Orange, it's a futuristic novel about this
Speaker:guy, this British thug. He's a teenage guy who runs a violent gang of thugs. And he goes through
Speaker:this treatment, the Ludovico treatment, which makes it impossible for him to be violent.
Speaker:He gets out of that. He thinks, okay, I'm going to be a productive member of society. That's
Speaker:what this is all about. And one of the first things he does is he meets two of his ex-gang
Speaker:members, who he's beaten himself and who have no love for him, and they beat the crap out
Speaker:of him because he can no longer fight back. The reason I bring this up? They're now cops.
Speaker:The same impulse that makes you a teenage thug makes you a 20-something cop. The worst people
Speaker:I knew in high school are cops. Now. Because I'm Canadian, I guess, I don't wanna say that
Speaker:all cops are like that, but that psychology, I've seen that sort of thuggish psychology
Speaker:play out a lot at protests. Yeah, I bet. And I imagine that takes a certain kind to, it's
Speaker:contagious. I think that's why you're having certain divisions displaying certain behaviors.
Speaker:because yeah, even the bad, the worst amongst them, gone unchecked, it's just becomes the
Speaker:norm. Yeah. And also, you know, the whole thin blue line psychology, it's like, okay, maybe
Speaker:you became a cop because you thought you could actually help people being a cop. Then you
Speaker:get into a division where, you know, half the cops like beaten the shit out of people, and
Speaker:you say nothing? Silence is complicity, man. I mean, you are part of the corrupt system
Speaker:if you go along in silence with the corrupt system. So, you know, the whole police solidarity,
Speaker:we don't talk about our bad behavior, really makes it hard to believe that any police officer
Speaker:is a person of goodwill. We've heard of folks getting arrested and... pressures putting on
Speaker:them to become confidential informants. I don't want to spend too much time on that. I think
Speaker:people are aware it's a possibility and I don't want to kind of breed distrust. But then there's
Speaker:also folks who are out in the open collaborating with police. Oh, I wonder who you could possibly
Speaker:be talking about. Ha ha. Although they do it under the guise of being journalists or observers
Speaker:of movements, yes? Right? Like it's, we're reporting on democracy and protest and we're doing it
Speaker:without any bias apparently. I think folks in Toronto probably know who we're talking about,
Speaker:but it's probably an issue. I know folks in Ottawa are getting to learn that behaviour
Speaker:from the same individual, but I imagine it's not isolated. Well, I know for a fact that
Speaker:there are so-called journalists out there in Toronto that are sharing their footage with
Speaker:the police. So I don't know if you just generally want to talk about talking to the media when
Speaker:we're at protests or whatnot. But do you want to comment on that? Because I imagine that
Speaker:kind of throws a wrench in the work that you do as well, a little bit. Well, let me say
Speaker:a couple of things. First, to your original point, the cops, when they arrest several people,
Speaker:will use a divide and conquer strategy. They'll tell each of the people individually, you're
Speaker:in big trouble and we can make it go away if you rat out the other people that we've arrested.
Speaker:And the thing about that is that it only works largely because people don't understand their
Speaker:rights. One of the things we do as legal observers, because we're actually observers, because we
Speaker:get footage of police violence, is that sometimes we might be called to trial as witnesses. That's
Speaker:never happened to me. In fact, I think it's only happened once to any observer I've ever
Speaker:known, because the fact of the matter is the vast majority of arrests do not go to trial.
Speaker:And I'm like talking 99.9%. People are eventually released, so all you have to do is just wait
Speaker:the cops out. You don't have to snitch on your comrades, you don't have to sell anybody out.
Speaker:Just wait and you'll be let go. You might have some conditions on being let go, but this is
Speaker:again, this should be movement-wide education. People should know what to expect when they're
Speaker:arrested, because you're always, if you're at an action... you're always at threat of being
Speaker:arrested. So you should have some idea of, you know, realistically what is gonna happen. As
Speaker:for the scooter twins, the people that you want me to name, which I will not. You're getting
Speaker:real specific now. No, I don't like to give them any more notoriety than they need to,
Speaker:but yeah, beware of the scooter. Beware of the scooters. I am... like, scooter-phobic now
Speaker:after having dealt with them for the last few years. What I will say... they're not everywhere,
Speaker:they're not city TV. So, you know, the likelihood of me actually coming across one of them outside
Speaker:of rallies and stuff is very minor. So we see a lot of people recording actions. right? Photographing,
Speaker:video recording, and like I mentioned, some of those observers are handing their footage
Speaker:over to police voluntarily or, you know, with a simple request. Are you doing that? Okay.
Speaker:Can we assume you're not doing that? We are not doing that. I only take two sorts of media.
Speaker:I take photographs of cops and cop vehicles so that we know kind of who's there. And the
Speaker:only video I take is when it's clear that the cops are being violent, because we need a record
Speaker:of that. And in fact, at one action, we had people look at the video so that we could identify
Speaker:the person who was arrested, right, in real time rather than waiting for somebody to notice,
Speaker:hey, you know, X is missing, where did they go? I understand, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but no,
Speaker:I mean, our whole... thing is not cooperating with the cops. If they want to get a subpoena
Speaker:and, you know, service to get our footage, okay. Otherwise, we don't voluntarily share. One
Speaker:of the reasons I think police likely would not ask for your footage is mostly because they
Speaker:are the ones misbehaving as you spoke, right? You attested that The violence is not typically
Speaker:started by the folks that have organized the action itself, but the people trying to thwart
Speaker:its efforts. So we have found from guests reporting back, and we're actually going to talk to two
Speaker:lawyers this week who've had charges dropped from their clients after interacting with Toronto
Speaker:police. And what they're finding is... the existence of, you know, the body cam footage is one thing,
Speaker:but clear legal observers or documented footage of police brutality is often what stops those
Speaker:charges from going to trial. So having more evidence of their misdeeds or the fact that
Speaker:another report that we had on one of our episodes was the trend of charges. So originally folks
Speaker:were getting charged with mischief or disruption. Um, and then it started to escalate to the
Speaker:point where a lot of the interactions with police that led to arrests, the charges of avoiding
Speaker:arrest or assaulting an officer are added on top of whatever charge they were initially
Speaker:trying to haul you out of the group for. And so the value of this footage existing, um,
Speaker:is, is so important. but we are also getting advice not to live stream, not to point your
Speaker:camera perhaps into the crowd and share that widely. Do you wanna speak to that advice?
Speaker:I like, cause there's this need for people to wanna just demonstrate the numbers that were
Speaker:there, right, the solidarity that's happening, allow people who can't be on the ground to
Speaker:experience what it is like, but. there's also a need to balance that with the safety of the
Speaker:people there and the increasing criminalization. Like a lot of people are like, well, we're
Speaker:not doing anything illegal. And like, well, that seems to be reinterpreted all the time.
Speaker:So maybe don't hinge everything on that. Do you have any advice for people who want to
Speaker:go down and record, not for legal observing, but for sharing purposes? the cops cherry pick
Speaker:the body cams, right? So they will find sort of three seconds of something that makes a
Speaker:protester look bad and they'll use that, even if the next several minutes makes the cop look
Speaker:bad. So I think that the willingness of the police to at least look at your footage, they
Speaker:might be... willing to do that if they think that there might be something there that they
Speaker:can use. The problem with cherry picking footage that other people have shot though, is that
Speaker:a defense lawyer could come back at them and say, this is out of context. For proper disclosure,
Speaker:I need to see the full video. And that's where they would get in trouble because then that
Speaker:becomes public. But I take your point. The video that makes the cops look bad is not something
Speaker:that they want to even touch. So the thing is, there's what the law says, and then there's
Speaker:what the cops get away with. So yes, peaceful protest is absolutely legal, but if a cop wants
Speaker:to arrest you, they'll figure out the charges. Mischief is a great one, because it really
Speaker:means everything and nothing. It's just a way of, you know... having you interact with the
Speaker:police, the fact that they're now going to, you know, resist arrest and assault officers,
Speaker:that is a dangerous escalation. It's still bullshit. Let me give you a couple of examples. Add a
Speaker:defund the police rally outside of police headquarters. It was actually a defund the police dance party.
Speaker:And it was, we had DJs and it was a lot of fun, uh, until the police decided they'd had enough.
Speaker:Mostly, and this is something else to think about, after the journalists had left, right?
Speaker:Oh, there's nobody here recording us anymore. There's nobody here from official media watching
Speaker:us. Yeah, now we can do what we want. And so it ended up with some arrests. One of the people
Speaker:who was arrested, I had to go and- we went to the hospital, because she nearly had an eye
Speaker:gouged out, okay, by a cop. And she was arrested. And to my knowledge, you know, the cop has
Speaker:never been held to account and will not be held to account for nearly blinding this woman.
Speaker:There's the law, and there's what the cops can get away with. And so, you know, assume that
Speaker:being within the law will not keep you 100% safe, because it won't. In terms of actually
Speaker:videoing the protest, hey, look, you know, I usually take the front on marches, and, you
Speaker:know, I've been at the head of, you know, Pym rallies with a couple thousand people on them,
Speaker:huge Palestinian flags. Pym for people who don't know, Palestinian youth movement. And oh my
Speaker:god, the people and the sea of flags, it's really impressive. Like it is really impressive. I'm
Speaker:so impressed with that organization. Does it make the cops job easier? Well, I'm of two
Speaker:minds of that. On the one hand, yes, obviously the more video the cops have, the more easy
Speaker:it is to identify people. On the other hand, as we spoke earlier, the cops have their own
Speaker:ways of videoing people. They have drones, they have the facial recognitions cameras. So I'm
Speaker:not actually sure that protestor videos put anybody in more danger than they already were
Speaker:from the cops. I would need to know more about that before I could say definitively one way
Speaker:or the other. Well, I guess it would also depend on the police deployment. Like you said, you
Speaker:know, if are there drones, are there just a handful of cops? Are you disrupting something?
Speaker:You know, they- to keep those things in mind. You may show up and there's just like two cops
Speaker:there and you folks document everything they're doing. I think the concern there is just putting
Speaker:people in a certain place at a certain time. And we did talk about ways that before that
Speaker:folks can videotape. I think I'll just throw it out here now or photograph and then share
Speaker:it. I mean, you can blur out faces, but also even just removing the metadata. makes it kind
Speaker:of a useless piece of evidence. So you would just take a photo or take a screenshot of the
Speaker:photo you wanted to share and then just share the screenshot is how you can do that with
Speaker:a video or with a photo. And there's other ways that you can remove metadata from video before
Speaker:sharing. But yeah, like it's hard to argue with the fact that like I tell you even a small
Speaker:action in Barrie, Ontario is likely surveilled with the technology that we only dream of having.
Speaker:So whether or not my, you know, your TikTok showing the backs of someone's head, so you
Speaker:know, is going to add value to their investigation or not is, is I guess always up in the air.
Speaker:But yeah, there's two schools of thought on that. To finish that conversation, be aware
Speaker:that it's not only faces that identify you, it's also the clothes you wear. And in particular,
Speaker:for some reason, for a while there, the cops were shooting video of people's shoes. Cause
Speaker:I guess shoes are unique enough that they can identify, oh, this person has been at several
Speaker:rallies now. You know, we've seen these shoes over and over again, so. Yes, cause like your
Speaker:jacket, your tire up top might change, but. Very few of us have like many, many pairs of
Speaker:shoes, comfortable shoes, marching shoes, right? You all have your favorite gear that we wear.
Speaker:I mean, we can all just dress like cops with combat boots, but then everyone will point
Speaker:to you as a narc. So maybe that's not the best approach either. I mean, that's what Black
Speaker:Block came from. I think gray is folks are leaning into now. It's just ways to dress so you don't
Speaker:even differentiate yourself from one another. So did I warn you before we started that? that
Speaker:I can be a bit of a chatterbox. You just ask me a question and I'll just ramble on for 20
Speaker:minutes. I probably should have warned you that beforehand. They make for good podcast guests.
Speaker:I hope so. We're here to talk, right? No.
Speaker:It was, I mean, not only are we going to share orange hats in the show notes and how you can
Speaker:read more about them and what they're doing, but you provided a litany of very practical
Speaker:tips to folks that are in the thick of it right now. And it's, it's a hard time because, like
Speaker:you said, you know, there's what's law, there's what is in practice, there seems to be a gray
Speaker:area in between. It makes even doing know your rights cards seem impossible. Like there should
Speaker:be two sides, right? Like here's your rights and here's how they'll actually treat you.
Speaker:And then even that is so damn fluid and, you know, could be even depending on what police
Speaker:precinct has been assigned to break up your protest or whatnot. And so the theme music
Speaker:for this episode should be the clash, know your rights. But no, I'm very happy to help disseminate.
Speaker:even just if it's a fraction of the knowledge you folks hold. So very big thanks for coming
Speaker:on and sharing all that knowledge and for doing that work. How are you guys sustained? How
Speaker:can people help you? It's all volunteer work. Although I think we may be starting to collect
Speaker:at least a little bit of money. Check the website for updates on that. Um, one other piece of
Speaker:advice that occurs to me that is actually important. What we see, a trend we see now is that cops
Speaker:are actually not arresting people at the protest itself. They're waiting for people to go away
Speaker:and sometimes they'll hit them like in the subway or sometimes they'll hit them at home actually.
Speaker:Nothing we can do about, you know, cops coming after you at home, but, uh, whenever you disperse
Speaker:from a rally, stay safe, never leave alone. Make sure you're there with, make sure you
Speaker:leave with at least one other person and preferably several other people. Because that's one way
Speaker:that they can prevent their being jail support, right? And adequate legal support is they don't,
Speaker:you don't even know your comrades been picked up for hours, if not until they get out. Well,
Speaker:and also cops, I mean, you know, cops are like, lions following a herd of gazelles, right?
Speaker:They'll pick off the oldest or the slowest if they get broken off from the herd. So, you
Speaker:know, try and stay in a group, try and stay with the herd. Very, very good advice. I imagine
Speaker:you folks are going to be putting out a lot more of it now that you can tell the world
Speaker:what you've been seeing from Toronto police. That's the plan. This is going to be invaluable,
Speaker:invaluable to people across Turtle Island who are dealing with increasing police state activity
Speaker:and suppression of all the actions that we're doing. It's like we were even saying earlier
Speaker:on another episode, it's like, you used to be able to tell people, you know, you're going
Speaker:to go into a peaceful sit and here's what to expect. And now it's like that range of what
Speaker:to expect is, has so many variables attached to it and can have so many different outcomes.
Speaker:So yeah, on the ground, legal observing and giving advice, I think, is critical, critical
Speaker:combination of things. So I'm so grateful for the orange hats and the work that you're going
Speaker:to be doing moving forward as well. Thank you for taking time to come on to Blueprints. Thank
Speaker:you for having me. That is a wrap on another episode of Blueprints of Disruption. Thank
Speaker:you for joining us. If you'd like to help us continue disrupting the status quo. Please
Speaker:share our content and if you have the means, consider becoming a patron. Not only does our
Speaker:support come from the progressive community, so does our content. So reach out to us and
Speaker:let us know what or who we should be amplifying. So until next time, keep disrupting. Someone
Speaker:giving the police department the business, huh? Get out of here! Business, huh? Boy, boy, jiggity,
Speaker:wiggle, wiggle!
Speaker:Someone giving the police department the business, huh?
