The question has lingered for two years: Who gave the orders for mass arrests and the kettling of people at Queen and Spadina — a move that a report now says was unlawful?

Police Chief Bill Blair has avoided singling out individual officers, but Wednesday’s report by the Office of the Independent Police Review Director has made clear that one man — who said he was following directives from his superiors — was responsible for several specific orders now found to have breached civil liberties and contributed to the largest mass arrest in Canadian history: Supt. Mark Fenton.

Fenton was the night shift incident commander at the Major Incident Command Centre (MICC), the central point of command and control for Toronto Police Services. Both he and day shift incident commander, Supt. Hugh Ferguson, were entrusted with the role by Blair.

It all started with eight words Deputy Chief Tony Warr said to Fenton, hours after black-clad vandals began wreaking havoc on city streets: “I want you to take back the streets.”

The interpretation of this sentence triggered a dramatic change in police tactics during the G20.

According to his statement to the OIPRD, Fenton asked Warr to keep him in check. Warr nodded “OK,” and Fenton said he updated the now-retired Warr with what was happening on the ground.

According to the report, during his shifts on Saturday and Sunday, Fenton ordered protesters to be “boxed in” or “blocked in,” asked about, or had operations request it be done on 10 separate occasions without taking into consideration that there may be legitimate protesters or innocent bystanders caught up in the crowd.

The night shifts on Saturday and Sunday became “dysfunctional,” said the report, noting the MICC “essentially became an autocratic structure,” where Fenton “accepted little or no input” from the operations chief and field experts.

“In effect, the MICC took all independence and decision-making responsibilities away from the commanders who were placed in tactical command on the ground,” said the report.

Fenton did not return a request to his office for comment by the Star Wednesday.

After taking over from Ferguson on Saturday evening, Fenton informed his command staff steps would be taken to restore order. He then ordered mass arrests at Queen’s Park and that anyone involved in a protest be arrested for breaching the peace.

“We were three and a half, four hours into riots on our streets. Enough . . . it had to end,” he told the OIPRD.

Later that evening, just after 10 p.m. on the Esplanade, more than 260 people were arrested after being boxed-in at the Novotel hotel.

Explaining his order to box in the people, Fenton told the OIPRD he saw security camera pictures of “bottles that formed a street medic kit. This was clear evidence that this crowd at the Novotel hotel were part of the violent protests ongoing in this city, and that they were ready and equipped with countermeasures to police use-of-force options.”

Just before 5 a.m. on June 27, Ferguson returned for his day shift. When he asked Fenton about direction from the chief, Fenton answered, “Own the streets.”

Fenton came back on duty after 5 p.m. and ordered police to box in about 400 people at the corner of Queen and Spadina. Fenton told the OIPRD he ordered the kettling because he had “intelligence regarding an imminent attack on the (security) fence” and that “The safety of citizens that lived and worked in the area of Queen and Spadina in particular was in jeopardy.”

As a torrential rain began to fall and commanders on the ground were relaying concerns of hypothermia, an audio recording of a police officer quoted in the report can be heard saying, “He’s maniacal this MICC, he’s maniacal.”

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Protesters were kettled with the specific goal of arresting them (a response that conflicts with Toronto Police, OPP and RCMP policies and procedures — as well as most other police services), said the OIPRD report.

“However, this tactic was part of one incident commander’s strategy to ‘take back the streets,’ ” the report said, referring to Fenton.