Re: Senior cop set to face long-delayed G20 hearing, Dec. 17

Senior cop set to face long-delayed G20 hearing, Dec. 17

Your report on the hearing into Supt. David Fenton's conduct during the G20 in 2010, and his claims of protester violence, including the burning of police cars, reminds me of what I witnessed during the march on the afternoon of June 26.

Police had declared Queen's Park a “safe zone” so marchers gathered there prior to setting off down University to Queen and then west to Spadina. I had become separated from my wife and the group I was part of, so when the march started I waited for her at University and College The stream of marchers was at that point about eight deep, so by my sample count I came up with about 50,000 marchers — far more than reported by the media.

There was some excitement in the air. The crowd included all types of people, families with young children, elderly people, some with flags and banners, but it was entirely peaceful, and with the alleged exception of a small breakaway group that turned back to go up Yonge, it stayed peaceful throughout the whole event.

Then I saw a police car, being driven by a uniformed officer, drive into the middle of the stream of marchers, where he stopped, opened the car windows, got out and walked off. At that time I wondered why he would do that. Only later, when similar cars further south were found burning, with no effort by the police to extinguish the flames, did I realize what police were up to.

The protester violence Fenton refers to was certainly at least in part initiated by, and certainly amplified by, police behaviour that infamous weekend.

Michael Brothers, Toronto

Supt. Fenton says that “Toronto deteriorated into a sense of lawlessness” at the G20. This is a gross exaggeration. The violence that did happen occurred in a relatively small part of the city and the police allowed it to happen.

I watched live TV coverage and none of the 19,000 police amassed in the city were to be seen in the vicinity of the violence. More than once the announcer asked “where are the police?” When a cruiser was torched at Bay and King, the announcer said they must surely send in the police now. The fire department showed up but it was another 10 or 15 minutes for the police to arrive.

Somebody allowed this lawlessness to spread. Was it Stephen Harper, who needed to justify the enormous cost of security? Was it Julian Fantino, from OPP headquarters? Or Toronto police chief Bill Blair?

We will never know because the governments refused to convene an extensive inquiry. The generals get away and the foot soldiers are prosecuted.

Kenneth Brown, Toronto

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