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Video of cops caught trying to start a riot? - Aug 24th, 2007 12:40am |
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Earlier this week a group of about 1500 protesters showed up in Ottawa Canada to protest the arrival of President Bush. They were apparently trying to convince the last 3 Bush supporters on earth what the rest of us already know and hidden amongst the crowd were a number of undercover police officers. I'm sure thats standard ops, but in what I really hope isn't, the cops might not have been there to keep the peace.
Someone captured the following clip from that protest where a man named Dave Coles (president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada) confronts 3 masked men. Coles and a group of elderly protesters had placed themselves in front of the police line to try and keep things peaceful. These 3 men were not happy about that - though it is difficult to say why as they turn out to be undercover police officers. The crowd and Coles become aware of this and confront the men who then get "arrested" in the clip.
The whole thing is extremely weird. What bothers me though, is that its incredibly difficult to come to any other conclusion than the one that Coles and the rest of the protesters do from the behavior of those 3 men. Namely that they were there to stir the pot and enable the police to come in and break up the protest. This would help label the dissenters as just a bunch of violent jerks as opposed to what they were - a group of organized, intelligent people who see a man in a position of great power making the world a worse place to be.
Theres obviously a lot going on here and in the end you'll have to judge for yourself the motivation of the police officers. My gut tells me that they were up to no good. Regardless, the video definitely shows a stunning display of bad decision making on the part of the three cops. The PR release (detailed here) from the local pd screams cover up to but I guess thats to be expected....
