Union leader accuses undercover cops attempting to incite violence in Montebello, Quebec protest
This is just sad if it is true. Masked men were confronted by Dave Cole, the President of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union who demanded that the men drop their rocks and remove their masks. These men were threatening violence during a peaceful protest outside a lodge where a meeting of President Bush, Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Stephen Harper was taking place in a small resort town in Montebello, Quebec. People began to crowd around the men and began shouting “provacateurs”. The masked men looked panicked, and started moving towards the police line. All of a sudden one of them pushed a police officer. The masked men were grabbed by riot police and arrested and escorted away without a fight oddly enought. When taking a look at this video, things just don’t add up. If you take a look at the bottom of the police officer’s boot, you see a yellow marking…this marking also exists on the arrested “protester’s” boots. Perhaps those boots are just THAT popular in Montebello?
Coles showed photographs of the masked men’s and police officers’ boots taken during the handcuffing, in which they appear to have identical tread patterns on their soles. - CBC News article
Perhaps this is just a mere coincidence…but it has some people talking on the internets about it. If in fact there is evidence that these men were indeed police officers or members of the RCMP, then I think our government needs to apologize to its people before something like this happens again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St1-WTc1kow
*****Edit: More pictures of the boots
Here is a list of media and other bloggers buzzing about this story:
Red Tory
Art Threat
Exile Infoshop
Brian’s Thoughts
Exposé Skateboard Magazine
Pacific Tribune
Canadian Cynic
HawkEyeNews
LiveJournal
Goudaille
Cent Papiers (boot shot)
CUPE (boot shot)
O’Neil Brooke
Cathy from Canada
Stageleft
Bene Diction
Gazetteer
Gazetteer
Rusty Idols
Larry Hubich
Galloping Beaver
Climate and Capitalism
Big City Lib
Welcome to 1984
blogx
Your Dirty Answer
Impolitical
A Canadian Lefty in Occupied Land
This Canadian
Unrepentant Old Hippie
Vanity Press
Getting It Right
Dodosville
Far and Wide
The Last Minute Blog (good hi-res pic of one of the “protesters”)
Les Enragés.org
Voice of Grant
Drinking Liberally in New Milford
Matthew Good
Skippy the Bush Kangaroo
Paulitics (interesting boot analysis)
Audette-o-Blog
Kate (good flikr photos, with commentary)
YaYaCanada (comprehensive photo essay of the Montebello events)
Torontoist
Daily Kos
AOL Newsbloggers
CTV
Ottawa Sun
Harper Index
Ottawa Indymedia
National Post (if you can believe it)
Toronto Star
CBC
CBC As It Happens (interview with David Coles)
Maclean’s (columnist Kady O’Malley calls for an enquiry)
thanks to Dr. Dawg’s Blog
Filed under: Blogs
First: Thanks for the link! Second: It appears that the Quebec Provicial Police blinked under public pressure created in the Blogosphere and the mainstream media that followed on…
the Sûreté du Québec Blinks:
“Quebec provincial police admitted Thursday that their officers disguised themselves as demonstrators during the protest at the North American leaders summit in Montebello, Que. denied allegations its undercover officers were there on Monday to provoke the crowd and instigate violence.
“At no time did the police of the Sûreté du Québec act as instigators or commit criminal acts,” the police force said in French in a news release. “It is not in the police force’s policies, nor in its strategies, to act in that manner.”
“At all times, they responded within their mandate to keep order and security.”"
I find those claims of not inciting and instigating a bit dubious, to say the least.