Cops deny OCAP entry to Fantino's "public" Cabbagetown meeting

There was supposed to be a "public" police community meeting at Lord Dufferin Public School (Parliament-Gerrard) chaired by Toronto Police Chief Julian Fantino at 7 tonight. I don't know if it took place, because the cops blocked many of us from entering the school. We came to talk about police brutality or violence including illegal strip searches in police stations, police targeting and harassment of poor and homeless people and antipoverty-housing activists, police harassment of homeless people in 'safe' parks, the collusion of the cops with mental heath professionals under CTOs (Ontario government's draconian "community treatment orders"), and more.

Since the cops directly and forcibly blocked us from entering the school, none of us - except for Sara and another persons - made it into the meeting. Of course, the local yuppies and others from the resident associations and other cop-lovers and informers got in.

When roughly 30 of us OCAP people tried to enter the front door of this public school around 7pm, we were immediately and forcibly confronted with 20-25 uniformed police and another 5-6 in plainclothes - including police intelligence chief Steve Irwin who denied us entry. The cops also tried to search the bags of a few people, but I flatly refused. Hell, they had no warrants and made no arrests when trying to search people's bags. Soon after Sara and another person got inside cops forced them out after telling them they couldn't stay because they're with OCAP. I noticed some cop-lovers, including a guy who told me he was there to complain about "the prostitutes & drugdealers" (this is the asshole who harassed some of us at the Pope Squat and acted as a police informer). Of course, the cops didn't bother searching his shopping bag.

After a few minutes, the cops suddenly without warning charged the crowed (triggered some memories of June 15/2000), and pushed us to the sidewalk. This police assault against peaceful unarmed citizens enraged virtually all of us . Many including me shouted our resentment and rage at the police and started chanting "WE WEANT FANTINO WE WANT FANTINO" - Fantino didn't come outside (surprise-surprise). We also chanted "FANTINO IS A COWARD - YOU ARE TOO!" After 30-40 minutes of standing outside and shouting at the cops in bonechilling, minus 10-15 degree cold, we left the scene together for some warmth and decency, conspicuously absent at Lord Dufferin Public School guarded by "Toronto's finest" goons in black-and blue. But before we left, we got out our mssage out bout olice brutality and harassment by handin out lots of copies of our OCAP flyer THE TRUTH ABOUT TORONTO'S COPS - it features many disturbing facts about police killing of several homeless people and people of colour during the last few years.

We'll be back next Monday or sometime soon when Fantino stages another community-"public" meeting. If you've got a complaint or criticism of the cops, prepared to be shut out of this "public" meeting, and try to bring a videocamera or tape recorder, they should cøme in handy when the cops block or attack us again.

p.s.: On a legal note, the Toronto police violated our Charter and human rights tonight - the right to peaceful assembly or association, and the right to freedom of expression. I wanted to tell Fantino his cops illegally strip-searched about 100 of us last March 22-23 during the squat occupation and march against the Tory Leadership Convention in Toronto, I also wanted to ask Fantino to justify the cops' routine strip searches, a degradatiøn ceremonies which assault out body-mind-spirit, privacy, and dignity. But no such luck, maybe next time.

Text from the poster:

Julian Fantino, Chief of the Toronto Police, is feeling the heat lately. No one doubts anymore that cops use racial profiling, that they beat up the homeless at random, and that the force is full of corrupt cops. It's not new to people who face this abuse every day, but right now it's rising to the surface. And Fantino's sweating. In a plea to try and redeem himself and his force, Fantino's been having "Town Hall Meetings" all across town.

At Jane and Finch, a 15-year-old girl told Fantino about the racist cops in her neighbourhood who treat her and her friends like dogs. Fantino told her that she was full of it. In Rexdale, something similar happened. Fantino was shouted down by people from the neighbourhood, and many walked out.

On February 25th, he's coming here - to 51 Division - to lie about what's going on in this neighbourhood. We've got to keep the heat on. A rich cop who doesn't even live in this city should not be allowed to spew his trash to save face. This community's voice needs to be louder than Fantino's, and it needs to be louder than the Business and Resident Associations in this neighbourhood, who want to put more ironfisted cops on these streets to run poor people out. Come to the meeting at Lord Dufferin on Feb 25th and make sure Fantino knows that if things don't start changing, he'd better find a new job.

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