Police Conduct Issues
Police violated civil rights, acted illegally, says scathing report on G20 summit
This article takes an in-depth look on the polices' actions at the 2010 G-20 Toronto summit protests. According to the article, the Toronto police had "violated civil rights, detained people illegally, and used excessive force." Evidently, the police officers wanted to stop the protests by any means necessary, even breaching the fundamental and constitutional rights. The police used their authority to search people without a proper reason or legal justification, and arrested "more than 1,100 people." Although the majority of the individuals that were arrested were released without charges, this reflects the police violating not only basic rights, but also the police conduct. Further, many of police officers used force to combat the protesters, giving the people notion that "violence would be met with violence." Those who were detained were treated terribly, with little food and water, unable to call a lawyer, and "had to use toilets in full view of others". More importantly, countless were detained illegally. The latter half of the article explains the lack of organization on the Toronto police and failing to properly disperse the mob.
This incident is a rather prime example of the police violating their own conduct in order to stop the protesting mob. Obviously, police officers know the human rights boundaries that they should not cross; however, it is clear that the police were not trained or educated accordingly when dealing with this situation. As mentioned earlier, human rights were severely violated during the summit protests, which is a direct infringement of the police conducts under the constitution and legislative (Text. 150). In addition, the fifth principle of the Principles of Canadian Police Services, which is "the importance of respecting victims of crime and understanding their needs" (Text. 151) was violated.
Despite the massive scale of the 2010 G-20 Toronto summit protest, it is no excuse for the police of Toronto to be unorganized and neglecting citizens' most basic rights. I believe that it was simply incorrect for the police to search without warrants, arrest without much reason, and provide a terrible temporary detainment center. I am convinced that the unorganized and unprepared Toronto Police Service was the reason for this massive violation of human rights. Thus, I think that better training and instruction on the police will greatly decrease the rate of police misconduct. For the reason that, the police will have various different ways to deal with a situation at his disposal.
Great post Andrew. You have some great facts, and a good suggestion about promoting improved training and instruction. Now whether you said this intentionally or not, I still managed to notice this one fact that you mentioned in the second paragraph. It reads "it is clear that the police were not trained or educated accordingly when dealing with this situation". I really liked how it was simply put, because it's true. I agree that with a large number of police officers all making the same mistake, they should then re-tune/change the education and training. However if this were just a few police officers or less, then I don't really feel that it's the training and instruction at fault, but more inexperience or misjudgement. That's just the first thing that came to my mind. To add on, I always feel that with improved training and instruction, there should also be a system (of sort) implemented where rookie officers can receive more experience or guidance. Maybe it should be mandatory that rookie officers are partnered with senior officers. That's just an idea in mind. But anyways, great job with your post Andrew!
ReplyDeleteWonderful job Andrew! You have successfully summarized the article very concisely, making it easy for us to identify the issue, and put us in perspective. What I found to be lacking; however, was your insight. Though you have done an excellent job in summarizing the article, that was about all I could find from it. Most of it were basically restatements of the article that you have cited. It would have been amazing to hear some of your specific proposals on how to improve upon this issue. I also noticed a bit of convention errors in your writing (ie. "Further, many of police officers used force to combat the protesters." Furthermore would be a more suitable word choice perhaps?), which I am certain are just mistakes. I recommend proofreading your work before submitting next time. Other than that, excellent work! An impressive way to start off our group.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the feedback on grammar and how I could improve.
DeleteJoey, thank you for providing some feedback to Andrew. I would have also liked to hear what your suggestions are after reading the article to help further the conversation.
DeleteNice job Andrew. The summarize of the article was very easy to absorb in and to understand the situation. Your opinion about this issue was very clearly shown, too. One thing I think you could improve on is avoiding the uses of words such as "Obviously". The use of such words makes a sentence seem to just assume things, which does not help much to support your points. Other than that, I don't have much to say. Good job and Lawvengers forever.
ReplyDeleteJoshua what do you think of the force used by the police? Would you agree or disagree with the amount of force used?
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