In 2010 Toronto held the G20 and G8 summit meeting and there was chaos. Absolute anarchy and chaos was in the downtown area. People I knew were being harassed and arrested. Our Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects Canadians from indefinite detention , but they were not followed.
We have all seen the horrid actions of police in the occupy movements, but the attitude can get worse when global powers are involved.
I write this only recently realizing that Chicago NATO meeting has already started, this may be too late but in the future we must all keep this in mind. A recent report from an independent government investigation revealed that Toronto G20 event was a mess. Police were out of control and overreacted to a secluded event, and the chain of command became a broken telephone. Our police chief ought to be behind bars but nobody has claimed responsibility and police officers that were found to be doing awful things such as removing nametags only lost a day’s wages.
Here are a few things to prepare yourself.
1. Watch what you wear and where you go: Try to avoid any known protest sites in your city if you're just going to work, many in Toronto were arrested despite being innocent bystanders. Anyone wearing black clothing was inspected, anyone with a suspicious bag was unlawfully inspected.
2. Make sure your police are prepared: The moment you find out your city is chosen for an international event try to find out how the police will be trained, will police from out of town be brought in (ones from the Greater Toronto Area were heavily overpaid and undertrained), how long will the training be? The disaster of the G20 was only a few videos where the officers were shown footage of angry mobs. The police for the most part agitated crowds and caused the problems themselves.
3. There is no such thing as “Special Powers”: Human rights are not null and void during special events cops were led to believe this was “G20 Land” and not Canada. This goes a bit with number two which is the root of the problem but untrained cops in riot situations is probably not going to be stopped/
4. Record, photos, especially cops that hide nametags, and flagrantly abusing powers. Try to remember names, faces of these officers as best you can. Write down dates and times, use that cell phone.
It’s already late here I might add more, while there may be at these events thousands of officers the problem is not all them are properly trained. We should all expect better of them and maybe these international events don’t have to be international PR issues as well.