Montreal residents can rest easy in their beds knowing that our men and women in blue are keeping us safe from pamphlet-wielding students.
According to some Concordia University students and staff, Montreal police arrived in large numbers, some in riot gear, in 19 squad cars Wednesday night to arrest Yves Engler for handing out pamphlets in the Henry F. Hall Building lobby.
I tried confirming these numbers - which seemed excessive for a lone, unarmed pamphlet-wielder - with the police.
Let me tell you, it was like trying to nail down Mario Dumont on the flat tax.
Constable Lynne Labelle, of the police media department, guessed there were two or three cars. She didn't think there would be 19, but as it turned out, she didn't really know.
"We don't keep track of where the cars go," she said. "One car responds to a call and then asks for backup and we don't know who responds to that."
Later in the day, I called Station 20, which responded to the call from Concordia. The supervisor there said he wasn't authorized to talk to me, but if I called media relations, and told them to call Station 20, he'd give them the information. So I called police spokesman Luc Belhumeur, who told me the information is strictly confidential.
All I wanted to know is whether 19 police cars were sent to Concordia.
And all Belhumeur could say was it was confidential for strategic reasons.
This, folks, is your hard-earned tax dollar at work.
If the student and staff version of events is true, the police action could only be described as overkill. And if the police don't know where their cars and officers are at any given moment, I think that's reason to worry.
As for the information being confidential, it's another disturbing example of an infringement on our right to know. (At least our right to know if a squad car is parked outside a doughnut shop or responding to a rape call).
If you've been following the sad saga of Concordia University lately, you'll remember there has been a crackdown on freedom of expression in order to get pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli factions to play nice.
But in the far-reaching ban, announced by the school's board of governors following the cancellation of a speech by former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, all groups, from the quilting collective to Amnesty International, have been forbidden to set up tables in the Hall Building's lobby - a high-traffic area and the best place to catch people's attention.
Engler, vice-president (communications) of the Concordia Student Union, was arrested about 6 p.m., taken outside to a squad car, then released.
His crime? He had been distributing pamphlets containing information about the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas and the Americas-wide protests to be held Oct. 31 against the pact. Terrifying, I know, but thanks to our police force, he was overpowered and subdued.
Engler was charged with trespassing and was allowed to return yesterday to write an exam - on Middle Eastern politics.
Not to worry, the police were there for that, too.
smontgomery@thegazette.southam.ca
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