Someone giving the police department the business, huh? We know which precincts, police precincts,

are prone to use pepper spray. We also know where a lot of the most violent cops are. Boys,

boys, piggy, piggy! We're gonna make your lives shitty! Boys, boys!

Welcome to Blueprints of Disruption. I'm your host, Jessam McLean. Just before that classic

chant, you heard one of the Orange Hats speaking about the very unique set of knowledge they've

acquired by being legal observers in Toronto, watching and documenting police behaviour,

particularly during protests and other direct actions. As we've discussed here on the show...

police and prosecution tactics have shifted greatly over the past year and a half. And

although it has been Palestinian solidarity activists bearing the brunt of these changes,

it's become clear that anyone disrupting the social order or challenging power will have

to deal with increased police surveillance, harassment, and brutality. Knowing your rights

just isn't enough anymore. The situation is so fluid. And as we know, cops do not always

follow the law. This isn't to discourage anyone from disrupting. That is the whole premise

of our show. No, we need folks out there on the front lines. We cannot let up. I don't

know about making their lives shitty, but we can sure make cops' jobs harder. To that end,

we've asked the Orange Hats to join us today to provide insight into how police are acting

on the ground and give some advice on how to navigate it all. This way, we can go into situations

best prepared to keep each other as safe as possible while still remaining effective as

a movement. Before we hear from them, this is just another reminder that we do rely on word

of mouth to grow our audience. And this episode is full of practical advice for anyone organizing

for power right now. So please share it widely and be sure to check out the show notes for

more ways to support the show. and to learn about our next guests. Let's get to it. Welcome.

Now I'm gonna have to let you introduce yourself to the audience today. Go ahead, please. Okay.

I'm identifying here as Orange Hat Guy, which is a reference to the organization I'm speaking

on behalf of, the Orange Hat. Where that name comes from is that we started as a group of

legal observers for the MDC, the Movement Defense Committee. To be identified at actions, we

would wear orange hats. Now, for people who are not familiar with legal observing, the

easiest way I've come across to kind of describe it is if you remember the ancient quote, who

watches the watchmen, that would be us. We go to protests and we are there to watch police,

essentially, and watch how police interact with the protesters. There is a public narrative

about policing that rarely gets countered. And my experience with police, as somebody who

has observed actions for The last five years or so, and who's been at, by my estimate, at

least 200 actions, probably more, is that the narrative, the public narrative about policing

is dead wrong and needs to be countered with things like interviews like this. But we have

an expanded idea of what our organization, our new organization, will do. There will be outreach.

There will be more training. One of the things that's really important to us is to train people

within the different protest communities to do their own LOing. There's a lot of good reasons

for that, like for instance, they know all of the people in their organization already, so

if any of them get in trouble with the cops, they know exactly who those people are. We

often don't when we are first asked. LO at protests, right? Could you maybe share with us some tidbits

for folks who maybe can't get you out to an action because you guys are too busy or maybe

they're not in Toronto and maybe it's not a large action? Like what should folks be doing

at the bare minimum perhaps without a trained legal observer? And then maybe you can talk

about the training that you're going to be doing. First of all, and we talked about this a little

before we started taping, don't talk to the police. The police are not your friends. I

actually had one incident a couple of months ago where it's LOing at a March and this bike

cop comes up to me and he starts talking to me. Hey, how you doing? And I'm like, don't

want to talk to you. What is this? Right. The thing you have to understand is that the police

are an arm of state power, and they're there not to serve and protect you, they're there

to serve and protect the interests of the state, right? And anything that they can get from

you, they will use against you if they have an opportunity to do so, right? The only things

that you absolutely have to tell police are your name, your date of birth and sometimes

your address. If you're just talking to them, name and date of birth. That's it. If you get

arrested, then you have to give them your home address, I believe. But that's it. If you get

arrested, you have the absolute right to a lawyer, use it immediately. You might think you're

smarter than the cops, but keep in mind that the cops have been trained in ways of getting

information out of you. The pros, you're an amateur no matter how smart you think you are,

and you are going to give them information that they're going to use against you. Don't do

it. Clam up, not speaking to you, want to talk to my lawyer. Another basic thing, and this

is something that most organizers I assume know, but always know where your exits are, always

know routes that you're going to take. And alternate routes. And alternate routes if necessary.

One of the things I've seen, it's not supposed to happen, but I've seen Keddling happen because

people went down a side street and they got hemmed in on both sides, right? So always be

aware of potential for cop misbehavior and avoid it as much as possible. Honestly, keep your

distance. The cops will set up a line in front of you, like, you know, in your face in front

of you, inches away from you, back off your line if you can. Break the line or just back

it up? Back it up if you can, break it up if you have to, because when they get that close,

their next step is gonna be to start pushing you back. Pushing you back, I've seen this

happen several times now, and the moment someone sort of stands their ground, and refuses to

be pushed back, they're going to be taken down. Okay. So, I mean, the cops, you know, they

telegraph this. This is a, you know, a very simple and common playbook. Be aware of it

and don't aid it. You guys have been watching Toronto police extra closely. Is there any

behaviours? that they have adopted because we have seen such a shift in policing and prosecution.

But like, let's focus on the policing part for today. But any behaviors, I know that other

cities are due to see, some are already seeing, you know, Ottawa and Hamilton, you know, from

Ontario here have just been dealing with horrendous behavior on the part of police in terms of.

trying new ways to thwart the protests, stop the marches, and criminalize the folks that

are holding them. But is there any... any trends that you can point to there that you've seen

in the Toronto police that you think maybe folks aren't on to? You mentioned, you know, lines

of cops, 50 across, being used to dictate the route or attempt to dictate the route, things

like of that nature. Let me just say about that, that it is absolutely glorious when rally organizers

take the march in a direction that the cops didn't want them to go into. Not necessarily,

you know, trying to break the cop line, but just going off down a side street that the

cops weren't prepared for and watching all the cops scramble to catch up with the march. That

makes my day every time it happens. I can hear you smiling. I will say yes.

more prone to violence, more willing to provoke violence. I've been at over a couple hundred

protests and I have never seen a protester on our side initiate violence. My estimates is

that somewhere between 30 and 40% of the violence at protests comes from counter protesters and

the rest comes from the police themselves. That's not scientific, that's just my opinion, but...

Either way, it's not coming from the protesters. And I think that what happens is that over

time, the cops see that they can get away with shit and it emboldens them to do more shit.

I will give you an example of something that I was a part of that happened, I think, last

year, sometime, early last year. It was a protest at, I'm not sure if it was the Manulife Center

or, but somewhere on Bloor Street in Toronto, where the most of the protest was outside the

building, but a few protesters went in and briefly occupied one of the, the entrance foyer to

the building. And I tend to be the person who goes inside with the protesters. Now, ordinarily

at other sort of occupations that I've been at, even pretty tense ones. When the cops say,

move out, go, or you're going to be arrested for trespass, we leave. When the cops say,

leave within 15 minutes, we might leave at the 13 minute mark, but we do, we are out by the

time they want us to be out. And that's, you know, that was the way it was until this rally.

And I've been told that this is not the first time that this has happened. The cops essentially

made two lines that led to the door out. And as people were leaving, people got shoved,

people got pushed, and there was one cop in particular who was actually standing next to

the line. He wasn't part of the line of cops, but he was just punching people in the head

as they were leaving. Do we know that cop's name? We do, but I'm not sure I should be saying

this. Okay, fair enough. What I will say, and this should give a hint to people who are familiar

with this, I was told afterwards that was the cop who, um, shot a guy, killed a guy, and

got off. And if he can get off- I'm pretty sure that's every cop. If he can get away with-

That's shot. If he can get away with murder, punching people in the head is like, yeah,

I can totally do this. Right? Well, that goes right to your point where if they get away

with shit- They keep just getting away with more and more shit. Yeah, exactly. On the most

individual level and on an institutional level. Absolutely. Now, I will say that, and this

is no secret because there are lots of us, I'm an old white guy. So one of the cops actually

took me aside and said, leave by this door. Most of the protesters, pro-Palestinian protesters,

it was a pro-Palestinian rally. And you're clearly a legal observer, right? You're not just, he's

not just pulling old white guys out of the crowd, or does he know you're a legal observer? I

was wearing the orange hat, so he probably does know I'm a legal observer, but that has never,

like, there were legal observers out West who've been arrested. Legal observers can be targets

of the cops for the obvious reason, they don't like being watched, right? No, that's white

old guy privilege. Totally, totally privilege. But here's the thing, I get outside, and everybody

gets pepper sprayed, yay! Inside? So, outside. Okay, once they were outside, they pepper sprayed

everybody. Oh good. Yeah, so, gee, thanks for that. The privilege didn't help me. First time

in my life that I've been pepper sprayed, and it's quite the experience. It is and like that's

part of the injuries that you folks reported on in the press release that will link in the

show notes just from January 27th, I think. And there's quite a list of injuries and I

imagine even though you do very good work that is probably still just a fraction of the actual

injuries that occur. Like not everybody's going to come back to the organizer and be like,

you know, I sprained my ankle or, you know, the cop did this or that. I mean, we observe

what we can observe, but that can't be everything either. So And this, like you say in the press

release, that, you know, hopefully we'll get more traction than cop press releases, but

they don't. Right? So, like you said, when you're trying to fight this narrative and we hear

about police dispersing people in the news, it is made to sound quite innocent and that

it happened very quietly and peacefully, unless of course they don't want it to appear that

way and justify something else. But most of the time. And you folks have a lot of evidence

to the contrary. Do you want to talk about how you are trying to make these injuries and this

type of police behavior part of the narrative? Because I think we've talked about it on the

show before and when journalists, especially like they're really stretched, this is not

to excuse all their behavior, but they often just take the press, the police report or police

release, you know, that gives the name and age and somewhat of the circumstances. Maybe the

police even make a statement about it if it got enough. hoopla around it, and they just

like reprint it, uncritically just regurgitate it. Are you folks doing work to try to get

in these news reports, or is that kind of futile? No, I don't think so. I mean, we do know a

small number of journalists of goodwill who would like to have another point of view on

subjects like this. But keep in mind, our organization is still relatively new. This is the first

interview I'm actually doing on behalf of the Orange Hats. We do hope to be able to get some

more of the counter-narrative in there. You don't mind, I have a story about, kind of related

to this subject, of kind of the police attitude towards people in the narratives that aren't

getting heard. Please. I was at a Defund the Police rally that was outside 52 Division in

Toronto. The organizer of the rally was painting a banner, a big banner that said Defund the

Police. A cop comes out of the station and he's stereotypical, he's over six feet tall, he's

blonde, he's got broad shoulders, he's like, you know, he's a cop, man. No way of the...

thinking he's anything else. He's not going undercover. No, God no. He comes over, he takes

one look at the banner and he says, gee, good luck if you need any help from us. Okay, and

he storms back into the police station. And I'm watching this with a couple of people who

were talking to her about the organizer, about the banner. One of them is a black man. The

other was an indigenous man. And one of the highlights is really the wrong word. But one

thing that I look forward to every year, one thing that I'm very proud of being at is the

strawberry ceremony outside of police headquarters, which is specifically for missing and murdered

indigenous women. And specifically to get the fucking cops to do something about it. Because

the cops have dragged their feet for years on this issue. And, you know, it really drove

home to me this idea that, you know, the cops are there to serve and protect. Well, they're

only there to serve and protect certain groups of people, because there are whole groups of

people in this society. And those are only two, right? I've also been at rallies for disabled

people. I've also been at a drag queen story time. There are lots of communities in this

city, the unhoused. Oh, God, I could go on about. know, encampment clearings. Don't worry, we

have. Good. Huge numbers of groups in this city that the cops do not help and in fact they

are, as I said earlier, they are part of the apparatus of the state and they are part of

the oppression of the state of these groups. That's such an old trope used by the cop to

come out there but it has real implications too, like you mentioned before And maybe we

can also talk about being outside of police divisions and doing jail support. We had one

incident in Toronto, maybe many more, you could tell me, where folks were actually arrested

doing jail support, which then created the need for, you know, more jail support. Is there

advice you could give for? folks again not operating in Toronto, but have people that have been

picked up and not from a lawyer's perspective, you know, like how to you've already kind of

talked about staying silent as the person arrested, but what about the comrades outside? What are

things that they can be doing besides getting them legal help? What is what is jail support

to you folks? Absolutely. I was actually at the incident you mentioned, and not only did

people get arrested, but the crowd got pepper sprayed. Yay. That was also... I didn't. I

was well enough, far enough back at the time the pepper spray came out. But there are...

See, this is something else. This is information that is knowledge among us, but really needs

to be disseminated among the general activist population. We know... which precincts, police

precincts, are prone to use pepper spray. We also know where a lot of the most violent cops

are. And so if you're unlucky enough to have to deal with people from that division, um,

you need to be aware that, you know, you're more likely to encounter violence with them

than with other divisions. So again, this is the sort of information that we need to codify

and get out to the public. But yes, I will tell you in terms of jail support, see the thing

that happened there was that they had just come from the protest and they were still in protest

mode. And jail support is not a protest. So I would, you know, strongly urge people to,

if they're going to do jail support, they're there to quietly and calmly wait for their

comrade to get out. And that's all they're there for. Okay. The problem with the event you brought

up was they were taunting the police. They were still sort of in activist mode and we could

see the police line developing in front of them and, you know, we could see that maybe this

is not a good idea and this is not the place and time for this. So. in terms of advice,

if you want to do jail support. Jail support is like, treat jail support like a vigil, you

know, go light candles in front of the jail. Do not be vocal or in any way, uh, piss off

the police to the point where, well, I mean, there is never an excuse for police violence,

but don't piss off the police. Not there. Just want to make sure folks that are like, this

isn't victim blaming in any sense, like those folks. It's kind of understandable why folks

get to a division angry, especially after a protest maybe been broken up by cops and their

friends have been arrested. So perhaps some of the advice there is, you know, maybe jail

support isn't for everybody. Take note of your mentality, you know, when it's time to go for

jail support. Can you offer this kind of support? Because I don't think anyone's also advocating

for... It's going to be impossible for some people listening out there to never taunt the

police, especially if they're in a certain mind frame. So, you know, perhaps at that point,

jail support isn't your strong point. Oh, definitely. Like I said, never any excuse for police violence.

And it's never the fault of the protesters. But choose your moments. And jail support is

not one of those moments. When you were at this event and when you're at actions, do the orange

hats provide advice or just legal observation? Because in part, your press release, and I

know you're encouraging the dissemination of this information to activists to better equip

them, but a lot of this is very fluid, right? You could give me tips right now, we can give

our audience tips, but eventually you'll have people trained. But it's a- Do you ever see

these circumstances unfolding? And like you say, you see the police line getting agitated

and you've watched them so many times that you can anticipate their movements. Are you able

to advise organizers or do you strictly observe and then untangle it all after? Well, yes,

this is this was one of the issues that eventually drove us into our own organization, because,

yeah, when you're on When you're on the ground and you see things developing that you know

are going to end badly You want to warn people now as orange hats We feel much more comfortable,

you know doing that and honestly, I think that will Hopefully keep more people safe and effective.

I want to give an example from the recent Cup w strike and the community lines. We talked

about an action. I think on rabble rants where police showed up to a hard picket line, which

I don't know the legality of it, okay? But they showed up and they asked folks to disperse.

And they immediately dispersed. And one of the folks that were there had the kind of opinion

that had they known how to read police behavior and numbers, I think it was like just a handful

of cops that had showed up at the time, that they had time. that they could have stretched

it out, like done the 13 of the 15 minutes like you described. I don't know if even that's

a question, but it just I think speaks to the need to have more people have that knowledge

of how police are behaving. Like, it's just more proof that it would be so hard as a legal

observer to obtain all of that knowledge, all of that knowledge, and then not be able to

do something preventative or... That wasn't necessarily to keep the protesters safe, but

it was just to lengthen the time they could hold that hard picket line to make the action

more effective, rather than folding to police right away. Like the advice can go both ways,

can it not? You know, like you could probably get away with this. I know that's not like

great advice or, you know, if I wanted to break a police line, I would go this way. Hypothetically

speaking. I think like we need an orange hat everywhere. Is that the goal? Like, should

folks be calling you to small actions? Or how are you going to get all this knowledge out

there? Yeah, no. Well, so as a practical matter, we're still a relatively small organization.

We can't possibly, you know, go to every action. And this is, again, this goes back to the idea

that... really we need to train people. It would be brilliant if all the unions had their own

people who were trained, right? Don't have to call on us, just go to Ed and say, Ed, do we

have to break up or can we stay here for a few more minutes, right? Is Ed the hypothetical

legal observer? Ed is the hypothetical union member who's had legal observer training. We'll

call him Ed, yeah. Bob is overused, so let's go with Ed. So that knowledge would definitely

be helpful, yes, it would definitely help make protests more effective, could definitely do

that, but you know, one of the things that has come up for us is burnout, and it can be brutal,

especially the last couple of years, last year. year and a half maybe, there seems to be a

pro-Palestinian rally like every second day in Toronto. They happen quite frequently. And

absolutely necessary and totally worth supporting but we don't have the resources to legal observe

at daily protests or even twice, two or three times a week protests. So again, our answer

to that is education. Get the organizations to... have the knowledge themselves so that

all of our people don't get burnt out. Your people and their people. I mean, if we could

all just share our tips on burnout, that would be really helpful. But even the tips, some

of the tips that you've offered here today, but like, let's say you are training, someone

showed up at a rally and you need a legal observer partner. It's a rookie. What are like the three

things you can tell them to do at a rally? as a designated legal observer? Because it's going

to happen with folks having no training. So what kind of training can we give them? For

ourselves, when we train legal observers, the first couple of times they go out, we make

sure they shadow somebody with more experience. So they kind of learn stuff that they wouldn't

necessarily have learned in the training itself, but kind of on the ground stuff that you need

to really be there to see. One of the things that I often do before the rally starts, and

this is actually a good practice, is to just do a circle around the neighborhood and see

where all the cop cars are and where all the bikes are and where all the cops do it. A number

in my head, just get a sense of how many cops there actually are there. Before we even start,

we need to know, so have the cops really prepared for this? And... they're coming in force or

are there just a handful and maybe, you know, it won't be such a big deal. So, you know,

I have quite the collection of photographs of cop cars and cops in lines and cops drinking

coffee and eating donuts and, you know, all that great, great cop stuff that they do. Well,

especially in the city, folks don't maybe realize that they will be maybe two blocks away. Sometimes

there's like a large vehicle that's housing a few of them, so they're trying to be discreet

about it, or they're in a park with all their bicycles ganging up, and you may stumble across

them on your way to the action, but you might not. So like, that's a good tip. I guess not

just are they there at the address that you've decided, like there'll be a community liaison

officer there, somebody probably. But it's the other cops. It's the battalions that will be...

Especially in Toronto with the tall buildings, you can't see them if they're even a block

away. So that kind of walk around is good advice. Well, and also the vehicles. Make note of the

vehicles. Do they have the... I forget the name of the vehicle, but the vehicle that they actually

take people away with when they arrest them. Well, the paddy wagon? Kind of, yeah. I don't

know if we still call it that. It has an official name, but I'm blanking on it at the moment.

But yeah, I mean, is that there? And then... there are the horses. I remember the first

time I saw the horses was at a rally at Nathan Phillips Square. And I'm standing there kind

of away from the crowd because I was observing. And another piece of advice is you can observe

better from across the street, right? Because you can see the whole picture of what's in

front of you, whereas if you're actually there on the line, and there should be somebody on

the line as well. you can only see the smaller part of what's going on in front of you. Right.

So it's good to have somebody across the street or a little distant from the action itself

to get a picture of the whole of what's going on. But yeah, to tell my, to finish my horse

story. So yeah, the horses came trotting out and I was looking at them and they're magnificent

animals and they're really kind of beautiful. And when it was, when they were about 10 feet

away from me, I should really move now because I don't want to get squished. They're big.

They are big and the cops don't care where they ride them to. Right? You want to talk about

budgets? There is absolutely no fucking purpose for mounted cops. The only purpose they serve

is to intimidate protesters. Right? That's the only reason they exist. We could cut that line

item out of the cop budget. And that would never, ever be a problem. What is the official line

from police? Surely they don't admit that they need that part of the budget to intimidate

protesters. Do they have an argument that they try to say that these mounted cops are needed?

Is it just like tradition? They need their own mounted police everywhere? Or do crowd control?

Well, they'll just say it in a real sanitized way. They need it for crowd control. Yeah,

that sounds... They say crowd control. Yeah. Okay. That's the experience. But any advice

if you see the horses come out? Like same as if you see a police line forming inches from

your face, maybe back the fuck up? Oh yeah, definitely back up. Stay away from them. Because

like I say, the cops generally, the mounted cops will keep their distance, but they are

not immune to violence if the situation calls for it, right? And that is not something you

want to tangle with. You cannot win an argument with a horse. So, yeah, stay as far away from

them as you can. The amount of money. Yeah, like not just the horses, but all the cops

and the vehicles, the drones and the helicopter. Like it's been so long since I've been out

of action, no matter how small, that doesn't have drones flying above it, even in Barry.

Even going to an Action and Bury with like 12 people, there was drones. Every police force

has drones and drone operators and all of these things going to these funds and Toronto police

are getting even more money. Surely that is infuriating, especially since you're a group

with limited resources trying to watch them all and they just keep getting better equipped.

Any new technology out there being used against protesters? that we should be wary of. I know

back in G20 days we had like this, the sound cannon and there's been all kinds of things.

One toy that you didn't mention was facial recognition cameras and software. So I mean- Is that on

their vehicles or are they holding those? That's on their vehicles actually. Okay. And so one

of the- I think I mentioned earlier that, you know, one of the cops tried to come up to me

and be buddy out of March. Actually a couple of minutes before that, a different bike cop

rode past me and just shouted, hey, and my name, which was the first time the cops had ever

called me out by name, right? They're doing that on purpose, right? To let you know, I

know who you are. Yeah, I suppose that was supposed to be an intimidation tactic, but it's like,

you know. Having been at rallies and marches and other actions for years, I had already

assumed that they knew who I was, so I don't think it had the effect that he thought it

would have on me. Was that their lame attempt at good cop, bad cop? I also think it was,

yes. That occurred to me afterwards, right? It doesn't just happen in movies. You don't

think I've ever watched an American cop show? You don't think I know how that works? Anyway,

yeah. Oh, Lord. Well, we didn't say they were smart, did we, Orin Chet? No. And in fact,

one of the other members of the group points out that in the States, and I think in Canada

too, there is an intelligence cap on who they hire. So if you have an IQ of over, say, 130,

you are not allowed to be a cop. No critical thinking skills allowed. Well, that's it, right?

It's all about. chain of command and heaven forbid you should actually think maybe the

commands you're getting aren't legit or aren't you know aren't the best idea. They want people

who don't question. Now they know why they want to keep us stupid. I also you know in this

context I've said this to many activists. If you want to understand sort of cop psychology

uh read or find the film version A Clockwork Orange, it's a futuristic novel about this

guy, this British thug. He's a teenage guy who runs a violent gang of thugs. And he goes through

this treatment, the Ludovico treatment, which makes it impossible for him to be violent.

He gets out of that. He thinks, okay, I'm going to be a productive member of society. That's

what this is all about. And one of the first things he does is he meets two of his ex-gang

members, who he's beaten himself and who have no love for him, and they beat the crap out

of him because he can no longer fight back. The reason I bring this up? They're now cops.

The same impulse that makes you a teenage thug makes you a 20-something cop. The worst people

I knew in high school are cops. Now. Because I'm Canadian, I guess, I don't wanna say that

all cops are like that, but that psychology, I've seen that sort of thuggish psychology

play out a lot at protests. Yeah, I bet. And I imagine that takes a certain kind to, it's

contagious. I think that's why you're having certain divisions displaying certain behaviors.

because yeah, even the bad, the worst amongst them, gone unchecked, it's just becomes the

norm. Yeah. And also, you know, the whole thin blue line psychology, it's like, okay, maybe

you became a cop because you thought you could actually help people being a cop. Then you

get into a division where, you know, half the cops like beaten the shit out of people, and

you say nothing? Silence is complicity, man. I mean, you are part of the corrupt system

if you go along in silence with the corrupt system. So, you know, the whole police solidarity,

we don't talk about our bad behavior, really makes it hard to believe that any police officer

is a person of goodwill. We've heard of folks getting arrested and... pressures putting on

them to become confidential informants. I don't want to spend too much time on that. I think

people are aware it's a possibility and I don't want to kind of breed distrust. But then there's

also folks who are out in the open collaborating with police. Oh, I wonder who you could possibly

be talking about. Ha ha. Although they do it under the guise of being journalists or observers

of movements, yes? Right? Like it's, we're reporting on democracy and protest and we're doing it

without any bias apparently. I think folks in Toronto probably know who we're talking about,

but it's probably an issue. I know folks in Ottawa are getting to learn that behaviour

from the same individual, but I imagine it's not isolated. Well, I know for a fact that

there are so-called journalists out there in Toronto that are sharing their footage with

the police. So I don't know if you just generally want to talk about talking to the media when

we're at protests or whatnot. But do you want to comment on that? Because I imagine that

kind of throws a wrench in the work that you do as well, a little bit. Well, let me say

a couple of things. First, to your original point, the cops, when they arrest several people,

will use a divide and conquer strategy. They'll tell each of the people individually, you're

in big trouble and we can make it go away if you rat out the other people that we've arrested.

And the thing about that is that it only works largely because people don't understand their

rights. One of the things we do as legal observers, because we're actually observers, because we

get footage of police violence, is that sometimes we might be called to trial as witnesses. That's

never happened to me. In fact, I think it's only happened once to any observer I've ever

known, because the fact of the matter is the vast majority of arrests do not go to trial.

And I'm like talking 99.9%. People are eventually released, so all you have to do is just wait

the cops out. You don't have to snitch on your comrades, you don't have to sell anybody out.

Just wait and you'll be let go. You might have some conditions on being let go, but this is

again, this should be movement-wide education. People should know what to expect when they're

arrested, because you're always, if you're at an action... you're always at threat of being

arrested. So you should have some idea of, you know, realistically what is gonna happen. As

for the scooter twins, the people that you want me to name, which I will not. You're getting

real specific now. No, I don't like to give them any more notoriety than they need to,

but yeah, beware of the scooter. Beware of the scooters. I am... like, scooter-phobic now

after having dealt with them for the last few years. What I will say... they're not everywhere,

they're not city TV. So, you know, the likelihood of me actually coming across one of them outside

of rallies and stuff is very minor. So we see a lot of people recording actions. right? Photographing,

video recording, and like I mentioned, some of those observers are handing their footage

over to police voluntarily or, you know, with a simple request. Are you doing that? Okay.

Can we assume you're not doing that? We are not doing that. I only take two sorts of media.

I take photographs of cops and cop vehicles so that we know kind of who's there. And the

only video I take is when it's clear that the cops are being violent, because we need a record

of that. And in fact, at one action, we had people look at the video so that we could identify

the person who was arrested, right, in real time rather than waiting for somebody to notice,

hey, you know, X is missing, where did they go? I understand, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but no,

I mean, our whole... thing is not cooperating with the cops. If they want to get a subpoena

and, you know, service to get our footage, okay. Otherwise, we don't voluntarily share. One

of the reasons I think police likely would not ask for your footage is mostly because they

are the ones misbehaving as you spoke, right? You attested that The violence is not typically

started by the folks that have organized the action itself, but the people trying to thwart

its efforts. So we have found from guests reporting back, and we're actually going to talk to two

lawyers this week who've had charges dropped from their clients after interacting with Toronto

police. And what they're finding is... the existence of, you know, the body cam footage is one thing,

but clear legal observers or documented footage of police brutality is often what stops those

charges from going to trial. So having more evidence of their misdeeds or the fact that

another report that we had on one of our episodes was the trend of charges. So originally folks

were getting charged with mischief or disruption. Um, and then it started to escalate to the

point where a lot of the interactions with police that led to arrests, the charges of avoiding

arrest or assaulting an officer are added on top of whatever charge they were initially

trying to haul you out of the group for. And so the value of this footage existing, um,

is, is so important. but we are also getting advice not to live stream, not to point your

camera perhaps into the crowd and share that widely. Do you wanna speak to that advice?

I like, cause there's this need for people to wanna just demonstrate the numbers that were

there, right, the solidarity that's happening, allow people who can't be on the ground to

experience what it is like, but. there's also a need to balance that with the safety of the

people there and the increasing criminalization. Like a lot of people are like, well, we're

not doing anything illegal. And like, well, that seems to be reinterpreted all the time.

So maybe don't hinge everything on that. Do you have any advice for people who want to

go down and record, not for legal observing, but for sharing purposes? the cops cherry pick

the body cams, right? So they will find sort of three seconds of something that makes a

protester look bad and they'll use that, even if the next several minutes makes the cop look

bad. So I think that the willingness of the police to at least look at your footage, they

might be... willing to do that if they think that there might be something there that they

can use. The problem with cherry picking footage that other people have shot though, is that

a defense lawyer could come back at them and say, this is out of context. For proper disclosure,

I need to see the full video. And that's where they would get in trouble because then that

becomes public. But I take your point. The video that makes the cops look bad is not something

that they want to even touch. So the thing is, there's what the law says, and then there's

what the cops get away with. So yes, peaceful protest is absolutely legal, but if a cop wants

to arrest you, they'll figure out the charges. Mischief is a great one, because it really

means everything and nothing. It's just a way of, you know... having you interact with the

police, the fact that they're now going to, you know, resist arrest and assault officers,

that is a dangerous escalation. It's still bullshit. Let me give you a couple of examples. Add a

defund the police rally outside of police headquarters. It was actually a defund the police dance party.

And it was, we had DJs and it was a lot of fun, uh, until the police decided they'd had enough.

Mostly, and this is something else to think about, after the journalists had left, right?

Oh, there's nobody here recording us anymore. There's nobody here from official media watching

us. Yeah, now we can do what we want. And so it ended up with some arrests. One of the people

who was arrested, I had to go and- we went to the hospital, because she nearly had an eye

gouged out, okay, by a cop. And she was arrested. And to my knowledge, you know, the cop has

never been held to account and will not be held to account for nearly blinding this woman.

There's the law, and there's what the cops can get away with. And so, you know, assume that

being within the law will not keep you 100% safe, because it won't. In terms of actually

videoing the protest, hey, look, you know, I usually take the front on marches, and, you

know, I've been at the head of, you know, Pym rallies with a couple thousand people on them,

huge Palestinian flags. Pym for people who don't know, Palestinian youth movement. And oh my

god, the people and the sea of flags, it's really impressive. Like it is really impressive. I'm

so impressed with that organization. Does it make the cops job easier? Well, I'm of two

minds of that. On the one hand, yes, obviously the more video the cops have, the more easy

it is to identify people. On the other hand, as we spoke earlier, the cops have their own

ways of videoing people. They have drones, they have the facial recognitions cameras. So I'm

not actually sure that protestor videos put anybody in more danger than they already were

from the cops. I would need to know more about that before I could say definitively one way

or the other. Well, I guess it would also depend on the police deployment. Like you said, you

know, if are there drones, are there just a handful of cops? Are you disrupting something?

You know, they- to keep those things in mind. You may show up and there's just like two cops

there and you folks document everything they're doing. I think the concern there is just putting

people in a certain place at a certain time. And we did talk about ways that before that

folks can videotape. I think I'll just throw it out here now or photograph and then share

it. I mean, you can blur out faces, but also even just removing the metadata. makes it kind

of a useless piece of evidence. So you would just take a photo or take a screenshot of the

photo you wanted to share and then just share the screenshot is how you can do that with

a video or with a photo. And there's other ways that you can remove metadata from video before

sharing. But yeah, like it's hard to argue with the fact that like I tell you even a small

action in Barrie, Ontario is likely surveilled with the technology that we only dream of having.

So whether or not my, you know, your TikTok showing the backs of someone's head, so you

know, is going to add value to their investigation or not is, is I guess always up in the air.

But yeah, there's two schools of thought on that. To finish that conversation, be aware

that it's not only faces that identify you, it's also the clothes you wear. And in particular,

for some reason, for a while there, the cops were shooting video of people's shoes. Cause

I guess shoes are unique enough that they can identify, oh, this person has been at several

rallies now. You know, we've seen these shoes over and over again, so. Yes, cause like your

jacket, your tire up top might change, but. Very few of us have like many, many pairs of

shoes, comfortable shoes, marching shoes, right? You all have your favorite gear that we wear.

I mean, we can all just dress like cops with combat boots, but then everyone will point

to you as a narc. So maybe that's not the best approach either. I mean, that's what Black

Block came from. I think gray is folks are leaning into now. It's just ways to dress so you don't

even differentiate yourself from one another. So did I warn you before we started that? that

I can be a bit of a chatterbox. You just ask me a question and I'll just ramble on for 20

minutes. I probably should have warned you that beforehand. They make for good podcast guests.

I hope so. We're here to talk, right? No.

It was, I mean, not only are we going to share orange hats in the show notes and how you can

read more about them and what they're doing, but you provided a litany of very practical

tips to folks that are in the thick of it right now. And it's, it's a hard time because, like

you said, you know, there's what's law, there's what is in practice, there seems to be a gray

area in between. It makes even doing know your rights cards seem impossible. Like there should

be two sides, right? Like here's your rights and here's how they'll actually treat you.

And then even that is so damn fluid and, you know, could be even depending on what police

precinct has been assigned to break up your protest or whatnot. And so the theme music

for this episode should be the clash, know your rights. But no, I'm very happy to help disseminate.

even just if it's a fraction of the knowledge you folks hold. So very big thanks for coming

on and sharing all that knowledge and for doing that work. How are you guys sustained? How

can people help you? It's all volunteer work. Although I think we may be starting to collect

at least a little bit of money. Check the website for updates on that. Um, one other piece of

advice that occurs to me that is actually important. What we see, a trend we see now is that cops

are actually not arresting people at the protest itself. They're waiting for people to go away

and sometimes they'll hit them like in the subway or sometimes they'll hit them at home actually.

Nothing we can do about, you know, cops coming after you at home, but, uh, whenever you disperse

from a rally, stay safe, never leave alone. Make sure you're there with, make sure you

leave with at least one other person and preferably several other people. Because that's one way

that they can prevent their being jail support, right? And adequate legal support is they don't,

you don't even know your comrades been picked up for hours, if not until they get out. Well,

and also cops, I mean, you know, cops are like, lions following a herd of gazelles, right?

They'll pick off the oldest or the slowest if they get broken off from the herd. So, you

know, try and stay in a group, try and stay with the herd. Very, very good advice. I imagine

you folks are going to be putting out a lot more of it now that you can tell the world

what you've been seeing from Toronto police. That's the plan. This is going to be invaluable,

invaluable to people across Turtle Island who are dealing with increasing police state activity

and suppression of all the actions that we're doing. It's like we were even saying earlier

on another episode, it's like, you used to be able to tell people, you know, you're going

to go into a peaceful sit and here's what to expect. And now it's like that range of what

to expect is, has so many variables attached to it and can have so many different outcomes.

So yeah, on the ground, legal observing and giving advice, I think, is critical, critical

combination of things. So I'm so grateful for the orange hats and the work that you're going

to be doing moving forward as well. Thank you for taking time to come on to Blueprints. Thank

you for having me. That is a wrap on another episode of Blueprints of Disruption. Thank

you for joining us. If you'd like to help us continue disrupting the status quo. Please

share our content and if you have the means, consider becoming a patron. Not only does our

support come from the progressive community, so does our content. So reach out to us and

let us know what or who we should be amplifying. So until next time, keep disrupting. Someone

giving the police department the business, huh? Get out of here! Business, huh? Boy, boy, jiggity,

wiggle, wiggle!

Someone giving the police department the business, huh?