The Proletariat Congress

It all began with a party outdoors in the bush. Some teens got together and got drunk. One of those teens was a 15 year old by the name of Willow Kinloch, who drank more than she could tolerate. Then as is the typical chain of events with these types of parties, it was broken up by police, and unable to tell the interlopers where she lived due to her inebriated state, she was taken to the precinct and put in a cell so she could sober up. Around 4am when she was fine, she was escorted home.

If only the tale stopped there then there would have been no news story to speak of and Kinloch would be living her life, free of any knowledge of the events that followed; the injustices that she witnessed and felt first hand as an innocent caught up in a corrupt system where it has become part of the mantra to shoot first and ask questions later.

Now at 18 years old, Kinloch has come out and has told her tale to the Canadian media in the hopes of drawing attention to her plight and that of others who were unjustly treated at the hands of the law; by those who are alleged to serve and protect the public and not abuse that sacred trust. She was influenced by the tragic events that took the life of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski who was tasered not once but twice at a Vancouver airport after being detained for 10 hours with no translator or any way to contact someone who could help him, despite there being a telephone link to a translator nearby. One person who recorded the incident alleged that he had been tasered as many as three or four times. He suffered a tragic end at the hands of four RCMP officers who came in and used a taser gun to subdue him when all he needed was someone who could tell him what was going on in his own language.

Kinloch said she decided to tell her story because, at 18, she now feels mature enough to speak publicly. She was also influenced by what happened to Robert Dziekanski, the Polish immigrant who died after RCMP used a Taser gun to subdue him at the Vancouver airport. In that case, as in hers, Kinloch said, the videotape made all the difference.

Kinloch wasn’t tasered at any point in the duration of her stay, which is fortunate for her. However, she was still subject to abuse at the hands of her guards who didn’t take the time to understand her emotional distress. Being locked in a cell while she sobered up may not have been so bad if not compounded by the fact that she was returned to that cell later on after being released.

The officers who had escorted her home, wouldn’t let her out of the vehicle claiming that they were ensuring that she was watched as she was a child in need of protection. They refused to let her get out of the car when they had arrived at her home. They wouldn’t let her out. Yet if she had been permitted to exit the vehicle, she could have yelled up to the second floor of her home. Failing that, she could have used her cellphone to call her sister, who also had a cellphone. This option was also denied by the police. This resulted in her being returned to the station because they couldn’t get her inside because the intercom system to buzz the apartment wasn’t working that night.

“At this point, I’m not drunk anymore,” said Kinloch. “I’ve done nothing wrong. I’m not a threat, and my parents are at home and are going to be worrying about me. I just wanted to go home.”

Go home. Nothing more, nothing less. All she had wanted to do was go home, yet this wish of hers was flat out denied by police who wouldn’t even let her make a phone call to ask to be let in, as she had forgotten her keys. A simple phone call would have spared Kinloch the events that followed the return to the Victoria police station.

She was returned to the station but had refused to get out of the vehicle and was subsequently removed by force and returned to the same cell where she had been held earlier, when she had been intoxicated and anything but calm. She had been accompanied by a prison guard, Special Const. Merle Edmonds, who instructed her to remove certain articles of clothing, including the shoes that were being worn at the time. In removing the shoe, Kinloch kicked it across the cell, never targeting the delusional officer who claimed that she had been assaulted by a flying shoe.

The female officer who had asked for the removal of certain articles of clothing then pinned the girl to the wall as two other officers came in and pinned her, pushing her face and body to the floor, and holding her arms and legs in place for several minutes while they placed her under arrest. While this happened, another officer came in and brought a rope or leash like object that was used to bound the girl. The end result is the girl is left tethered, her hands and feet bound, to the door for four hours before she was released.

There was no reason for her to even be put into the cell the second time, as she had been sobered up. If the officers had even an iota of human decency they could have asked her to wait in an area that was not a cell of any kind. They could have easily asked her to wait in the lobby, until they would be able to return her home, yet instead they robbed her of her dignity.

There are plenty of ways to “protect” someone that doesn’t involve using a prison cell. If the officers really had her welfare at heart, the last thing they would have done is locked her in the cell, adding to the emotional distress that she was feeling. Kinloch admitted to being in tears for the duration of this.

Human emotion; emotional distress, seems to be the grounds for police to exercise excessive force these days, rather than simply listening. If diplomacy was used more and people employed empathy, there would be fewer cases where an innocent person is caught up in a corrupt system that would rather pretend its working because it has people behind bars rather than actually working and seeing people back on the street and rehabilitated or if the crime warranted it, sentenced accordingly after a trial before a jury of their peers.

If this kind of mistreatment of a human being had happened at the hands of a civilian, that person would have been charged with unlawful confinement and assault among other things, as the confinement and bounding left Kinloch covered in bruises, which were reported to the Victoria police and handled by an officer who hadn’t been involved in the case.

“I wondered how they would feel if somebody took their child off the street and beat them up and detained them, and they didn’t know where their daughter was all night,” said Tammy-Marie Kinloch. “If I did that to my child — which I can’t imagine any parent would ever do — then throw the key away. Put me in jail.”

Her mother had been no doubt worried but in the end, at least her baby could come home to her. She was able to be with her daughter at the end of the tragedy. And with her daughter, able to confront the officers who had inflicted the bruises on her daughter.

Instead of assault charges being pressed against the four officers in question, Kinloch was initially charged with assaulting Edmonds, the female officer who had been in the cell when the shoe had been kicked to the other side of the cell. This charge was fortunately dropped quickly after the Crown Prosecution viewed the tape and exercised unprecedented common sense. Though it still intransigently maintains that the actions of the officers were justifiable given the circumstances, despite that the girl was petite and not even five feet tall.

Kinloch was fortunate enough to acquire a lawyer who believes that this is an open and shut case. Her lawyer, agrees with her about the tape, in that is secures her case against the officers named in the case. Even Kinloch admits that if it weren’t for the tape, she’d have no case. The tape is all that stands between justice and chaos.

B.C. teen alleges she was assaulted and unlawfully detained by police

Pigeons – nature’s cruel joke. These birds are nothing more than germ-ridden sewer feathered sewer rats with wings that plague major metropolitan centres. They are a menace to society and have contributed nothing to the diversity of the bird species. They take up space and give nothing in return. They don’t serve any purpose. They don’t keep the population of other pests down, as they are pests themselves.

One city however has decided that enough is enough and is taking unorthodox measures to keep the menace in check. Their methods are welcomed by animal rights groups. The city of Hollywood, which has an estimated pigeon population of 5,000+ has put birth control to use. Using rooftop feeders to attract the birds, the city has put OvoControl P into the feed. It is designed to obstruct the development of eggs, which should ideally help in reducing the overall population. The city hopes to have it reduced by 2012.

While only a pilot project, if successful, this could be easily implemented in many other cities plagued with the feathered menace.

US pigeons to get contraceptives

Until cities like Toronto get its act together to reduce and fully eliminate the problem, we the people need to take our own form of action. Though this blogger prefers something more concrete like just killing the whole pigeon population.

Recently there has been an upswing in the number of condo developers taking over parts of Toronto where I live. They have knocked down old buildings which had been here for many years in order to make room for large high-rise condominium complexes in order to meet the demand for more housing in a city that is stretched to the limits, threatening to encroach on valuable farm land and sensitive ecological systems that surround the GTA. Some people embrace the change, some are indifferent and others find that this development is taking away precious land that could be used for other projects such as parks and schools.

Condo developers don’t see eye to eye with the people; they see only the profit and they ignore the cost to society in the pursuit of the all-mighty dollar in the name of free market exploitative capitalism. Developers such as Tridal, who had recently, took part of a high school’s property to build a sales building. The building may not be large but it encroaches on property that should otherwise be for the use of the school.

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From the front, it doesn’t look out of place. It’s right on the street and at the front of the back end of the school, taking over part of the large field that could be used for various recreational activities. The same swath of land could have been used to build an extension for the school to facilitate higher learning. Not some condo retail office.

As if to add insult to injury, the same condo developer has decided that it doesn’t like some of the old trees in this area and wants to take down size very large, attractive silver maples in the name of “progress”. In an era where we have to worry about climate change, global warming and the eradication of trees, which supply us with shade and the much needed oxygen are we are overwhelmed by the noxious green house emissions from various buildings and cards that clog our streets, developers don’t see the need to be green. Being green gets in the way of progress. Or that is what most majority development industries would like you to think, that green initiatives will destroy our economy because they are costly.

What’s costly is taking down large trees that protect us from the sun.

In the city, there are many large trees providing canopy cover; many shading the sidewalks and properties that they’re near.

This area of the city has been around for many decades; longer than any of these upstart condo developers who think that they can just bring in their industrial machine and plough through the towering wooden beauties that provide a home to the birds and little critters that have every right to live in the city that humans do.

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They can promise to replant trees but it won’t save the trees that are threatened now. These trees were around before my parents were born. This school is the same area that was lucky enough to see the first subway lines in Toronto in 1954; these trees were here when the allies defeated the Nazis in WWII. The developers were not around. The trees were here first and they will protect help to protect our planet.

Tridel can do the right thing and leave the trees and school property, thus respecting the neighbourhood as the other condo developers had the decency to at least build on a property already occupied by an older building, or they can do the corporate thing and destroy the planet and take away something that benefits all and replace it with something that benefits few.

But we can’t trust developers to do the right thing but we can pressure the people who have granted the permits.

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The above is the sign posted on the school property and a thoughtful soul has taken the time to highlight a few elements on it, including that it would be a 4-floor condo built by Tridel, under the guise of building a new secondary school sports field and track.

We can put pressure on councillor Michael Walker and Minister of Education Kathleen Wynne. We cannot let them think they can’t be held accountable for this travesty. We need to put pressure on them. If you want to get in contact with either, you can reach Walker at 416-392-7906 and Wynne at 416-425-6777. Let them know how you really feel about a condo developer encroaching on a school property you pay taxes to maintain.

In an emergency, a police cruiser can speed through a red light when hot on the trail of a suspect, or while on their way to a crime scene.

An ambulance is given the right of way; they stand between life or death of the people of the city. Their efficiency can make the difference between how quickly a victim can get the treatment needed to keep them alive.

When the alarm sounds, the fire-fighters hop into their engine and flash the lights and sound the sirens as they veer in and out of snarled traffic that lines the streets as they rush to get to the fire.

But when there is no emergency, should the same rules that apply to the rest of the drivers on the road apply to these people as well? The cities of Dallas and Fort Worth seem to think that anyone on routine patrol should not have the same privileges they do when there is an emergency. And the city goes one step further and has decided that there needs to be someone out there to police the police.

The biggest abusers of street rules in the three areas of emergency workers is the police departments; they are out even when there is no emergency. They have routine patrols of the city streets and are the ones you see parking illegally to give tickets to someone whose paid parking expired two minutes ago.

This isn’t to say that all officers of the law break the rules of the street; there are those who follow the rules, but there are a few apples that can ruin it for the rest of them. However, they never get caught and they are never punished. There is no one policing the police.

They have the liberty to make illegal u-turns and park where they please and no one can question the use of the siren when they use them because they could either be used legitimately or abused so the officers can travel through the red light.

They need to be held accountable and they should not be allowed to break the law when there is no emergency. If they break the law, how do they expect citizens to respect the same law when there is no respect for the law from the very people in uniform whose very job is to uphold the law.

It doesn’t help that in cities like Toronto, there seems to be a demand from city hall for officers to meek parking ticket quotas so the city can have more money, despite taxing the people of the city to the teeth. Maybe the officers would be less inclined to do if they were likely to get slapped with such a ticket. They are worse than some parking offenders in the city…