Pride 2019 Part 7 – The Reports

For the first time in quite a while I’m getting back to the blog. I’m going to do my usual caveats: between health problems, the COVID-19 lockdown (we’re currently on day 101 of a very strict self-isolation) other projects, major dental surgery and a family crisis, I’ve let my writing fall by the wayside. I need to stop doing that, I know. Inertia is difficult to overcome when you’re in pain, and that’s an explanation, not an excuse.

Ironically, the other problem I’ve faced is that there’s so much going on in the world that it’s difficult to get started. With the coronavirus pandemic, the anti-lockdown/paranoid racist protests, the murder of George Floyd and the ensuing massive reaction across the US and the world, the ongoing police violence towards protesters… it’s overwhelming. As a writer, having too much to address is often as bad as too little.

Like, where do you start?

Well in my case, I’m going to start with yesterday’s release of Scott Bergman’s Independent Review Into The Events Surrounding Hamilton Pride 2019. (The full 125-page report can be downloaded in PDF format from the criminal-lawyers.ca website, and the executive summary has been published at in its entirety at Raise The Hammer.) Mr. Bergman’s report was commissioned by the City of Hamilton to understand what happened before, during and after last year’s attack by hate groups against Hamilton Pride, particularly regarding the behaviour and reactions of the Hamilton Police Service.

Now, to be clear, I’m still working my way through the report. I’ve skimmed the entire thing and am currently doing a long, slow, careful read which has gotten me as far as Part 7 – The HPS Culture, Training and Initiatives. But I’d like to share my impressions on Mr. Bergman’s report so far.

First impression: The contrast between the independent report and last November’s OIPRD report on the same subject which was recently leaked to the press couldn’t be clearer. The 110-page OIPRD report (available in PDF format here) – the result of an internal investigation by an HPS staff sergeant – came to the conclusion that there was no police misconduct and that the Hamilton Police Service responded appropriately to an unforeseen threat.

Bergman’s independent review rejects that. Specifically, it rejects the “unforseen” part. While it does claim that, once police actually responded to the violence they acted appropriately, it almost immediately finds that “The HPS fell short in its planning and preparation for Pride 2019. The HPS did not prepare an Operational Plan (OP) until two days before the event. They failed to properly and effectively consult with Pride organizers prior to and during the event. The preparation and coordination was wholly inadequate.” (Executive Summary, Page 2.)

The overwhelming response from the LGBTQ+ community to that statement and others in the report has been a resounding “Yeah, no shit.” A friend of mine pointed out that with the $600,000 price tag on this report we could have financed Hamilton Pride celebrations for a decade and all it would have taken was City Hall and the HPS listening to the LGBTQ+ community and taking us at our word.

Which, of course, is a huge part of the problem.

I’m not ripping on Scott Bergman here. In fact, think I owe him an apology: When the independent review was announced I was a skeptical as anyone that it would merely be a whitewash absolving Hamilton Police of any wrongdoing, and I was loud in expressing my cynicism. Having gone through the description of his methodology as laid out in Part 1 of the report, I have to admit I was impressed with the efforts he made to guarantee the independence of this report; his stress on placing the events within a broader historical and social context; the efforts he made to include all voices (except those of the hate groups, which he explicitly rejects on Page 15); and the straightforward and factual tone which he attempts to achieve.

In short, while we can have misgivings about the price tag, Mr. Bergman has unquestionably done the job he was commissioned to do and he’s done it with a level of care, professionalism and impartiality which does him immense credit. While I don’t apologize for my initial cynicism – hardly surprising considering the toxic state of municipal politics in Hamilton – I would like to say I’ve rarely been happier to be proven wrong.

In my opinion, one of the great positives in the report is the plain, factual tone used throughout. It is clear that Bergman tried to keep any shading of his own viewpoint outside the report. Where he speculates, he says so. Where he’s reporting trends in the opinions of interviewees from the community, he is clear about it. And he clearly, factually and dispassionately shines a light on a lot of very problematic behaviour by the Hamilton Police Service, both at Pride and in the year following, which the dispassionate tone only serves to emphasize.

Another positive aspect of the report is that he plainly names the hate groups which planned and attempted to execute an attack on families at Gage Park, which he thereafter refers to as “Agitators” in a refreshingly straightforward description:
“Throughout 2019, people associated with the Yellow Vest movement and members of far-right groups attended City Hall to voice anti-Trudeau, anti-immigrant and anti-carbon tax views. On various occasions, these protests included other people from far-right groups like the Soldiers of Odin, Canadian Nationalists and Proud Boys, each of which hold anti-immigrant, Islamaphobic and white nationalist views.” (Part 2 – The Yellow Vest protests at Hamilton City Hall in 2019, Page 29)

Clearly naming hate groups and refusing to coddle or cover up their motivations while they operating openly within the city is such an important point. Over the past year and a half the anti-hate movement in Hamilton has struggled to get the slightest acknowledgement from authorities that these groups – often violent groups at that – have taken over public spaces and are acting with impunity and the apparent support of the Hamilton Police Service.

This impression of police bias is something that Bergman explicitly addresses, including an apparent campaign of police misinformation intended to suppress complaints against the hate groups:
“There is a clear sense among those who have gone to City Hall to counter the Yellow Vest and far-right protesters that police were using free speech laws as a shield to protect hateful people. The counter-protestors I spoke with have the distinct impression that the HPS is on the side of these alt-right groups. I repeatedly heard from community members that police do not respond fairly to the counter-protesters’ complaints. Many within the counter-protestors group feel as though the police treat them as the problem and that life would just be easier for everyone if they did not show up to counter the xenophobic, hateful messages being spread by the Yellow Vest and far-right groups.
“A few of the community members report having been told by police that assault charges would only be laid if the victim of the assault formally complains – that video or other objective evidence of assaults is insufficient. One community member recounted having been told by an officer that if charges were laid, the complainant’s personal information, including his or her home address, would be provided to the accused. Members of the public should know that police do not require a complaint by the actual victim to lay a charge and complainants’ home addresses are as a matter of course never provided to accused.” (Part 7, Page 30)

I’ve heard this complaint within the community more than once following the attack on Pride. Certainly the HPS has repeatedly stated that they can’t charge anyone based solely on video footage; victims need to come forward. (Which makes it all the more egregious when they arrest and charge left protesters based solely on video evidence.) And yes, I’ve heard from several people that HPS officers have told them their personal information will be provided to the accused as part of the process.

I’m not a lawyer, I don’t know if that’s actually the case. But the chilling effect this has on a victim reporting their assailant cannot be overstated. Hate groups – Bergman’s “agitators” — can be expected to share their victims’ information to doxx and threaten their victims into silence. It is one of the things that fascists do. And the widespread impression in the LGBTQ+, racialized and leftist communities is that the Hamilton Police is sharing that information with the hate groups. If this is a false impression, then it needs to be publicly corrected immediately… and if it’s true then we have a huge problem.

More than that, I’ve spoken with people who were assaulted by hate groups at Pride (or City Hall, or Mohawk College) who assume – as I myself have had to assume – that any complaint to the Hamilton Police Service related to anything political will not only be met with misinformation but a risk of arrest.

The level of distrust that the HPS has earned for itself, both at Pride and during the disastrous months that have followed, simply cannot be overstated.

As I’ve said, I’m still working through a very careful read on the report. I’m making particularly slow progress through Part 7 – Police Culture and Views Regarding Demonstrations because it’s a section that deserves an extremely careful read, and also because it’s been causing me to break down in fits of fury, requiring extensive pacing, swearing, hard liquor and nicotine to to calm me down. (As a quick aside, I would like to acknowledge that my spouse has the patience of a saint, particularly after one hundred days of being locked in a house with me.)

I’ve known, subjectively, that the HPS is openly biased against the left in general and “anarchists from the Tower” in particular. But seeing it repeatedly written down in this report is infuriating:
“There is great disdain and mistrust of these protesters among the HPS officers, including those in senior command. HPS senior command views anarchists from The Tower as being criminal thugs who are extremely difficult to reason with or control.” (Part 7, Page 92)

This is an incredibly revealing admission of bias by the HPS and their culture of hostility toward the left and especially anarchists is evident in their tacit collusion with fascists, racists and hate groups. And speaking as an “Anarchist from The Tower”, this openly skewed abuse of authority is exactly why we don’t – and shouldn’t! — trust the HPS. We know the cops hate us. We know they’re blaming us for everything that goes wrong in Hamilton, regardless of the facts. And we know they’re withholding protection from us and our communities as an extralegal punitive measure.

We’re anarchists. We understand how authoritarian structures work because we look at them without blinders; we certainly understand that the police are going to try to demonize any effort to create a world without a need for their authoritarian bullying. But the HPS’ culture of clear prejudice still bullshit and having it laid down in black and white is galling.

You know why they hate us? Plainly stated, if the Hamilton Police Service had done it’s fucking job at Pride, then the reviled “anarchists from the Tower” wouldn’t have had to put their asses on the line as Pride Defenders to protect the public from the violence of hate groups. And the cops fucking know it.

…

(Pace, curse, it still too early for whiskey and cigars, I’m back.)

Calmly now, the only real complaint I have with Bergman’s report so far is that he seems to buy into the HPS’ assumption that “anarchists from the Tower” are somehow problematic. Partly, I suspect, this stems from the unconscious premise – hardly surprising in a lawyer – that anti-authoritarian socialism is somehow dangerous to established society. (It’s not, but that’s a whole other blog post.)

As I was myself cynical about the independence and fairness of the review, so many of Hamilton’s anarchist and related leftist communities were skeptical and there was a general feeling that the process was going to be flawed. No consensus could be reached that we should participate in such a process… especially while comrades faced disproportionate and unfairly applied charges for protecting the community and calling for accountability.

(They still face those charges. The charges against the Pride Defenders need to be dropped as part of this process, and charges need to be laid against all the attackers, not just one grudging charge against Helmet Guy.)

To his credit Bergman acknowledges that he attempted to reach out to The Tower and was politely turned down, even citing the reason why The Tower’s anarchists refused to speak:
“I was prepared to meet with some people who chose not to meet with me. In particular, the Review contacted The Tower and some individuals associated with it and Hamilton’s anarchist movement. They represented what some describe as a more “radical” perspective within the Pride Defenders. They politely declined our invitation, as they were entitled to do. They held reservations about the process of the Review and were concerned about meeting with someone who had been retained by the Board. They indicated they would only be involved if the criminal charges against Pride Defenders had first been withdrawn.” (Part 1 – Introduction, Page 16)

I’ve addressed anarchism as a political philosophy before on this blog, and doubtless will again, so I’m not going into a huge refutation of Bergman’s apparent presupposition today, but I would like to make one point: Do everyone know what “the anarchists from the Tower” are doing right now, in response to the COVID-19 outbreak?

They’ve converted The Tower’s physical space into the Downtown-East Hamilton Mutual Aid Centre, a community-based network providing food, medical and legal support in response to the coronavirus crisis, with the stated goal helping people with the greatest need in one of the most impoverished parts of the city. (If you can donate to them, please do. They’re doing sterling work.)

I just feel that should be pointed out.

In any case, I’m going to continue reading Mr. Bergman’s report in depth. Aside from that one irritating assumption about anarchists – and let’s face it, over twenty years of openly espousing anarchism as a political philosophy, I should be used to it by now – it’s just an outstanding piece of work.

But I don’t think it’s going to do as much good as it deserves to. Maybe that’s still me being cynical, but it’s a non-binding report. City Hall and the HPS aren’t required to accept it, or to follow its recommendations. Nothing in their behaviour in the past year or more has given me any indication that they’re participating in this process in good faith in any case and I suspect that some of City Council — Mayor Eisenberger especially — went into this process feeling that $600,000 to buy themselves a year of saying “just wait for the report” was cheap at the price.

Frankly I expect that Mr. Bergman’s efforts will be sidelined and ignored, just as the voices of LGBTQ+ people have been sidelined and ignored throughout this process.

Which is a genuine shame, because I do truly admire the effort he’s put into it. It’s an honest and even valiant effort to address the failures of Hamilton’s toxic police service. I just don’t think it’s going to be allowed to go anywhere with Hamilton’s politicians or cops.

But I suppose I can always hope to be proved wrong.

…

EDIT: Shortly after I published this article, the leaked OIPRD report was officially released to the public. I’ve included a link to it in the body of the story above, and it can be accessed in PDF format here.