Police Agents Provocateurs Caught on Camera
08.30.07 - 08:43am
The ignoble art of the agent provocateur in disrupting and delegitimising public protest is as old as dissidence itself yet mention of such tactics usually elicits scorn and scoffing.
Of course, there are undoubtedly those who join demonstrations who do intend to initiate confrontation and may even have little interest in the issue at hand but those who work for peaceful resistance and peaceful change should not also have to contend with the very real underhand tactics from the authorities.
So I was interested to note the events unfolding in Canada following a demonstration last week, when three police officers were basically caught redhanded trying to disrupt protests at the North American leaders summit in Montebello, Quebec.
A video which has found its way onto YouTube shows three plainclothes police officers at the protest with bandanas across their faces. One of the men was carrying a rock. In a glorious irony, the video captures protest organizers ordering one agent provocateur to put the rock down, accusing the three men of being police instigators and trying unsuccessfully to unmask them. The three police officers were then, hilariously, put on the ground and arrested by their own, presumably unaware, colleagues for trying to get through a line of riot police to escape.
In another example of how the internet is changing the media dynamic, the video has even forced the issue into the mainstream media, which usually refuse to stray from the “hard core of troublemakers blah blah some accused police of being heavyhanded” narrative.
According to the report on Canada’s CBC news website:
Protest organizers on Wednesday played the video for the media at a news conference in Ottawa. One of the organizers, union leader Dave Coles, explained that one reason protesters knew the men’s true identities was because they were wearing the same boots as other police officers.
Coles said on Wednesday that the only thing he didn’t know was whether the men were Quebec police, RCMP or hired security officers.
“[Our union] believes that the security force at Montebello were ordered to infiltrate our peaceful assembly and provoke incidents,” said Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union.
Police said the three were told to monitor protesters who were not peacefully demonstrating to prevent any violent incidents, but they were called out as undercover agents when they refused to throw objects.
As Werner at Carnival of Anarchy pointed out:
The last item is the kind of lie told when someone is caught in the act and hasn’t got the brains to realise the jig is up.
Wankers, they use an admission of guilt to lie and smear their targets by accusing them of actually what they were up to (how Rovian), as NWA once so memorably said- Fuck Tha Police.
I saw the vid at the time, glad you caught this developement.