by PATRICK LEJTENYI
photos courtesy of CKUT

How in the world did a poetry reading get busted up by police?

The Break the Chains event, held at El Salon, a venue on St-Laurent just north of Marie-Anne on Wednesday, April 19, was supposed to be an evening of poetry readings, speeches and a performance by local hip hop group Euphrates to raise awareness about Palestinian child prisoners in Israel. Instead, it ended in a significant police action, two arrests, blocks of St-Laurent closed to traffic and some bruises for organizers and attendees. And a lot of questions about the cops.

Mysterious earpiece

According to various reports, here’s what happened: at around 10 p.m., co-organizer Jaggi Singh heard complaints from attendees about a man sitting in a dark SUV outside the venue, wearing an earpiece. Singh went outside, tried talking to the man, who wouldn’t explain either his presence or his earpiece, and went back inside. A few minutes later, he went out again, this time with two companions, one a 72-year-old man. According to Singh, after some words, the man got out of his SUV and shoved him and the elderly man. Non-plussed, Singh and the others went back inside to enjoy the rest of the show.

About a half-hour later, the police showed up. They walked into the venue with the man with the earpiece to talk to Singh, police say, about the shoving incident—the man with the earpiece, who was never identified to Singh, his supporters or the media, said Singh shoved him. Singh, who has a long and unpleasant relationship with Montreal police stemming from his activist work, asked if he was under arrest. When told no, he said he wasn’t going anywhere. The police proceeded to arrest him on the spot. Then all hell broke loose.

As the police were forcibly escorting Singh out of the venue, other attendees began blocking the exit with tables. Shoving ensued, and billy-clubs were swung, connecting with several attendees. Witnesses say the police began throwing the tables aside to get out. Police called for back-up, and soon an estimated 20 or more squad cars were on the scene (police spokeswoman Anie Lemieux couldn’t confirm the number of officers involved, and says the crowd members were the ones throwing tables and chairs. “It’s lucky no one was injured,” she says).

The crowd then exited the venue from the back entrance and made its way to St-Laurent, to be confronted by a line of truncheon-wielding police. Told to move on, some refused, resulting in three $141 tickets for obstruction. Singh and another woman were detained for two hours and charged with obstructing the work of a peace officer. They have a promise-to-appear date in late May.

Excessive surreality

What bothers organizers and attendees, many well-known in activist circles, most about the intervention is the lack of explanation. Nobody knew why the police barged into the venue and started hitting people, they say.

“The more I think about it, the more surreal it seems,” says event co-organizer Stefan Christoff, the news coordinator at CKUT 90.3 FM, and one of the three fined. “The crowd wasn’t a brash bunch. It didn’t turn into a bar brawl,” contrary to media reports directly following the incident. Christoff says he saw one woman getting choked and he received a couple of billy-club whacks to his back. “It wasn’t a savage beating, but it was excessive,” he says.

Ehab Lotayef, one of the evening’s poets, was caught between the police and the tables and was shoved to the floor. “Inside, the police were saying nothing,” says the 48-year-old McGill computer systems manager. “They were just ignoring everybody, and going towards Jaggi.” Lotayef says one policeman who spoke Arabic told him he didn’t know why they were there.

“Things very quickly escalated when the police realized people weren’t doing what they said,” says Singh. “I guess that’s what happens when you know and assert your rights.”

Some witnesses were speculating that the man with the earpiece was either a bodyguard or driver for a Spanish diplomat attending a nearby function, or some sort of secret service agent spying on the event’s organizers. A spokeswoman at the Spanish consulate in Montreal denied all knowledge of any official Spanish business that night.

One long-term problem arising out of the incident involves the venue itself. The Spanish Social Club, run by its mostly elderly members, rents El Salon to the same people who run la Sala Rossa and Casa del Popolo up the street, and they say they will refuse to book any more events. Some shows planned for the nights following the fracas were cancelled the next day, and it looks like more cancellations are coming.

“We are older people, and we don’t want any problems or bad publicity,” says Domingo Ferreira, a social club employee. “We’re going to cut all events, effective immediately.”

An employee at la Sala Rossa says he hasn’t heard anything as of press time.