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Fighting back 101 >> How a police crackdown on street kids spawned a political movement by PHILIP PREVILLE
Jones was not alone in his feelings on Sunday. With placards that read "KKK: Kapitalist Killer Kop" and "Fight first, not back," a stern air of defiance buoyed the group of 250 protesters, comprised mainly of punks, squeegees and other street kids. Shouting slogans like "A united people can never be defeated," they painted the MUC police force as something of an occupying army. When the march arrived at its final destination in front of the MUC's Centre Opérationnel Sud at Guy and René-Lévesque, the group's face-to-face confrontation with a line of 12 officers in riot gear turned bilious and vitriolic, albeit non-violent. Demonstrators taunted the officers, spat at their feet and screamed, "Fuck the police!" in their faces. The entire rebel-against-authority scene almost qualified as a textbook example of the impetuousness of youth. Words such as fascism, assassination and even brutality were being tossed at the police with little regard for the severity of the accusations, as though the words themselves were nothing more than ripe tomatoes. Almost. Except that the kids' anger and frustration didn't suddenly fall out of the blue. The police are a daily presence in the lives of these young people, and relations between the two have deteriorated to the point where the kids have now been galvanized into a political force. One officer in riot gear, fearing the worst, became so tense at the sight of the kids' searing anger that his visor steamed up so bad he couldn't see. Are the cops afraid of street kids? > > > The mutual disaffection between police and street youth has been on the rise for years. And many point to the 1996 St. Jean Baptiste day riots in Quebec City as the turning point. When three young people appeared in a Quebec City court and the judge learned they had been distributing anarchist literature, he labelled them a threat to public security. "My first preoccupation must be with the safety of the public, and we are right to be afraid," he said. "I would be remiss if I were to set free these philosophers of anarchy." Since then, according to UQAM sociology professor Shirley Roy, director of the Groupe de recherche sur l'itinérance, the police have become increasingly severe--handing out tickets, chasing them from public spaces, sending them to jail. "It's as if they decided to solve the problem of urban youth by treating it as a legal problem instead of a social problem," she says. Shortly following the Quebec City riots came the MUC police crackdown on young people in Berri Square (now Parc Émilie-Gamelin) in the summer of 1996. Police activities also appear to go beyond mere ticketing and harassment. Early last summer, police paid a visit to the youth shelter of Dans la rue, the organization founded by Father Emmett Johns (Pops), to explain that local residents were complaining about the kids loitering outside at night. But employees of the shelter said they enforce a strict curfew; they said the police were actively soliciting complaints, though police deny any such activity. Then, last summer, two community police officers from the local station attempted to re-establish some trust with the kids in the Square. But when police initiated another crackdown on the parks in late September, the two officers were actively singling people out of the crowd based on the information they had gathered. Police spokesperson Stéphane Banfi says police were forced to move in on the parks not because of loitering punks, but because of narcotics trafficking linked to biker gangs. Still, he admits that last summer's activity has exacerbated the situation. Not only is it difficult for the police to establish relations with the kids; now, because the kids are so suspicious of the force, it's increasingly hard to forge links with local community workers. For the kids, the "infiltration" was the last straw. At Sunday's protest, both officers' names were posted on a placard identifying them as rat cops. > > > Midway through Sunday's march, the procession stopped near the corner of St-Laurent and Ontario, at the very spot where a police officer killed Martin Suazo with a gunshot to the head at close range in 1995. There, Yves Manseau, director of Citoyen-ne-s opposé-e-s à la brutalité policière and chief organizer of the rally, took the microphone and gave an eloquently understated speech. Had police followed their own proper procedures, Manseau said, Suazo would not be dead. Nor would Richard Barnabé, the man beaten to death while in police custody in 1994. Manseau deplored the use of tactical squads, which are increasingly wresting police power away from the community cops. And he had harsh words for the small handful of police officers who abuse their power and undermine relations with all of Montreal's communities. "That's what we're speaking out against," he said. "That's why we're here." Of course, that's not why they were there. They were there because of all the harassment they've had to put up with themselves, and Manseau knew it. But he was telling them about other people in worse situations, focusing their attention beyond their own experiences. For months now the police have been trying to put Manseau behind bars for leading an insurrection among the kids. But he's actually done more to temper the kids' rage than the police can possibly grasp; in fact, he's been a sort of political Pops to them. Rather than encourage their anger, Manseau channels it and transforms it into a progressive, non-violent movement. Harsh words still get tossed around, but Manseau is giving these young adults a voice in how things are run. He's slowly turning them into citizens. And for that, the cops owe Manseau a big favour. 
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"I hate cops," explains Jones, a young street punk, when asked why he is participating in Sunday's demonstration marking the International Day Against Police Brutality. "Cops are all the same. They're all racists and fascists." The march proceeds through an intersection, past a police car blocking traffic. Jones (not his real name) leans over toward the cruiser and spits out the words, screaming through the car window with every last ounce of rage he can muster: "Racists and fascists!"