Running riot

>> Drunken kids and a deluge of cops manufacture another St. Jean Baptiste skirmish

by LOUIS RASTELLI

After four years now, it's safe to say that a new St. Jean tradition exists on the Plateau. It usually starts as the Mont-Royal Hooligan Convention and finishes as a Grand Meeting of the Order of Riot Police. (Or should I say, the Festival of the Double-Overtime, what with the 500-plus cops who work late into this holiday night?) Whatever you wanna call it, it's never very pretty. This year was no exception.

If you walked through Jeanne-Mance Park or Mount Royal on Sunday, you likely had your bags checked repeatedly by the police. I say repeatedly because if, like me, you decided to walk around for awhile, each group of six cops you came across (which was about every 100 feet) took their turn looking for glass bottles in your bag. As a frustrated friend I ran into exclaimed, "They make me feel like a criminal just being here!"

The police claimed this was going to prevent the riot later, seeing as no one on the mountain would be drunk or armed with empty beer bottles. (They were wrong--most riot regulars arrived long after dark, cases in arm.)

While not being searched, I wandered the mountain and at about 8 p.m. noticed something curious. Tucked in behind the old fire station were six STCUM buses full of riot police, 16 huge vans, a dozen or so police vans and a half-dozen mounted police. I learned from one of them (who came up to see what the hell I was doing) that at 11:30 p.m. they'd announce that the park closed at midnight. "If it isn't empty by then," he said, "we'll have to make it empty." Shortly after, I called my assigned photographer and arranged to meet him at 11. (After some early weather concerns, it looked like we'd have our riot story after all!)

More police than people

Off the mountain, cadres of riot police were seen tramping up and down St-Laurent from

9 p.m. onwards. By 10, when I biked back to the mountain, there seemed to be more police than people there. They were inspecting garbage cans, shining their flashlights at couples sitting on the grass and scanning the ground around them. When a mass of drunk young kids started accumulating north of the statue, however, I saw few cops willing to check them out, too.

By 11 p.m., there were 100 or more kids there drinking openly and starting small fires. Perhaps because the park was still technically open, the cops didn't move to circle them. They sure weren't shy in bossing me around, though. As I biked, I was told several times to change directions by groups of police roaming the woods. "Hey, the park is still open," I felt like saying. "It's not even midnight!"

After 11 p.m., the photographer and I and made the mistake of trying to photograph a fire being set. Someone immediately grabbed his camera, and both of us got pushed around and almost beat up. He tried saying, "It's okay, it's for the Mirror," but fact is, it doesn't matter what paper it's in--if the cops see your face in it, you're arrested.

It took us a while to get out of it. At one point I was getting whacked on my bike helmet while picking up batteries that got knocked out of the camera flash. For a second I wondered if we'd end up shouting "Police!" ourselves, but after much swearing and posturing, our attackers actually kind of apologized.

Stopping traffic

Midnight passed without the promised warning about the park being closed. Some mounted police stood opposite the drunk-kid section, but fled after some kids aimed fireworks at them. And that was the scene: the odd fireworks set off to large cheers from the gang, while tam-tams still chugged along near the statue.

Perhaps after realizing that the midnight battle was cancelled, around 12:15 a.m. the drunk-kid section stormed Parc Avenue. The police missed a golden opportunity to circle them while they were all together on the mountain. Now, their confidence wild, they played Stop the Traffic, throwing beer bottles at any car that dared to cross 'em.

Soon, all northbound cars were taking U-turns back downtown. A southbound cabbie made it through, only to stop moments later to inspect his dented hood. A brave sports car zoomed up with a "let me through" attitude, and he did make it through--with a smashed rear window. An SUV tested its invincibility and received a failing grade, and a photographer capturing the scene got his camera smashed and a Molotov tossed at him. I felt pretty safe standing near two brothers cranking hip hop from their convertible, but still kept an eye out for beer bottles. After a couple more cars struggled through not unscathed, traffic was ominously absent, and word went around that an attack was coming from the south.

Sure enough, riot police were marching our way, and kids started running toward Mont-Royal Avenue. I biked there in time to watch McDonald's lose its windows, which was impressive since dozens of cops were right there. Someone even got gas from the Petro-Can and lit part of the McDonald's ablaze for a minute. Then the riot police finally caught up, and the chase was on.

Apparently kids smashed up the Ultramar and stole cigarettes from it, while more damage led up to a sacked SAQ on Laurier. I assume the lion's share of the "rioters" ended up blending into the crowd at the St-Viateur street fair, much like James Bond in a street carnival. (There, thousands of dancers drank openly on the street in an apparently legal affair.)

Riot troops moved north along every street between Parc and St-Laurent, banging their shields loudly in unison. It occurred to me that 500 riot police are no match for 100 hoodlums, as long as the police wait to move in formation while hoodlums scatter instantly. (Of the 28 eventual arrests, only seven were property-damage related.)

Tax money in action

For the next two hours, the entire area was crawling with dozens of police vans, squad cars, riot troops and paddy wagons. They made 21 arrests for "unlawful assembly," strange since everyone was out of the park by then. I watched one well-dressed dude on Parc get cuffed with furrowed brow, while some perfumed lady friends of his exclaimed from the sidewalk, "I can't believe he's being arrested! What the fuck?!?"

I eventually wandered back to the statue and listened to the drumming, which never stopped. It was extremely quiet, now that all those drunk kids were on the lam in residential neighbourhoods. The fact that there were no cars on Parc made it extra-peaceful.

Around 2 a.m., I ran into a fortysomething friend who'd just left the Fringe Fest. I warned him that he was a criminal for walking through the park at this hour. We watched many cop vans and four buses drive past on Parc. He did a double-take when he realized the buses were full of cops, and looked even more amazed when they filed out in a line 100 feet from us. Soon at least 300 were standing side-by-side, making loud threatening whoops in unison as they advanced. An older Oriental man pointed at them and said to us, "Look, it's our money! Our tax money! Double overtime!!"

We started shuffling backwards, then gradually found ourselves running. The drumming was replaced by their terribly un-rhythmic shield-banging. They got confused in Jeanne-Mance Park when the fenced-in soccer field made them break their line ("Just like the Keystone Kops," remarked my friend).

Eventually the troops blocked all streets leading to or from the park, as well as St-Laurent near the Fringe tent and elsewhere. Somehow, while videotaping, I found myself behind them and was actually told to "GO BACK TOWARD THE PARK" by a line of them blocking Rachel. (Geez, make up your minds!) Many streets stayed closed for over an hour. When I later asked Commandant André Durocher, "Why all the closed streets?" he said: "There were still people we were looking for. Also there was lots of broken glass on the streets and we didn't want people to drive over it. It also could have been dangerous for people to walk through the park with all that glass." How thoughtful! (Of course, if you didn't appreciate this gesture, you got arrested.)

When I asked him why they carried out a second sweep of the park when the troublemakers were all gone anyway, he said, "It's like any time you sweep the floor. First you pick up the big pieces, then later you go for the crumbs." He refused to disclose the number of officers used or the cost of the operation.

Building a tradition

Up until four years ago, St-Jean partying on Mont-Royal was no big deal. For example, in 1997, police were called to disperse drummers from their bonfire near the statue. The cops showed up, swept the crowd off the mountain, then left. No arrests, no property damage, no street closings. Since 1998, when pepper-spray and bad tactics resulted in broken windows on St-Denis, the police abandoned the wait-and-see approach for the one we've seen since.

By 1999, kids were bringing extra empties to throw at cops, and the cops didn't disappoint, showing up en masse for battle. By now, both sides show up expecting confrontation, and, surprise surprise, get it every time. Commandant Durocher said this year that "the fact that some of these youths broke windows while knowing we were right there watching goes to show how little respect they have for property." Hmm, I think it actually goes to show that they like committing crimes in front of police. It's actually boring to break windows for no reason--breaking them while being chased by police is a whole other story.

But don't try convincing the police that scaling back their presence will help any--there's no double overtime in that.

Louis Rastelli is the publisher of Fish Piss and a dedicated documentarian of the annual St. Jean riots