Toronto police swear off kettling

A year after the G20 summit in Toronto, the Toronto police have promised to permanently abandon the practice of “kettling,” through which groups of demonstrators and passers-by are gathered into a police line and held indefinitely without charge or judicial oversight. Kettling is a form of extrajudicial detention, and has been found illegal in many jurisdictions around the world. The G20 summit saw the largest mass-arrest in Canadian history, though practically no charges were laid:

“The crowd control technique implemented at Queen & Spadina on June 27 will not be used again by the Toronto Police Service,” spokeswoman Meaghan Gray said in the statement, a response to a list of G20-related questions sent by the Star…

Nathalie Des Rosiers, general counsel for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, was heartened to hear Toronto police have ditched kettling.

“It is a violation of Section 9 of the Charter, which provides and guarantees the freedom from arbitrary detention,” she said.

“It rounds up, detains and prevents from moving large groups of people for which the police have no evidence that they have done anything wrong…”

Stayshyn said Toronto police have lost all credibility on G20 issues, citing officers’ reluctance to cooperate with the Special Investigations Unit and the removal of name tags during the summit, among other issues.

Exclusive: Toronto police swear off G20 kettling tactic

(Thanks, DaveGroff!)

(Image: Riot Police at Richmond and Spadina, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from 37483386@N02’s photostream)