One question:
legally speaking, aren't the police required to warn honest
citizens before firing tear gas bombs under their noses? Don't
they have the minimum obligation to tell them to leave, to
clear away, if that's what they want to achieve?
Why didn't the
police politely ask us to make a detour via Maisonneuve Street?
(It would have been so simple.) Why not inform us, instead of
attacking us with bombs?
In retrospect,
I'm astounded and dismayed when I think of the naïveté displayed
by the neighbourhood resident who thought she was safe near the policemen.
A naïveté we shared, we who stayed around, foolishly
trusting.
It is interesting
to underline the following: the acts of agression against peaceful
citizens that I witnessed were not perpetrated by evil "Black
Blocs" or other formidable projectile throwers. They came
from peace officers.
The next day,
the Québec Minister of Public Security, Serge Ménard,
declared he was "very proud" of the police's work.