Today Arnie and I went down to a small pro-Israel rally at Queen’s Park.
On the way there, we passed the corner of Bloor and St. Thomas (across from the Cole Haan), where a small group of protesters had apparently just been arrested.
There were about six to eight individuals seated with their backs against a store wall, wearing white plastic handcuffs. They were outnumbered about 5 to 1 by Toronto police officers (and, I’m guessing, some from Barrie, due to the presence of a large Barrie police vehicle on St Thomas.)
Arnie and I stood across the road on the Cole Haan side. Like about a dozen other passersby, we were filming the procedings, such as they were.
We were both dressed like typical middle aged Torontonians out on a Sunday afternoon: I’d advised Arnie not to wear any black, so we had on sunglasses, shorts, no weird or provocative t-shirts.
We were standing there silently when a white, male officer who looked a little like a central casting Angry Cop, with a really fake smile and firey eyes crossed the street towards us.
He stood chest to chest with Arnie and told him to move along.
Alas, Arnie stopped filming and didn’t hit the audio record button again until the end of our exchange. Here is how it went, from memory.
Read More...Cop 3478: Sir, I’m going to ask you to move along. There’s really nothing to see here.
Arnie: We’re just standing on a public sidewalk. What are we doing wrong?
Cop 3478: Just be on your way, sir. Please.
Arnie: Why?
Cop 3478: Because I’m asking you to.
