Sound cannons too scary

June 23, 2010
By MICHELE MANDEL, Toronto Sun

Trust us, the police insist. These controversial sound cannons we want to blast at G20 protesters won’t hurt a bit.

Of course, that’s what they once said about tasers as well.

Chastened widely for their use of the stun gun, the wary RCMP has deemed the LRADS, or long range acoustic devices, as too dangerous to use for crowd control.

Yet lawyers for the Toronto Police and OPP insist there is nothing to fear from their use this weekend as they argued against an injunction sought by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Canadian Labour Congress.

“It is only being used as a communication tool. Full stop,” Toronto Police lawyer Darryl Smith told Justice David Brown.

“It is not a taser. It is really fear mongering to use that analogy,” he argued.

“It’s not being used and it’s not designed to be used in an aggressive way.”

But lawyer Paul Cavalluzzo, representing the CCLA and CLC, warned the newly purchased sound guns are weapons that can cause serious hearing damage and are being rushed into use without having been properly tested in a downtown setting and with officers receiving minimal training in how to safely use them.

“Surely the citizens of Toronto are not going to be used as guinea pigs to see the impact of these sonic cannons in an urban environment,” Cavalluzzo said. “We need independent studies.”

G20 protesters will have to wait until Friday morning to find out if the judge will allow the police to use their new sonic toys. The contentious sound guns were initially developed as a maritime weapon for the U.S. military to warn small boats to stay away from naval ships after al-Qaeda bombed USS Cole in Yemen in 2000. Used in Iraq and Afghanistan for crowd control, their first North American use came at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh last year to disperse protesters.

Toronto Police have bought four of the cannons and the OPP have purchased three. They can be used in two different ways with the switch of a button: the first is the “communication” function — which turns it into a powerful loudspeaker that blasts pre-recorded messages. The more contentious second use is “alert” — which directs a high-pitched ear-piercing sound at a target.

Toronto Police insist they’ll be used be used mainly as a new and better way of communicating with large crowds and at levels that will pose no more threat to hearing than leaf blowers and weed whackers.

Yet according to an internal review by the RCMP — the senior partner in Toronto’s summit security — the Mounties took a pass on using the sonic guns in urban settings out of concern they will possibly “cause hearing damage to those targeted or in close proximity.”

The RCMP also noted that the Boston Police Department stopped using their sonic cannons for crowd control “out of a concern for public safety and fear of civil litigation issues”.

The only independent test done on the device was hastily conducted for the OPP just last week at an empty Huntsville airstrip, Cavalluzzo told the court, which doesn’t mimic an urban setting where the sound beams will be ricocheting off tall office buildings, with the potential of harming bystanders.

As for training, he said 22 Toronto Police officers were given two hours of instruction and then given a quiz so challenging that they all scored 100%.

“The training was absolutely absurd,” Cavalluzzo charged.

According to Toronto Police guidelines, the ear-piercing alert blast can only be used at full volume for a maximum of three to five seconds and aimed at a crowd more than 75 metres away.

The concern, said the civil liberties lawyer, is “technology creep.”

If G20 protests turn into mass chaos, barely-trained officers caught in an intense situation might throw those procedures to the wind. “There is a real reasonable fear that will happen,” he argued.

It all sounds too scary to me. Let’s just hit the mute button and be done with them.

"Tasers drawn" as police target G20 protest leaders

April 2, 2009
The London Daily News

Police have turned their attention to the masterminds of yesterday’s violent G20 protests. At 12.20 today 100 officers and the riot squad raided two squats in east London that they say where headquarters for several groups involved in organising.

Several of the 20 to 30 squatters have been arrested, many have injuries related to yesterday’s protests where 90 people were arrested and all are being photographed and questioned in an operation likely to last several hours.

A man at the centre that was raided told Sky News that officers punched him in the face and had taser guns drawn when they smashed their way into the building.

"Shame on Jacqui Smith, shame on Sir Paul Stephenson, the man said.

The Metropolitan Police said those involved in violence should expect a "knock on the door".

Officers are pouring over CCTV footage and shots by Met photographers as well as monitoring internet chatter to identify known troublemakers that were at yesterdays demonstrations.

Those arrested this afternoon are also suspected of targeting today's official G20 meetings in the Docklands.

London battens down hatches in fear of violent G20 protests

March 31, 2009
JULIA BELLUZ, Special to The Globe and Mail


LONDON -- Turkish visitor Ozlem Bas reserved at The Ritz this week, expecting to luxuriate in one of London's poshest hotels.

Instead, she found the landmark in the British capital's tony Mayfair district turned into a bunker. Nearly all of the hotel's street-level windows and doors have been covered in protective blue panels for fear that the many protests planned for this week's summit of the Group of 20 could turn violent.

"It's not very nice at all," said Ms. Bas, an arts and culture producer in London for five days of business and pleasure. Every time she enters the hotel, staff members ask whether she is a guest, which has left her feeling "like a prostitute."

"No one," she said, "wants to feel like the youngest girl in the house."

Like every other visitor to London this week, Ms. Bas is having to deal with the threat of violence arising from the protests planned for the G20 meeting, and which seem likely to overshadow the summit itself.

Even before a group called Bank Bosses Are Criminals smashed several windows at the mansion of Sir Fred Goodwin, former chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland, and vandalized his Mercedes last week, authorities were warning of an ugly mood at the G20 protests, and financial institutions and businesses around London have been stepping up security.

Brace Yourselves, advised a headline in The Economist. Anarchy Back in the UK, declared the Daily Mirror.

Sir Paul Stephenson, head of London's Metropolitan Police Service, described preparations for the G20 as "probably as big a single operation as the Met has done." Sir Paul has ordered all police leave cancelled for the summit and deployed more than 10,000 officers - many armed with 50,000-volt taser stun guns - in the capital at an estimated cost of $13-million.

The demonstrations intended to bring London to a standstill this week will not overlook such tried-and-true issues as war, globalization and climate change. But with the global economy in recession and many people outraged at executive compensation that is perceived as being overly generous for the times, the main event will target the City, London's financial district, and the business leaders who work there. Anti-capitalist groups, which have mushroomed on the Internet, have proclaimed April 1 "Financial Fools' Day."

"We're a bit concerned that the banks are taking over the government, rather than the governments taking over the banks," said Mark Barrett, 39, an organizer of one such group, G20 Meltdown. The group has planned four parades, each led by one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, set to converge on the imposing porticoed headquarters of the Bank of England tomorrow. On Thursday, the day of the G20 meeting, "a giant Monopoly game" will occupy the space in front of the London Stock Exchange.

"We've got people who've lost their jobs, their homes," Mr. Barrett said. "People who have been fed up with the economic system for decades, people who have been involved in the environmental movement."

Of the concern over the possibility of violence, Mr. Barrett said, "It's a big joke. We're going to be hanging mannequins, not actual bankers."

The Metropolitan Police do not see the humour and have advised London's banks to increase security around their offices tomorrow and Thursday. Banks, including UBS, Citigroup and the Royal Bank of Scotland, told employees in London this week to cancel unnecessary meetings, work from home if possible, and, if they must come to work, to wear something less conspicuous than a pin-striped suit.

Spokespeople for the banks refused to comment on security preparations, and bankers have been instructed not to talk about how they will respond. But a finance worker outside the Bank of England was willing to share his game plan, even if he did decline to be named. "We're not going to wear our Rolexes next week," he said. "And we'll put on our 'Down with capitalism' T-shirts to fit in."

The protests are expected to cause losses worth millions of pounds as protesters block roadways and commuters find themselves unable to reach their offices because of train and Tube cancellations.

So far, though, demonstrations have been more creative than catastrophic.

On Saturday, 35,000 people took to the streets of London for the Put People First march, hailed as a peaceful revolution. Its theme was "jobs, justice and climate" and its vague message to world leaders: "Make the economy work for people and the planet."

More than 100 charities, environmental groups and trade unions - including ActionAid, Oxfam, Greenpeace and the Salvation Army - came together for the colourful, music-filled march though London. Only one arrest was reported.

G20 protesters face police with Tasers

March 29, 2009
David Leppard and Steven Swinford

SCOTLAND YARD is to deploy officers armed with 50,000-volt Taser stun guns to deal with violent demonstrators planning to disrupt this week’s G20 summit in London.

The centrepiece of the security plan will be hundreds of officers from the Metropolitan police territorial support group, who are routinely armed with speedcuffs, extended batons and CS gas spray.

The Met confirmed yesterday that they will be supported by officers equipped with Tasers on stand-by should trouble break out.

“There will be an armed response vehicle element to this operation and [those officers] will be carrying Tasers,” said a spokeswoman.

The Met’s admission that Tasers could be used for the first time in the UK during riots came as protest groups claimed police had contacted them to warn that a day of protest in the City on Wednesday would be “very violent”.

All police leave has been cancelled and 10,500 officers, including reinforcements from other forces, will be deployed in the biggest policing operation undertaken in London.

Demonstrations intended to bring the capital’s financial centre to a standstill on Wednesday and disruption to the G20 summit at the ExCel centre in Docklands on Thursday will provide the first big test for Sir Paul Stephenson, the new Met commissioner. He will be aware that the protests provide an opportunity to show the world that London is up to the security and public order challenges of the 2012 Olympics.

With yesterday’s TUC march, a state visit from the president of Mexico tomorrow and the arrival of 40 delegations including 19 heads of state for the G20 summit on Thursday, the week presents a series of complex operational challenges the like of which the Met has not seen in recent history. The organisers of the protests – an alliance of environmental campaigners, anti-capitalist and religious groups – insist they will be peaceful. However, police fear that anarchist elements are likely to stir up trouble.

Police expect up to 1,500 protesters to converge on the Bank of England on Wednesday. At 12.30pm, other demonstrators are expected to “swoop” on the European Climate Exchange centre in Bishopsgate, where they plan to erect pop-up tents, makeshift toilets and even a bicycle-powered cinema, marking the start of a 24-hour Climate Camp.

WHO’S DEMONSTRATING

London Anarchists: have appealed for people to join in “direct action” similar to that seen at previous anti-globalisation protests

Whitechapel Anarchists: London group which praised the attack on the home of Sir Fred Goodwin, the disgraced bank boss

Class War: veteran anarchists who are encouraging supporters to “burn a banker”

G20 Meltdown: A new organisation which will host a carnival at the Bank of England

Climate Camp: environmentalists behind direct action at Heathrow airport and power stations in North Yorkshire and Kent

Climate Rush: group against airport expansion who have “rushed” parliament

People and Planet: student network campaigning to end world poverty, defend human rights and protect the environment

Stop the War Coalition and CND: anti-war protesters against Iraq and Afghanistan wars