Canadian police make arrests amid 'Freedom Convoy' protests and seize fuel, vehicles

[Omaha Steve]

Source: Washington Post

By Jennifer Hassan and Amanda Coletta

Police are clamping down on self-described “Freedom Convoy” anti-vaccine-mandate demonstrations in Canada’s capital, making multiple arrests, issuing hundreds of tickets, and seizing vehicles and fuel as Ottawa’s mayor declared a state of emergency.

The emergency declaration was designed to give officers more “flexibility” to respond to the hundreds and sometimes thousands of truckers and their supporters who are gathered in the streets to denounce coronavirus measures, Mayor Jim Watson said Sunday. And, he said, the declaration reflects the “serious danger and threat to the safety and security of residents.”

Fireworks were shot off, drivers blared their horns and streets remained blocked for the second weekend in a row, and Watson admitted Sunday that authorities were “outnumbered” and “losing this battle” against groups who were “calling the shots.”

Ottawa Police Service said in a statement Sunday it had launched over 60 criminal investigations amid the ongoing protests — including thefts, hate crimes and property damage. At least seven arrests had been made as of 9 p.m. Sunday local time in relation to property damage and other acts of “mischief,” police said. “Multiple vehicles and fuel have been seized,” the statement said.



Police officers walk past parked tractors, as truckers and supporters continue to protest coronavirus vaccine mandates, in Ottawa on Feb. 6. (Lars Hagberg/Reuters)

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/02/07/canada-ottawa-truckers-protests-arrests/

[comradebillyboy]

1. About time they did...

[grumpyduck]

2. Good for them.

Scream all you want, repuqs.

[Justice matters.]

3. "thefts, hate crimes and property damage"

The definition of what Conservatives are for and do these days.

In fact, that is ALL they do.

[PatSeg]

15. The sort of things conservatives

are quick to accuse liberals of. They don't even know how to peacefully protest because everything for them is about hate and violence.

[Mr. Scorpio]

4. These assholes are playing the victim right now, right?

[OneCrazyDiamond]

5. Only 7?

[yaesu]

6. Civilized countries always go through a period of shock when attacked by fascists thugs

delaying responses, going into denial, but this is an attacked from the outside using cyber war and deep pocket financers.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

7. Was attempted murder yesterday: at apt building, taping doors shut and then lighting fire

Apartment dwellers told off some occupiers for bad behavior. Two of the snowflakes came back later with a full package of firestarter bricks. They taped the front doors shut so they could not be opened and then lit the bricks in the lobby by the elevators and left by a side door.

Protestors don't commit arson.
Protestors don't attempt murder.

People who merely want to make a point (even if criminally) don't tape doors shut.
People who want to kill and injure tape doors shut where people live and try to burn them alive.

[IronLionZion]

10. If they're white, then they don't have any political agenda

and can't be terrorists.

[jmowreader]

27. The people in this convoy all hate Antifa and BLM...

and then they go out and try something neither group would ever do.

My recommendation is to sentence these individuals to watch their vehicles be taken to the Canadian Army base at Kingston and be used for antitank rocket targets. They could even have a contest between the Canadian Army and the 10th Mountain Division.

[Trueblue1968]

37. Attempted murder by nazi trumpers

Matias Muñoz @TiMunoz · 3h
To be clear, the protesters created the unsafe conditions under which this event was allowed to transpire. I'm not saying it was a big burly trucker.
I think it's a bad actor related to the protests who wants to hurt people. It started with the swastika on day 1. Period.

[BlueWavePsych]

40. Persons of interest in attempted murder and arson in Ottawa

Matias Munoz said that when he came downstairs Sunday morning, he saw the carpet and floor were charred, and that there were blackened fire-starter bricks strewn across the lobby.

The building manager showed him surveillance video, which he said appears to show two men light a package of the bricks in the lobby and secure the front door handles together before leaving through the side door around 5 a.m. Sunday.

“On top of all that, somebody trying to do something as insidious as taping the door shut so people can’t leave if there’s a fire in the main lobby — it’s terror, is what it is,” Munoz said.

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/police-arson-unit-probes-ottawa-fire-allegation-in-heat-of-anti-mandate-protest

[AllyCat]

8. Yay! No quarter for these creeps.

[CaptainTruth]

9. JFC, just get the vaccine already.

These idiots will waste days of time & effort when they could have just gotten vaccinated & been done with it.

[Captain Zero]

11. It's odd to me they put their own property at risk

To do this.

For many of them that truck or tractor is their livelihood. A well placed Molotov or paintball could take it out and their insurance would probably be no good to replace it.

Maybe it's what happens when Putin and the Mercers are paying you to 'demonstrate'.

[cbabe]

13. It's not about the vaccine. It's about entitlement,

white supremacy, patriarchy. Fear of the new changing world.

Plus it’s fun to bully and break things.

‘Honk if you’re a big baby who needs a cookie.’

[L. Coyote]

14. It's a political attack on Trudeau, regime change is the goal. It's Manafort/Putinesque politics.

[Ford_Prefect]

25. And who do you think initiated it? I'd love to see the FBI report on this one.

So would the Jan. 6 committee. There are likely to be some very familiar names and bank accounts listed.

[PatSeg]

16. Yes and they crave conflict and violence

They went out looking for a fight and any excuse will do. Now they can be violent and feel vindicated, as in their minds, it was for a worthy cause. "FREEDOM!!!" They all think they are Mel Gibson in Braveheart evidently.

[happy feet]

39. Bingo!

[dawn5651]

12. it is well past time for the americans and canadians to go home. people who live in that area

are basically prisoners of that bunch.

[BobTheSubgenius]

17. As has been found in other, similar or at least like-minded "events,"

foreign money has found its way into the mix, via GFM. Of course GFM. To GFM's credit they are returning the money, right around $10,000,000.

I can't understand why the truckers haven't self-identified as Legitimate Political Discourse.

[mahina]

22. What is gfm?

Thank you.

[Zorro]

23. Go Fund Me

[mahina]

36. Ah thanks

[quakerboy]

35. They shouldnt be returning it

That just frees those donors to find a new way to give them money.

They should be holding it for the lawsuit thats apparently been filed, and subsequent ones/

[DanieRains]

18. We Have 900,000 Dead Because Of Idiots Like These Truckers

See what hate radio does?

[Ford_Prefect]

28. It's far more complicated than hate radio alone. There is a long term, involved organization to this

The people behind hate's expansion into TV and Online have even more to do with it.

Some of it goes back to Ford and Edison fighting labor organizing by blaming Jews through anti-Semitic false stories planted in captive newspapers of the day. More recently it is through Russian internet trolls carrying out long-term plans to disrupt Western democracy.

The same fear and hatred is planted and triggered to activate otherwise absurd "protests" such as this one, and in the bargain the press reads it as a spontaneous expression of political unrest rather than doing the research to see the difference.

[Wicked Blue]

19. Why can't they call in the Mounties?

The police need reinforcements.

[luvs2sing]

21. Been wondering the same thing.

The RCMP are notably absent.

[jmowreader]

29. Because this is happening in Ontario

This is kind of weird, so I shall explain.

There are ten provinces in Canada. Eight of them use the RCMP for most if not all of their policing. In the largest cities, like Vancouver and Calgary, they are allowed to establish municipal police departments. There the RCMP is the police force.

In Ontario, where Ottawa is, and Quebec, which thinks it’s the westernmost Region of France, there are provincial police departments - and the big cities also have municipal police departments. The RCMP only has jurisdiction over federal crimes and can’t be called in for provincial crimes like these are…but the terrorist act they attempted to do last night qualifies as something the RCMP can work on, and I’m sure they are.

Given that, the National Defence Act of Canada allows “aid to the civil power” so, unlike the US where the Posse Comitatus Act prohibits the use of the military against civilians, the Ontario provincial government is entitled to call in the Army…which has LOTS of big trucks that can drag off a semi and lots of infantry to keep the truckers from stopping them.

[Wicked Blue]

33. Thank you for explaining this nt

[Bernardo de La Paz]

43. The RCMP was called early and the federal government has made something 500 available. . . . nt

[samsingh]

20. Good for the police

[SheltieLover]

24. Good!

[Mr. Sparkle]

26. I wonder do Canadians have right wing hate radio up there.

That sure would go a long way to explain the protests.

[jmowreader]

30. They have Internet up there

[KYBlue]

31. What percentage of these truckers are actually from Canada?

I wouldn't be surprised if Americans are the majority of the protesters trying to sow discord in "socialist" Canada.

[obamanut2012]

32. Canada has more than plenty home-grown wingnuts

Fascists, sov cits, Nazis. I am getting kinda tired of people ignoring that and balming US wingnuts.

JFC a HUGE part of Canadian land is inhabited by these type of folks.

[Jedi Guy]

41. "JFC a HUGE part of Canadian land is inhabited by these type of folks."

Yeah, it's called Alberta. I've never been there except for a connecting flight through Calgary, but my friends here in Ontario refer to it as the Texas of Canada. If memory serves, Alberta was the first province to do away with mask mandates and the first to relax a whole host of other pandemic measures.

Ontario isn't perfect, though, since we've got Doug Ford as our premier...

[Hortensis]

38. Even imagining Canada had no RW idiots of the same general type,

wouldn't it be a stretch to imagine Canada would allow American truck drivers and trucks by the hundreds to come in and break their laws and cause havoc -- in a number of cities across their nation, not just in their national capital -- for a couple of weeks? Be rather expensive for the truckers too, who'd be far off their routes and presumably brought rowdy crowds of many thousands of American agitators with them.

The growth of far-right extremism and aggressive anti-establishment/anti-government populism is happening around the planet in many nations. It's not just us.

[quakerboy]

34. Talk radio doesnt stop at the border

And its influence is.. not great.

[BlueWavePsych]

42. Federal transport minister calls on Ford government to cancel protesters' commercial truck licences

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ottawa-protest-parliament-1.6342221