The level of "corruption" within the police is greatly exaggerated and sensationalized by people who are obsessed with George Orwell and proving that we're living in a 1985 era. It gets tiresome. If there was anything serious to be worried about is a different story... or real proof instead of posters like neubilder saying "duuudee, we're like totally in a police state man, it's pretty much Toronto, Syria amirite?". As someone related to former OPP officers as well as a couple current OPP officers it's offensive claiming they're all corrupt scumbags who brutally beat some poor g20 pacifists who were just standing next to that broken window with a baseball bat peacefully or just lighting that molotov cocktail for warmth. I've completely stopped opening anything related to the g20 and the like as it is just too infuriating. People are spoiled and don't realize it.
So, I was physically detained and searched on the Monday preceding the event while walking across the downtown core towards where I live at Yonge & Lakeshore. I was working that day. At my six-figure-plus job. Where this libertarian I pays apeloads of taxes to help fund these jackboots.
I refused the clearly illegal search. And the OIPRD report makes note of many other cases like mine where the searches were completely, utterly, fucking illegal. The police physically grabbed me, spun me around, removed my knapsack with my company laptop and my possessions and proceded to remove them and inspect them -- including questioning me about the fact that I had a conference badge from Google IO that said "Mike Brock" as my name where as the drivers license they physically removed from my wallet as I refused to participate in their illegal arrest identified me as "Christopher Michael Brock" -- and proceeded to swear at me, saying that I was personally engaging in the endangerment of Toronto citizens by not cooperating with them, and a whole bunch of other things which were insulting and some that bordered on degrading.
And to top it all off, when it ended, and I protested what had just happened to me, they
refused to identify themselves to me. Their nametags had been removed from their vests, and the lead officer merely smirked at me and repeated "you can go now sir" to every protest.
If you think that my outrage to this situation is the result of me being "spoiled", then I would certainly find it gratifying karma to find you the unsuspecting victim of police overreach.
The fact that you would even entertain incidents like this as some sort of acceptable background noise to your stated necessity of policing only reveals the thinly-veiled hard on and double standard you apply for authority figures.
I'm sick of people like you. I'm sick of people who say that we should just brush these incidents off because "most police are hard working". I'm hard working. I work 80 hour weeks to bring in my salary and support my family. I often spend 14 hours at the office, go home, miss my daughter going to bed at night, and stay up working all night to keep up with my workload at work.
I'm sure that if my stress got to me one day, and I popped back a few cool ones and proceeded to beat my wife and daughter, you'd be first in line to say: "Hey, cut him a break, he has a hard job."