This is for all those little urban guerrilla wannabes that I saw on Saturday yelling brilliant things like “Shame, Shame”, “Fuck da’ Po-Leese” and “This is what a police state looks like” while being allowed to proceed unmolested down to the Grand Parade where they spent the rest of the day chanting equally moronic slogans before getting tweaked up for a night at the pubs and clubs.

I know, at your age and in your socio-political identity, it’s mandatory to “hate the pigs”. Yelling at them buys you street cred and gets you laid. Their usual forbearrance in the face of such puerile antics makes it generally a safe proposition. I get it. I was young once too. You may eventually grow up and despite the odds you may actually become productive members of society, or at the very least, not parasitic drains on it.
But think about it for a moment. What they did on Friday was a result of a lawful directive from the political authority to which they are responsible. You may disagree with the Mayor’s stance or how he handled the situation. I know I certainly do. But the Police were doing their job. Making them the target of your anger is juvenile and pointless. And please, do not invoke the spirit of Nuremburg. Halifax 2011 is a hell of a long way from being Nazi Germany.

So think about this for a moment, if you possess the attention span. Do you really want to live in a society where the police decide which directives they obey, and only follow orders given by a democratically elected civic authority when they agree with them. THAT is what a police state would truly resemble. —Detective Sipowicz

This article appears in Nov 10-16, 2011.

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43 Comments

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  4. “Barney”? Miller or Fife >; )
    Oh yeah, Timbiscuit can practically smell the A.J.A.s he expects to win from his coverage.

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  8. i don’t remember where we lived when barney miller first aired. it was on sunday morning, so us heathens were at home

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  10. great post! This “Woodstock without the music” movement has turned our cities into vagrant refugee camps. Protest is great! Camping out for weeks on end and denying public areas is not so great. Good riddance!

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  11. Lots of law abiding people DO have a problem with HRP because we have seen the immature roid-raging monkey business that certain officers have committed. I don’t hate every HRP officer and have met nice ones, but in general I would not give the time of day to a cop or hold a door open for them.

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  16. yeah right o.p., but at the first sign of trouble, who would they call, ghostbusters? these fucking idiotic kids don’t know or understand fuck all these days. it wasn’t the cops that tossed them, it was their own selves that made kelly say goodbye. they shot off once too often, and kelly, acting on complaints, numerous ones, had no choice but to get them gone.
    don’t forget there are lagit businesses in that area, that don’t want these cretins hanging out there, and spoiling the air quality for everyone walking down s.g.r.

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  17. Doesn’t that fact that you are able to yell “This is what a police state looks like” at a police officer and not be taken away in the middle of the night in your underwear and never heard from again mean that you DON’T LIVE IN A POLICE STATE?

    Any one who yells ‘This is what a police state looks like” in Canada has never actually been to a police state.

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  19. Sipowich was “NYPD Blue” not “Barney Miller”. LOL.

    These twits wouldn’t know what a police state is. Just a little education – in a police state they shoot to kill and if you ain’t dead then you’re in a dingy cell (if you’re lucky) and being tortured. Hell, our boys didn’t even break out their batons, pepper spray, tasers, dogs, or horses.

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  20. I think the overriding issue is the fact that the mayor used Remembrance Day for political gain. Very noble of him.

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  23. Actualy OB…if you read todays paper…they over stepped themselves AGAIN.
    Seems without a court order the police had no right to act & Council had no right to direct them to act.
    Seems that LAWS still have to be obeyed…but BY-Laws have rules that need to be followed as well.
    So to those who protested that the police state is here…I agree, why should any of us follow the laws(aka rules) set down, when those who are employed to enforce
    those laws, do not ?
    I await your sputtering back peddling, claims of “Duh, I didn’t know/realise that “
    Hell you should run for Mayor or council OB…you’re as brain dead as they are ! You’d fit right in.

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  24. You be sure to send us a postcard from the Gulag just as soon as the jack-booted storm troopers kick in your door, O.K. >: )LOL

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  25. I’m sorry, I have to laugh at this. I think these people are going just a little too far in saying we live in a police state. If this WAS a ‘police state’, this whole Occupy NS protest wouldn’t even have been allowed to take place, (Or ANY protest, for that matter). There’d be no public demonstrations permitted of any kind, ESPECIALLY those that question gov’t/state policies. You could get beaten and/or locked up for telling a political joke. The police wouldn’t have gone to Victoria Park to enforce a bylaw (court order or not) or to take down tents. They would have been going to Victoria Park to either beat and imprison for life, those that publicly oppose the state, or execute them. And we wouldn’t be allowed to even discuss whether or not they were right in doing this because we’d be met with the same fate. If this is a police state, NO ONE would be allowed to post any comments on this or any other site because it simply wouldn’t exist. We wouldn’t be reading news stories about the Occupy movement or the actions of this past friday. There would be no pictures, videos or other evidence that it even happened. Police would maintain their own telephone system, and use it mainly for listening in on conversations of citzens. Every area of life would be under their supervision, right down to the kindergarten level. NO ONE would be allowed to freely leave the province of their own will. All fit young men would be made to serve time in either the military or the police.
    Does all this sound a little too unbelievable? A little too far fetched? This was life in East Germany, a police state, up until 1989, (not that long ago in the grand scheme of things). I don’t know whether the police acted within legal bounds or broke laws or not. I was not there, I am not a lawyer nor do I believe everything that gets printed in the paper. But I DO know we sure as hell don’t live in a police state. Give your head a shake.

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  27. “Only if he had a grenade. Otherwise he’d be fucked. Wait he is fucked.”

    Got more balls than any CF member.

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  28. Really? And you would know this HOW, Donairious? You been hanging out at the garrison lately, ‘welcoming’ the boys home from The Stan, have you? Down at the dockyard, ‘tying up’ the fleet, or ‘swallowing the anchor’, perhaps? (Imagine all the semen…er…seamen!) Maybe you flitted over to Shearwater, offered your own brand of ‘flight stimula….(oopsie! I mean)… simulation’? (“More collective, less cyclic you brute!) lol

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  30. So because he was a “young teen fighting in a war” (your words) that THAT somehow equates to him having “bigger balls” or more guts?
    I find that really sad, actually.
    And I must have missed the news story about the gov’t investing millions with Activision for the new COD combat training simulator. Oh well…*shrug*

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  31. No wonder Harper is “president”, with a bunch of slack jawed yokles that think that “in camera” meetings and secret agendas should be the celebrated status quo. So a simple protest, no matter how diluted their message seems to be, is met with police forcibly removing them on Remembrance Day (a peaceful and respectful day), is somehow acceptable to all you right wing blowhards. Nobody sees anything wrong with this? Just because you’re happy with the outcome doesn’t mean we should all sit back and applaud the process. If social justice is their message (which it seems to be), they were certainly served a cold dish of that on Friday. Our spineless piece of shit mayor sits back and washes his hands of the whole deal letting all the blame go to our own “chief wiggum”. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that parade square or any other park should be turned into a “hobo camp”, but do we dismiss the lack of tact used by elected government officials to produce any outcome?

    I’m also not accusing the police of doing a poor job, a certain amount of force is necessary to remove a group of obstinate people from any space that needs vacating, they’re just doing their job. As far as that goes, they could have given the group a little time to pack, maybe even waited until the rainstorm had passed giving the tents and equipment time to dry out. But I guess the higher-ups decided that they should attack when the group was the smallest and give the least resistance, without a second thought to the irony of the message they would be sending by using remembrance day as eviction day.

    In light of what they did to clear the NY protesters last night, police in riot gear, 2:00am with the press locked out and their helicopter not allowed in the airspace above the park, our little eviction seems pretty tame. This does not excuse the behavior of a shameless city council lead by the most spineless man alive.

    Shame on all of you for touting the outcome as an excuse for fundamentally flawed process!!!!!

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  32. And before this goes any further, I’m just going to stop you there. I’m not going to get pulled into an assinine argument over “who’s got more intestinal fortitude” involving things/situations I admittedly am only somewhat familiar with, (Omar Khadr). I just found your comment about the CF to be really flippant. But whatever. You’re entitled to your opinion.

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  36. Perhaps if the poster went for a trip to Syria and tried the old Occupy Fantasy there, I’m sure the Israelis would be able to hangar a couple of F16’s in his arsehole after the Syrian police/troops reamed him out.

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  42. Haifa was ok. Really dirty though. The cool thing was there were Israelis and Arabs co-habitating and going about life with no animosity whatsoever. (At least, none that I could see)
    I had a chance to go to Jerusalem but opted out at the last minute. The German Colony is pretty cool. Lots of nice restaurants and shops. Right at the foot of the Baha’i Gardens, which is quite beautiful. Definately a lot of history.

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