The Cops Look Back at Montebello

A year-and-a-half after the fact, new details have come to light about the cops’ activities at the 2007 Montebello protests against George Bush.

As you may recall, police infiltrators at the demo were identified by members of the Black Block, who isolated them with the help of other demonstrators. The faux-protesters had to break through their own police lines and pretend to get arrested (see photo above), all in an attempt to save face while getting away from the demonstrators who had I.D.’ed them. After days of denials, eventually the SQ had to come clean that the people in question, who were spotted wielding rocks, were in fact their own cops.

Now, thanks to research by Francis Dupuis-Déri, police documents have come to light about their operations during the protests, an operation which they dubbed “Flagrant Delit” (trans “Caught In the Act”).

Apart from the names of the cops involved, and documents confirming what we all know now, that at least three of them were designated “provocateurs”, there are also lessons learned by the cops: apparently, they realize that their disguises weren’t great (one of them was wearing a t-shirt defending a right-wing talk radio station), and they looked and smelled like cops. The documents explain that

Minutes from a meeting suggest “modifying the profile of those selected [to infiltrate] so that they can function more efficiently.” Mention is made of the “size” of the officers and the absence of women in the infiltration squads. “Improved training and intelligence about the demonstrators’ subculture would be appropriate. It is more difficult to melt into a crown if you don’t know these things.”

So friends, remember this is for real, and they can learn.

Remember too: so can we.

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a video of the outing, containment and expulsion of the undercovers has been posted to youtube, you can view it here: