2/🧵

It was a long day yesterday.
(It's going to be another long day today, but at least I get some gardening time in before the shit show.)

Yesterday's event was a lovely part of the AAPI Heritage Month festivities, that had drumming and lion dancing, plus I got a knot in my upper back lessened.

But also the cops briefly turned up, justifying our presence.

It is amazing to me that Toronto Police Service has yet to figure out that we are asked to be present at an ever-widening array of events, precisely because someone is anticipating police malfeasance.

A certain someone has been saying that our refusal to pretend to be neutral means that we shouldn't be calling ourselves "legal observers", because there is an air of neutrality in the name.

I say that is an illusion.
Legal observers are requested specifically to watch and document POLICE malfeasance. Even the NLG with its policy of not chanting or participating in protests, are not there to document what the protestors do.

We at Orange Hats take the policy that as long as the police are not "malfeasing", we are free to do anything up to, but not including, civil disobedience while wearing the hat. (We can always take the hat off.)

Calling cops "fascist motherfuckers" is not civil disobedience. I'm sure they would love to arrest me for that, yet it's not illegal. Sucks being them.

Anyway, as anticipated, a clusterfuck of cops turned up to intimidate attendees at the Asian Massage Festival yesterday, an event put on by a community heavily over-policed, and so we had been asked to be present.

I (being me) had a "Tell Cersei" moment and walked down the stairs to a point where they could see me to snap a photo, which is when they noticed four other Orange Hats peering over the railing collecting their badge numbers. 😁

On their way out the door (having been invited to get the fuck out by facilities management) one of our favourites rambled some nonsense about OH being "anti-cop disruptors" and that people shouldn't want to be associated with us.

In that we *disrupted* their plans to force their way in and threaten people, I guess maybe we are. 🤷🏾‍♀️

Somehow, I don't think cops would like it better if we were called Police Malfeasance Observers and Documenters + Legal Support, which is technically what we are.

Also they should stop getting their ✌🏾"intel"✌🏾 from Caryma, and I would probably stop mockingly asking them if they "realize that intel is short for intelligence," and they should probably stop looking to a person who is fatally allergic to the concept for theirs.

#Toronto #TorontoActions #PoliceDontKeepUsSafe #PoliceDontPreventCrime #DefundDisarmDismantle #Abolish #FuckThePolice