A really solid article about the state of Toronto protest policing.

It leverages the injury stats that we collect as Orange Hats, but it goes well beyond that.


Policing institutions are highly organized, funded, and ideologically mobilized militant forces that serve the capitalist-colonial global paradigm — nothing they do is (or can be) done in an apolitical vacuum. For that reason, the surrounding social-political context helps us assess the material underpinnings of why the state behaves violently toward certain groups, but not others, even if they’re all racialized.

The above Orange Hats report came just a few days before something seemingly unrelated happened. The official TPS Instagram account posted a now-viral reel in support of the United States-Israeli-backed Pahlavi regime change movement on February 2nd, and noted how there were “zero incidents” at a protest the day before.

The full caption of the Toronto Police reel that has amassed 4.3 million views and 200,000+ likes reads as such:

150,000 demonstrators and
zero incidents.

Thanks to the meticulous
planning, effective on‑the‑ground
work, and professionalism of
our members and specialized
units [emphasis added],
yesterday’s event in the heart
of our city remained safe and
peaceful.

When the police say there was ‘no incident’, all that usually means is no one was arrested. In a reality where fascists and neo-Nazis are protected to roam freely, while pro-Palestinian and Indigenous people get arrested after state thugs drive an unmarked car or ride horses into them, what exactly does Toronto Police claim ‘no incidents’ actually reveal?

Read the full article:

https://praxisarchives.substack.com/p/the-true-scale-of-toronto-police

https://archive.is/I3H9P

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

The True Scale of Toronto Police Violence Against Palestinian and Indigenous Protesters

And confronting the expanding role of the Toronto Police producing viral imperialist propaganda

Praxis Archives

2/🧵
Another important passage from the piece.


By many measures, the most important social media platform that Toronto Police Services uses is Instagram, where they’ve rapidly grown to have 146,000+ followers. It took a couple hours, but I went through every single post they’ve ever made — as of this writing, that’s a total of 4,395 posts since October 1st, 2013. It’s absurd how much they communicate through social media, but in nearly 13 years they’ve never shown explicit support for an ongoing civil rights struggle or expressed clear geopolitical alignment. Except for their support of genocidal Israel particularly since 2023, and now the prospect of U.S. imperialist aggression against Iran.

https://praxisarchives.substack.com/p/the-true-scale-of-toronto-police

The True Scale of Toronto Police Violence Against Palestinian and Indigenous Protesters

And confronting the expanding role of the Toronto Police producing viral imperialist propaganda

Praxis Archives