Police put on a `good spectacle'
Snipers, leg irons, selected evidence, police brass — all calculated to sway the public, lawyers and security experts say
Jun. 5, 2006. 08:16 AM
LINDA DIEBEL
STAFF REPORTER
"A good spectacle ... theatrical atmosphere ... like 24 ... an awards show."
Reviews for a Mirvish production, right? Maybe a Hollywood blockbuster or fast-paced new action series on Fox?
Wrong. It's how several lawyers and security experts describe the sombre, indeed frightening, events which transpired in the GTA over the past weekend.
At a news conference Saturday, a dozen of the highest-ranking police officers in the province gathered to announce that an alleged terrorist cell had been shut down before it could explode a truck bomb three times more powerful than the device used in Oklahoma City. They were circumspect about Operation O-Sage, arguing time constraints in the preparation of evidence as well as police procedure.
The anti-terrorism task force was careful about the wording of its news release, saying that the group "took steps to acquire" the three tonnes of ammonium nitrate, a popular fertilizer used to make bombs. As well, they laid out selected evidence for the photographers and TV crews, showing only "sample" bags of ammonium nitrate.
Meanwhile, under massive police security which included sharpshooters on nearby roofs and tactical squad officers with submachine-guns, suspects were brought in leg irons to the provincial courthouse in Brampton. There, in Room 101, Justice of the Peace John Farnum postponed bail hearings until tomorrow morning.
For the experts contacted by the Star, these events were as much about creating an image for the public as about charging the individuals. And it's an image, they argue, that could hurt the right of the accused — 12 men and five youths — to a fair trial.
Being on message — "on script" as the spin doctors put it — is a concept more easily associated with politicians than police chiefs. But for a veteran of the criminal justice system like Toronto lawyer Walter Fox, it's the obvious lens through which to judge events.
The principal audience, in his view, is the Canadian public.
"Police think they have to present a show of force to advance the public's understanding that these guys are dangerous," said Fox. "Does it prejudice the mind of the public? I think so.
"As a criminal lawyer, I am well aware that police and the prosecution are never stronger than at the moment when they've brought their suspects into court for the first time. I've also learned that the stronger the police seem to be at this point, the more suspicious I become that they don't have a complete case."
Overall, Fox tends to believe that the checks and balances of the justice system will probably win out. David Jacobs, a Toronto lawyer with extensive experience in international human rights law, is less sure.
"The fanfare around the arrests creates such a theatrical atmosphere one wonders if it is necessary for the enforcement of justice.... It raises the emotional level without necessarily shedding any light," he said.
In Brampton Saturday, lawyer Anser Farooq, who represents five of the accused, clearly saw the image of snipers on the roof and police armed to the teeth as negative to his clients. "This is ridiculous," he told the Star. "They've got soldiers here with guns. This is going to completely change the atmosphere."
Inside, lawyer Rocco Galati, representing two suspects, complained to Farnum about the leg irons and armed officers in the courtroom, adding: "I do not feel safe with an automatic weapon facing in my direction."
Police evidence was carefully chosen for the news conference, held at the Toronto Congress Centre by the RCMP-led National Security Enforcement Team.
The chief speaker was RCMP Assistant Commissioner Mike McDonell, and lined up behind him were chiefs of police from Toronto, York, Durham and Peel regions, as well as representatives from the Ontario Provincial Police and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
"When I saw all that brass lined up with every cop in southern Ontario and Canada telling us what a wonderful job they had done, I thought it was like an awards show," said Fox. "Everybody will tell you it's standard but they are all working to influence the public."
He had questions, as did Jacobs, about exactly how three tonnes of ammonium nitrate were "acquired" by the suspects. The Star has learned that when investigators monitoring the men found out about the alleged purchase of the fertilizer, they intervened before delivery, switching the potentially deadly material with a harmless substance.
Jacobs advised vigilance in seeing what comes out in court about how far police went. He said that the courts have been drawing a line past which law enforcement officers can't go without being seen as having induced the commission of a criminal offence.
He found it interesting that police referred to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing where 168 people died in an explosion at a federal building. He said that if, for example, police arranged for delivery of the ammonium nitrate, it would shed a different light on proceedings.
"In Oklahoma City, there was no suggestion police were involved," said Jacobs, adding that there are a number of important unanswered questions in the investigation.
Jacobs also criticized police for linking the suspects to Al Qaeda, the terrorist group responsible for the 9/11 attacks, without providing evidence. Police said that cell members were "inspired" by Al Qaeda.
Fox chuckled at the way evidence was presented, notably the use of similar bags of ammonium nitrate, not the actual evidence.
Watching it on TV, he said, he had the sense of reading an old crime pulp magazine from the '50s, with lines like: "At a location similar to the one pictured above, the following events took place ..."
"Was there a police infiltrator?" asked Fox. "Did a spouse talk to police or did someone arrested on more minor charges give information to police? We don't know what kind of a police operation it was. Everybody thinks that it's like on TV, but everything is far more complicated."
Michael Edmunds, administrator of the U of T's McLuhan Program in Culture & Technology, argues the public is already so influenced by television that people are receptive to the kind of message sent out by police on the weekend.
Unconsciously, receptive audiences for police actions are created by such TV shows as the Fox hit 24, starring Kiefer Sutherland as counter-terrorist agent Jack Bauer. Viewers sympathize with Bauer, no matter what he has to do, because they want him to get the bad guys and protect the free world.
Edmunds argued that certain memes — or unspoken beliefs in any culture — are constantly being reinforced. Here, he said, the message was that police know what they are doing and they are protecting us.
"It's all global theatre, as Marshall McLuhan used to say. We assume the police want to help us and we assume it's good."
The interesting aspect of the weekend for him was yesterday's front-page play of the story in the New York Times. "Now we know what the police did was good," he said. "It's vindication when our brothers and sisters in the United States see it, too."
And perhaps therein lies another audience for the images of the weekend: the American public, or more precisely, official Washington, both the White House and Capitol Hill.
The Times story pointed out that Bush administration officials were kept abreast of the police investigation and arrests, adding that Canadian Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day spoke early Saturday with his U.S. counterpart, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.
The Oklahoma City reference would surely resonate with Americans. The 1995 tragedy — the first domestic terrorist action in recent history — shocked a nation. It was exceedingly difficult for Americans to come to grips with the fact that domestic terrorists were involved, and not foreigners.
The trial of Timothy McVeigh, who was executed for the crime, was held under massive security, a preview perhaps of what Canadians can expect in the trial of the O-Sage 17.
"They are putting on a good spectacle, a show," U.S. security expert John Pike said in a telephone interview from Virginia yesterday about the Canadian police show of force. "We are used to that here."
Pike said the kind of massive security force employed in U.S. trials, while clearly reinforced in the aftermath of 9/11, is not a product simply of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks on 9/11.
"There has been an inexorable militarization of the police in the United States since the 1980s," he said, citing a gradual weakening of human rights groups that began a decade earlier. "But there has been a substantial ratcheting up of security since 9/11."
Problem is, said Pike, that police and prosecutors "make a big deal of what they've got, but as trials progress, we've repeatedly seen that the prosecution's case falls apart because they simply don't have the evidence."
According to Pike, the key to the Canadian case will be the three tonnes of ammonium nitrate with which the 17 suspects supposedly plotted to set off a bomb in southern Ontario.
Additional articles by Linda Diebel
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