Where And When Did The Police Meet the Protestors?

StockingUpTheInconsistencies
MoreAndMoreEveryDayVille

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Update: Alison points us towards a second source re: 'where' (see bottom of post)
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We finally know the 'who' of the Montebello undercover police deal, but what about the other four 'W's that make up the central tenet of modern journalism?

For example........'what', exactly, were the undercover police doing and 'where' were they going 'when' they were outed by the legitimate protestors?

And 'why' were the illegitimate protestors/police doing what they were doing?

Well, here's the latest in a long string of 'official' versions of the story ('w's bolded, in brackets all mine):

Yesterday, a senior Quebec Provincial Police officer, Inspector Marcel Savard, said the clip shows only a portion of the events.

Earlier (when), the undercover officers had infiltrated (what) a separate group of "extremists" and one of them handed an officer a rock, he said. The officers left the group and ended up in a crowd of peaceful demonstrators.

"He had a choice, a very quick choice to make," Insp. Savard said. He held onto the rock because "he was still hoping that his cover was good (why) ... [but] he never had the intention of using that rock."

Which is fair enough, as far as the story goes so far, except for one little thing.

There was no 'where' there.

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There is someone, however, who says he knows 'where' the three illegitimate protestors met the real protestors.

And that person is a citizen, Mr. Paul Malouf, who also says that he was there.

Here is Mr. Malouf's statement, directly from his website:

"As I was walking westward on the 148 through the town of Montebello: These 3 individuals were walking up route 148, going towards the main confrontation at the gates of the Chateau Montebello. They were confronted initially be the rouge/noir in front of the Crevier Gas Station on route 148. The rouge/noir told them to backtrack, to go away, to get lost in french. The 3 individuals seemed perplexed at being outed. The 3 individuals veered off to the right, off of route 148, to the quiet 2nd line of police on route 323."


Now, I have not been able to verify Mr. Malouf's statement with a direct second source (another central tenet of journalism unless, of course, one is planting stories on the front pages of grey ladies to start wars). Thus, at this point, it must be taken with a grain of salt and a healthy dose of caution.

However, Mr. Malouf's statement is not at direct odds with the first part of the statement from the QPP's Inspector Savard quoted above.

But the second part of Monsieur Savard's statement, the part about the 'very quick choice', how about that?

Well, for that we have to return to the 'when' and examine it a little more closely.

And to do that we head back over to Mr. Malouf's place to get a little bit more:

......they (the police) were exposed several minutes before before the video started , almost in front of the quiet train station on route 148.


Hmmmm.... 'several minutes'?

Isn't that plenty of time to make all kinds of very quick and/or even very slow (and deliberate?) choices?


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There is something else buried in Mr. Malouf's account that is worth considering quite seriously if it can be verified unequivocally. And that is the following: "These 3 individuals were walking up route 148, going towards the main confrontation at the gates of the Chateau Montebello". Now if they really were heading that way (ie. towards the actual business leaders and heads of states behind the gates), well that would be whole different kettle of fish altogether don't you think?
Update: Alison has a second source that pretty much confirms what Mr. Malouf had to say about the 'where'. And it is none other than Dave Coles, the labour leader from the infamous video who said the following during an interview on CBC Radio's 'As It Happens' earlier in the week: "I didn't know they were police right away but I knew they were agitators because earlier they had been trying to get the young kids down on the road to cause trouble." This statement was essentially confirmed by former police officer and crowd control expert Douglas Kirkland in an interview with Macleans.ca's Kady O'Malley posted yesterday: "in speaking with [Dave Coles, president of the Communications, Energy, and Paperworkers Union] yesterday, he really filled in a bit more of what happened before the tape started to roll. The Black Bloc guys had already identified them as probable police, and that's part of the reason why they were on the move back to the police line."

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