SHAME ON YOU, COPS: IT'S A MARIJUANA PROTEST

In nearly every major city on May 2 (over 300 cities worldwide)
peaceful demonstrators congregated to protest marijuana laws. Local
police across the country participated to ensure an orderly March,
and for that they should be congratulated. However, there was an
attitude among Calgary officers. The parade felt more like a show of
police force, intrusive intelligence gathering, and an opportunity to
make arrests, rather than civic duty for an orderly parade.

Multiple officers were armed with a variety of surveillance
equipment, including high definition cameras capable of interfacing
with face recognition software, in addition to video surveillance.
Unlike many protests across Canada users were targeted by Police
where confiscations, and presumably arrests took place. In Toronto
there were 32 officers for over 5,000 people in the parade, in
contrast Calgary's turnout of around 750 and the number of officers
per capita here far exceeded that of Toronto. Many of these officers
harassed protesters staring them down and projected an air of
intimidation and menace, with the police helicopter needlessly
circling overhead every 10 to 15 minutes.

As a citizen I am outraged by the officers' outlandish and
confrontational attitude towards a peaceful and generally cooperative protest.

Reginald Caruthers, Calgary