Trudeau: Hundreds of cops backed by armored vehicles and horses arrest at least 100 Freedom Convoy protesters in Ottawa and tow 21 big rigs

Trudeau: Hundreds of cops backed by armored vehicles and horses arrest at least 100 Freedom Convoy protesters in Ottawa and tow 21 big rigs. By Greg Woodfield.

More than 100 truckers and protestors have been arrested so far as hundreds of police launched a massive crackdown on the Freedom Convoy occupation of Ottawa on Friday.

Heavily-armed riot cops used pepper spray, while mounted police and armored vehicles were also brought in to help begin clearing the downtown area, paralyzed by a three-week blockade over the truckers’ Covid jab protest.

On Friday night, Ottawa police ramped up the pressure by issuing an alert saying anyone ‘within the unlawful protest site may be arrested’.

A third protest leader, Pat King, was arrested. On Thursday two other organizers – Tamara Lich and Chris Barber – were taken into custody. …

Demonstrators yelled ‘shame on you’ and chanted at the officers, who stood immobile for at least two hours in what appears to be a patient and methodical police operation. …

Behind the wall of riot cops other officers could be seen arresting truckers who had stayed in their rigs which were overrun by the law enforcement surge … Cops could be seen knocking on the door of trucks to get the drivers to come out. Most complied, although at least one tried to stay put and an officer breached the door to pull him out. …

Some demonstrators remained defiant but appeared shaken by the initial police surge. However, as the day drew on their spirits lifted. More and more protestors began to congregate in the stand-off area.

It is clear that the combined police operation is working to a specific and patient plan, however the demonstrators also appear well organized – and now largely unfazed. …

As word spread of the dramatic police action, at least 14 trucks near the Parliament Buildings drove off from the spots where they had been for three weeks. …

Eric, who would not give his last name, was carrying fuel cans to his rig parked in Wellington St beside the Parliament Buildings.

He said of confronting police when it comes: ‘We are going to be peaceful. So if the police come in, knocking on our doors, arresting us or telling us we have to leave then that’s going to happen.

‘We will do our best to be peaceful and to comply as much as we can with police orders.’

He added: ‘We are not sure what is going to happen. They are arresting some drivers and towing some trucks. But I understand that here in Wellington Street we are allowed to be here, this is legal.

‘We are not breaking any laws, we have lawyers saying that.

‘We are being lawful so from that standpoint that is why we are still here and whatever comes from there. …

‘Freedom was never free,’ said trucker Kevin Homaund, of Montreal. ‘So what if they put the handcuffs on us and they put us in jail?’ …

Tow truck operators wore neon-green ski masks and taped over their companies’ decals on their trucks to conceal their identities from trucker protesters who might consider them traitors to their cause …

The official opposition Conservative Party says there was no need for the Emergencies Act, especially since the border blockades are over. Conservative Parliamentarian Jeremy Patzer told the House of Commons on Thursday that people around the world were alarmed to see Trudeau ‘come down on peaceful protesters with a sledgehammer.’ ‘It is absolutely shameful,’ he added.

No dialog, no persuasion, no sympathy, just massive state coercion. The world saw.

 

UPDATE: Police horses trample demonstrators at Freedom Convoy protest in Ottawa. By Joe Warmington.

Turns out the lasting image of the Freedom Convoy protest at Parliament Hill will not be bouncy castles but that of a woman with a walker being trampled by a police horse. …

Another [incident] saw a protester behind a police line repeatedly being smashed with an officer’s rifle.

And convoy organizer Benjamin Dichter also told the Toronto Sun “one of drivers had his truck windows smashed by Ottawa Police (with) guns drawn and (he was) dragged out of his vehicle by force.” …

It’s ironic when you think back to three weeks ago.

“Of course I’m concerned,” Trudeau told The Canadian Press on Jan. 28. “A number of people are there without wanting to incite violence, but there are going to be, as we’ve heard, a small group of people in there who are posing a threat to themselves, to each other, to Canadians.”

But instead of violence there were bouncy castles, hot tubs, pancake breakfasts, pig roasts, road hockey games, dancing and fireworks displays.

While Trudeau tried to pin the online postings of a Swastika and Confederate flag on the truckers, they brought in a crane to rise the Canadian flag and sang O Canada every day. They definitely wore out their welcome while clogging up the parliamentary district of Ottawa, not wearing masks and excessively honking their horns.

But they didn’t cause violence.

So why the heavy hand in their mission to win back the city? …

No matter how it’s spun at the end of the day, a majority of these protesters merely didn’t want to take a vaccine, parked illegally, honked their horns and disobeyed Trudeau. It’s not enough to hurt them.

This was not ISIS out there. It was Canadians with charter rights. But the rhetoric was revved up by Trudeau as if it was a terror cell putting Canada’s democracy at risk.