The Ottawa Police Department (OPD) recently received many phone calls protesting its abhorrent abuse of peaceful protesters surrounding the Freedom Convoy.  The department apparently did not like the calls.  Ergo, it took to Twitter to tweet:  "We know the events in #Ottawa are upsetting. Still, we're asking people to stop calling critical emergency and operational phone lines to express displeasure about the police action to remove an unlawful assembly downtown."  A subsequent tweet stated: "We track calls and will charge anyone deliberately interfering with the phone lines."

We know the events in #Ottawa are upsetting. Still, we’re asking people to stop calling critical emergency and operational phone lines to express displeasure about the police action to remove an unlawful assembly downtown.

— Ottawa Police (@OttawaPolice) February 19, 2022

Lives can depend on 911 calls getting through. It is a crime to unnecessarily call 911 or our non-emergency number (613-236-1222). We track calls and will charge anyone deliberately interfering with the phone lines.

— Ottawa Police (@OttawaPolice) February 19, 2022

Got it. Don't call us just because you witness an unresisting protester being trampled, kicked, clubbed, kneed, tasered, or teargassed.  We need to keep the phone lines open in case someone is in need of help, has an emergency, is being assaulted, or needs medical assistance!

I am a big supporter of the police when they are true to their mission "to protect and serve."  But when they become drunk on their own power and side with the authoritarian state against the people, they forfeit all respect.  History is, sadly, rife with unspeakable acts perpetrated by the likes of Hitler's SS and Brownshirts, the East German Stasi, the Soviet Union's KGB, and its successor the FSB.  In fact, virtually every non-democratic state in history has had a version of the aforementioned.  But now erstwhile democratic states and republics are getting in on the act.

To say the actions of certain members of the OPD and Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) were unnecessary and egregious is an understatement.  They clearly relished the power and control they wielded over those they forcefully disbanded.  They enjoyed teaching the great unwashed from the hinterlands a lesson, letting them know who is boss.  One shudders to think what they might have done if they knew that no one could possibly be watching or ever learn of their actions.  It is yet another sad commentary on the depravity of human behavior, especially as juxtaposed with the general nobility of the vast majority of the truckers and their supporters.

Photo credit: Rumble video screen grab.