Blame It On Barbara Hall

Prior to her run in with Cop 3748, former lefty Shaidle indicted the police M.O. on the Newsblog site:

I’m a bit confused about what “kids these days” want. Over the intervening decades, leftist protesters got what we were asking for in many respects: the G20 is now all about (cough) “environmentalism,” for example. Starbucks has great employee benefits and fair trade coffee, but their windows still get smashed. I’d be willing to bet the police cruisers they burned yesterday (sending plumes of toxic smoke into the air) passed all the latest emissions standards. For all I know, Toronto cops even use no-lead bullets.

Of course, when I say “use,” I don’t mean the cops fired on anyone yesterday while they were engaged in millions of dollars of property damage. Gaia forbid! Property rights aren’t protected in our constitution anyhow, and besides, I can tell you from personal experience that Canadian police are unwaveringly dedicated to protecting all the wrong people during instances of politically tinged public disorder.

(To cite just one example: after being assaulted by an Arab Federation leader/union bigwig last month, my husband was the one who got cautioned to “keep it peaceful.”)

Going out on a limb, I think this sort of squishiness could have brainwashed messed with police thinking.

Update: Steyn says the summit would have been an opportune time for jihadis to topple the CN Tower because the fuzz were too busy roughing up accredited journalists to turn their attention to anything else.