Judgment day for senior G20 cop

Retired Ontario judge John Hamilton, who had been presiding over the case, found Supt.

Fenton was major incident commander during the G20 protests on June 26, 2010, when he allegedly issued the orders for the mass arrests.

Supt. Fenton was also found guilty of one charge of discreditable conduct in the Queen and Spadina incident, where over 200 residents – including innocent bystanders – were held in the rain for hours.

“Toronto deteriorated into a sense of lawlessness”, Fenton testified at the hearing in December, saying police had intelligence indicating protesters had planned to come to Toronto to kill or stab police officers.

He has pleaded not guilty to five charges of unlawful arrest and discreditable conduct for two kettling incidents during the G20 weekend. Fenton’s lawyer said his client was only trying to provide the security the situation appeared to call for and that they did not agree with, but accepted, the results of the hearing.

The first took place when Fenton ordered officers to box in protesters in front of a downtown hotel and more than 260 people were arrested and taken to a makeshift processing centre.

The following day during a thunderstorm, Fenton ordered hundreds of protesters kettled at the intersection of Queen Street West and Spandina, forcing them to stand in the inclement weather into the night.

“Fenton acquired info from quite a lot of sources that led him to consider that the crowds in these areas posed an imminent danger of felony exercise”.

Thirty-seven people had filed complaints with the police oversight body, and lawyers representing them argued Fenton’s actions amounted to a flagrant and reckless disregard for fundamental rights under Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. After a small group of protesters broke some windows and set fire to police cars, Fenton ordered police to surround and arrest hundreds of protesters in a strategy called “kettling.” Approximately 1,100 people were arrested and detained.

Fenton has testified that he did the latter, something Gover argued there is no proof of him doing.

However Hamilton dominated towards it, discovering that Blair was, on the time, the listening to’s officer, which meant he didn’t should testify at his personal continuing.