Guardian UK has a piece on Lin Jun with audio of Mike Finnerty’s interview with one of his friends; Magnotta is under suspicion of another murder in L.A.; more Magnotta details from CTV; Toronto Star asks is Magnotta a psychopath and concludes with a resounding “maybe!”
Updates from June, 2012 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Tonight it’s futile to look for conventional media links about the downtown demo, so here are some tweets showing photos of the scene around Ste-Catherine, Crescent and Mountain at this hour – follow #ggi and #manifencours as usual. Talk of rubber bullets and gas.
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steph
I was at that intersection and it was quite awkward for everyone. Their didn’t seem to be very many identifiable protesters (50-100?) for a disproportionate amount of cops (100-200?) and a HUGE crowd of people standing about watching a show of police flexing. With the F1 crowd in the street and the police not wanting to attack festival goes, it was just really weird. Lots of faux-aggressive rushes through the street crowd, down the block and then back again few minutes later. North Crescent blocked off with barriers and a row of cops just being a general inconvenience.
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maureen
A friend of mine was swarmed in her taxi by many “students” on skateboards last night. They were about a dozen of them pounding on the cars at the intersection. They were yelling about how rich people should stop paying for luxuries and pay for their tuition. A taxi after midnight is a luxury??? She was going home after work. The cabbie told her not to call the police as he would shake them off. She was absolutely terrified. Photos were taken and I truly hope they are caught. I can tell you that she would have been very happy to have the police there with their rubber bullets and tear gas. I would guess we are nearing the end of the “protests”. The numbers decrease every day. All we are left with are the dregs of society having a last violent kick at the can.
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Puces Pop Printemps is this Saturday and Sunday at St-Enfant-Jésus. Then you can walk up to Saint-Viateur and indulge in S.W. Welch’s massive all-books-a-dollah sale.
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Friday’s culture hero is Laurent Proulx, the first student to get an injunction to let him go to class despite the student strike.
He’s just dropped out of the anthropology class that was the subject of the injunction – due to lack of money. Despite this he was seen at the $1000 cocktail on Thursday evening.
Amir Khadir’s daughter has pleaded not guilty to charges connected with various protests, but is being kept in jail through the weekend as are three other people rounded up on similar charges. The delay in arresting them and this unusual incarceration is being blamed on wanting to keep them off the street during the Grand Prix.
CJAD has the grace to note that Jacques Villeneuve says he’s received death threats rather than reporting it as a fact, after his critical sally against the students.
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Steph
She pleaded NOT guilty. typo?
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Kate
Typo! Thanks – fixed!
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A brief but violent storm hit the city today like the crack of a policeman’s matraque.
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Ian
I don’t always g-lol, but when I do…
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Nick
I thought this was a nice and witty line Kate, and posted it on facebook, but then read further down my facebook feed, and saw that one of the people beaten by the cops last night was a friend of mine, which turned the humour to sadness and anger.
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Snowpea
I just came back to read this blog on a whim, and now I am reminded why I stopped: the newsgathering here has become too biased. Even the weather gets a slant. Adios.
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Kate
Hey, it was just a topical twist. And it really was a fierce rain for about two minutes, maybe the hardest rain I’ve ever seen hit the city, but luckily it didn’t last too long.
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Concordia has put up a page to make donations for Lin Jun’s family easier to do.
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marco
Thanks for posting that link. I doubt the page at the Chinese consulate was spurring a lot of donations.
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Kate
Here’s a link to a brief notice also about the foundation Concordia’s creating to help Chinese students at the school.
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Some tabs I’ve saved over the last couple of days:
In the “ill wind” department, businesses flourishing because of ongoing protests.
Phyllis Lambert is trying to stop the razing of the lower Main.
Upcoming Bloomsday events – more Joyce than you can shake a stick at.
Montreal makes a 10 most-loved cities list.
Mirror’s hot summer guide is out, also Voir’s dossier on summer festivals.
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qatzelok
Phylis Lambert’s tribe (the Bronfman tribe) has torn down half of downtown Montreal – most recently the Seville block. I guess she was always the party-pooper at mafia picnics, though she’s certainly benefited from the loot.
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Ian
You should be giving her credit for going against the grain of her “tribe” rather than criticising her for the shortcomings of her relatives. You are employing the same logic that makes people think royalty inherit privilege.
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Legendary Gazette hockey writer Red Fisher is retiring.
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Ian
Wow, there goes a legend.
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Marc
57 years…now there’s a well earned retirement! Will be hard to fill those shoes.
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A poll discloses that Montrealers are not too happy with city services.
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The opening of Grand Prix weekend involved 37 arrests – 39 according to another account – sur fond de crise sociale as Le Devoir says.
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Ephraim
So much for NOT targeting and disrupting the Grand Prix.
39 arrests according to the SPVM and all for violations of city ordinances (I assume masks, jay walking, littering, etc) or criminal acts. So basically none based on bill 78.
Can you hear someone trying to say it wasn’t the students, yet?
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steph
CLAC (Convergence des luttes anticapitalistes) were the ones that planned disruptions of the cocktail and then moved to Crescent street @ 7:00 to clash directly with police. CLAC is not a student movement. I remember them well from 10 years ago at the FTAA protests here in Montreal and Quebec city. They support the student strike, but they’re not students. They also wear black. http://www.clac-montreal.net/en
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Bill Binns
NONE of the protesters who commit crimes are students. Unless of course they are caught red-handed like the Metro bombers. In those cases, we are supposed to shrug and say “nobody died, let them go”. ALL of the police who get too rough (if you can find any) are operating on the direct orders of the Mayor or the Premiere and both of those guys get their orders from the Mafia. Even if the students did commit crimes during the protests (which they don’t), those crimes would be entirely justified as the actions of freedom fighters trying to escape the jackboot of oppression. Also, ummm, Down with Capitalism and Fur is Murder.
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Kate
These are not what I call arguments.
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Hamza
Remember, bill and ephraim and kevin and the rest show concern only when bank windows, orange pylons and other inanimate objects are hurt – not human beings.
They are mostly arguing with their own consciences now.
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Bill Binns
@Hamza – You can imagine the hospitals overflowing with injured and dying protesters all you want. It has not happened. There have been protests involving hundreds of thousands of people that resulted in fewer arrests and injuries that a typical St Patricks Day parade. I know we are not supposed to compare Quebec to any place else in the world (for some reason) but you will not find large scale protests anywhere on the planet with fewer arrests and injuries than we have seen here over the last 3 months.
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Ephraim
See, told you someone would say it wasn’t the students… it’s always someone else. Except of course that once they wear a red square… oh… but anyone can wear a red square… so it must be the black bloc… no it’s the CLAC… no it’s the… RESPONSIBILITY, it’s part of growing up and proving that you are an adult.
@Hamza Still not feeding the troll. (Putting words in someone else’s mouth is TROLL behaviour.)
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ant6n
@Ephraim
You use a strange rhetorical tactic; first making a wrong claim, but at the same time providing an explanation why it’s wrong, in sarcasm (“Can you hear someone trying to say it wasn’t the students, yet?”). And if somebody uses that correct argument to attempt to prove you wrong, you actually feel vindicated.
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Hamza
Your lack of concern for the human victims of this violence (see the front page of any of today’s newspaper,except the Gaz), has not been resolved yet.
Until you can summon the courage to show empathy for others, I see no reason to give your rhetoric any credence whatsoever.
That’s not politics or trolling – it’s human decency .
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Ephraim
@Hamza Exactly what I am speaking of. You have no idea if I have or don’t have sympathy, you are putting words in my mouth.
@ant6n So all the newspapers are incorrect? There was no student demo last night. So it wasn’t nude? So no students were targeting Crescent street? They didn’t even walk near it last night? They didn’t do it nude because of the Grand Prix, in spite of the interviews on TV. And the police complaint of getting pelted by bottles, smoke bombs, fireworks and the such… that’s all just made up? And of course, there are no students in the CLAC and of course, the red squares are just solidarity. Got it.
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Ian
To address your earlier point, 39 arrests does not mean 39 charged. The number of people charged at these roundups is always much, much lower. And so what if some students are in CLAC? That doesn’t mean all students support CLAC or that CLAC is a student movement. This is the sam logical fallacy as “my brother eats bananas and so do monkeys; therefore my brother is a monkey”.
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walkerp
Thank you, Ian. Logic is the first victim of those who fear democracy and fight for the right for individual consumption at the expense of social development for all.
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Alex L
The Grand Prix, what a fantastic event that brings this city to such high levels of culture and significance.
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The New York Times has a brief summary of the history of the Canadian Grand Prix which I’m linking mostly as an aide-mémoire that there’s actually a car race going on in the midst of this weekend’s excitements.
Blork 09:37 on 2012/06/09 Permalink
It should be pointed out at the only “connection” between the Lin Jun case and the L.A. case is that both victims were gay, murdered, dismembered, and their bodies left in a public place. “Suspicion” is over-stating it. The L.A. Cops are simply following up on their case to see if it is linked to the Lin Jun case.
Kate 09:41 on 2012/06/09 Permalink
I was just going to post that Magnotta is no longer under the L.A. loupe but now the Miami police are interested in whether he fits into the picture of another unsolved killing.