Water cannons and tear gas, riot squads and Tasers. These are just a few of the recent threats made by police and city officials in regard to what could happen next year should the Aberdeen Street party continue. But wait a minute. Hold the phone. If this year’s Aberdeen party was a “riot,” where were the police this year?
It was certainly wise for police to retreat and set up roadblocks following a (some say coordinated) rush of students to Aberdeen Street around 11 p.m. on Saturday. But did the police regroup? Did they create a new plan of action to regain control of the crowd? No. The police basically did nothing. As officers told people the street was closed, many party-goers walked through neighbouring yards, hopped fences, and there it was—Aberdeen in all its appalling glory. What continues to really irk me is the way police officers stationed at either end of of the street stood with their backs to Aberdeen. There was no authority on Aberdeen, it was pure anarchy.
But the thing I found most disgusting
in this whole debacle was that the police had an opportunity to alter the course of the evening and they chose not to. At the smell of gas from the now infamous car, two fire trucks were brought in to Aberdeen, lights flashing and sirens blaring. Firefighters inspected the car, circled it a few times, and then they walked away.
Now let me be completely clear on something: when the fire trucks came in,
Aberdeen Street was cleared from Earl Street to the car. Little effort would have been required to bring in a tow truck to take the car away. But that didn’t happen. The car was left for the partiers to further destroy, the police went back to their roadblocks, and people crowded the southern section of the street once again.
Of course, there is the matter of the car. According to the Kingston Whig-Standard, the car was stolen on Sept. 16. Now fast forward nine days to Saturday. The car was parked on Aberdeen during the day, and by evening it was the only car parked on Aberdeen. On Saturday night, when I saw the car, there were no licence plates on it.
Now, we all know the police were aggressively patrolling Aberdeen throughout Saturday. So how is it that police failed to notice a car, all by itself, with no licence plates attached? I doubt it could have been more glaringly obvious if the car had magically flown through the air.
While I think it’s vital for us as a student body to examine what happened and punish those responsible, I also think it’s about time we as a community demand an examination of the way policing is carried out in Kingston.
One thing is for certain: when I see police cars, I no longer feel safe. I feel a little bit threatened, a whole lot defensive, and just plain angry. And that just seems so very wrong.
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