A top officer with the Ottawa Police Service says the force should have paid more attention to information suggesting Freedom Convoy protesters planned to stay beyond two days, and the city’s police it was “failed” after the first weekend.
“There was a failure to appreciate,” Ottawa Police Service (OPS) acting deputy chief Patricia Ferguson told the Public Order Emergency Commission on Thursday.
A superintendent from another police service said Ottawa police lost control almost as soon as the protesters and their trucks entered the city.
Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) Superintendent Craig Abrams said he was told the situation in the national capital on the first Saturday of the protest was “dysfunctional.”
The Public Order Emergencies Commission is working to determine whether the federal government’s decision to invoke the Emergency Act to evict protesters was justified.
One of the questions the public inquiry has been looking into is whether Ottawa police ignored signs that protesters were planning to barricade themselves.
On Wednesday, the inquiry heard that the OPP’s intelligence office had warned that a mass protest against the government could be headed for Ottawa in early January.
Sup. Pat Morris, who heads the OPP’s Provincial Office of Operations Intelligence, stated that on January 20, more than a week before the Freedom Convoy protests began, the OPP believed that the protest would be “a long-term event.”
Evidence presented to the commission also showed that police and city officials had received a tip from the Ottawa Gatineau Hotel Association that someone from Canada’s United Truckers Convoy had contacted them to reserve rooms in hotel for at least 30 days.
LOOK | Ottawa police should have “given more credence” to information about convoy protest plans
Ottawa police’s acting deputy chief says Ottawa police should have ‘given more credence’ to information about convoy protest plans
Patricia Ferguson says Ottawa police should have taken the information they had about how long protesters planned to stay in the city more seriously.
An email entered into evidence Thursday showed that even some members of the Ottawa police felt the convoy heading to Ottawa was different from other protests.
“The objective of the convoy is to remain in Ottawa until the restrictions are lifted,” said an email, dated Jan. 21, from the force’s event planning unit.
That email also said the protesters were raising large amounts of money through their GoFundMe page.
But Ferguson said Ottawa police acted under the assumption that the crowds would die down after the first weekend.
Ontario Provincial Police Director Craig Abrams appears as a witness before the Public Order Emergency Commission in Ottawa on Thursday, October 20, 2022. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)
“We weighed the information and intelligence that we had and this was the plan that was developed based on our best assessment,” he said.
No new plans after the first weekend
Commission lawyer Frank Au asked Ferguson what he would have done differently before the first weekend “in hindsight”.
“I suppose we would have given more credence to the information and intelligence that told us there was a faction planning to stay for a much longer period of time,” Ferguson replied.
Under cross-examination, OPP lawyer Chris Diana asked Ferguson about the so-called “Hendon Project” reports that had gone to Ottawa police and then-OPP chief Peter Sloly.
LOOK | OPP Superintendent Describes Police Officers ‘Shouting Out’ At Each Other During Convoy Protest
OPP Superintendent Craig Abrams describes police officers yelling “swear” at each other during convoy protest
Abrams says a report he received described police officers yelling insults at each other and indicating that their leaders had lost control.
The initial assessment of reports that the occupation would last a while was based on “the fact that there was no exit strategy” and that the protesters’ main demand, an end to the COVID-19 mandates, “was not going away be able to satisfy,” according to Morris’ testimony. Wednesday.
He said Project Hendon was the name given by the OPP to its ongoing investigation into protests that presented reasonable grounds to suspect illegal activity or threats to public safety.
Police continue to push back protesters in Ottawa on Saturday, February 19, 2022, towing trucks and arresting dozens of protesters to regain control of the streets in front of the country’s Parliament buildings. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)
Ferguson said that although he received a report in late January, he did not become aware of the Hendon project until early February.
“In my position as a strategic advisor in that role, I wasn’t reading those reports, per se,” Ferguson said.
Ferguson, who was in charge of community policing at the time of the protests, said PAHO’s original contingency plan only extended until noon on Monday, January 31.
It was then clear to the force that the protesters would not move of their own volition.
“We had been talking about the demobilization plan up to this point, and clearly that was not the plan that was going to be required,” Ferguson said Thursday.
OPP assumed Ottawa had a plan
Abrams, who is in charge of OPP operations in the eastern region of the province, testified Thursday that he learned on Jan. 27 that Ottawa police planned to allow 3,000 vehicles into the city.
According to documents presented to the commission, Abrams said he was told by Ottawa police that vehicles would be parked in three of the four lanes of Wellington Street in front of Parliament Hill and that Freedom Convoy organizers had agreed to keep it to one lane open
“It wasn’t my place to question whether they were ready,” he declared. “I had to assume they had a solid plan.”
Sup. Pat Morris of the OPP waits to appear as a witness at the Public Order Emergency Commission in Ottawa on October 19, 2022. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)
According to a summary of an interview he gave to the commission this summer, Abrams heard on Jan. 29 that “OPS was unable to manage the convoy participants and that OPS was in a state of confusion.”
Abrams was told that officers at the National Capital Region Command Center “were in crisis mode, cursing and swearing, and yelling orders at each other and partner agencies,” the document said.
“Superintendent Abrams understood that OPS was clearly struggling to determine what their operational plan was.”
We’ve wasted time, says Ferguson
Ferguson said Ottawa police still did not have a new plan as of Feb. 4, a week after protesters and their vehicles first entered the city, because the force was “putting out fires” and was in charge of the staff.
“We had a period after that first weekend where I say we were getting our bearings, I think we were faltering a little bit in terms of our roster, in terms of our ability to take stock of what was happening and then move on. come up with a plan to get out of it,” he said.
“We lost a while there.”
LOOK | Ottawa’s acting deputy police chief was questioned about the response to the truck convoy
Ottawa’s acting deputy police chief was questioned about the response to the truck convoy
Patricia Ferguson says Ottawa police should have alerted the public and businesses that truck convoy demonstrations could last beyond a weekend.
Ferguson said a plan wasn’t released until Feb. 9, more than a week after the protesters arrived.
By that time, the atmosphere at the police headquarters had become tense.
According to Ferguson’s handwritten notes, Sloly said during a meeting that if anyone undermined the plan, he would “smash it.”
“I was horrified,” she testified.
Ferguson said that before the first weekend of the protest, PAHO staff were hampered by illness and it was already difficult to fill shifts.
“I would describe us as knee-jerk,” Ferguson said. “Staff was, I would say, our number one Achilles heel in all of this.”
OPS saw ‘increase in violence’
On Wednesday, the OPP’s Morris stated that, prior to the start of the Ottawa protests, there were no credible reports of threats associated with the convoy.
“Everyone was asking about extremism. We weren’t seeing a lot of evidence of that,” he told the inquiry.
But once the protest reached Ottawa, Ferguson said, the city’s police witnessed an increase in violence.
“We saw some increase in violence and acts of violence as a result of the protest in the city,” she said under questioning by Brendan Miller, the lawyer for the convoy organizers.
An Ottawa police operational report from Feb. 9 said a tow truck company reported receiving hundreds of calls, including death threats.
“City employees in particular have been subjected to intimidation and stone-throwing when left alone in vehicles,” the report said.
The Public Order Emergency Commission, led by Commissioner Paul Rouleau, will meet for six weeks to hear from more than 60 witnesses and examine thousands of pages of documents as it considers the federal government’s invocation of the Emergency Act on 14 February.
Invoking the act gave authorities new powers that allowed them to freeze the finances of those involved in blockades and protests, ban travel to protest areas, ban people from bringing minors to illegal gatherings and order tow trucks .
The act requires that, after its invocation, an inquiry must be held and a final report presented to Parliament.
This report will be delivered in February.