I just don't know how to fairly comment on this story, because I don't want to improperly place criticism at the feet of the Calgary Police Service for a situation that was apparently started by incredibly uneducated private security personnel:http://www.calgaryherald.com/entertainment/Gallery+Punjabi+concert+cancelled/1855359/story.html
However, I do note that CPS officers were apparently part of the privately paid security force on the night in question:
Pay duty police hired for the show called in on-duty officers to help disperse the crowd outside and clear the hall of concertgoers
What is simply impossible for me to ignore is the outrageously bad optics of the photos accompanying Jason Van Rassell's article - not even attempting to count officers I can spot inside the convention centre and further down the sidewalk - in the immediate foreground there are 8 "white" male police officers facing a crowd of understandably upset "brown" concert-goers.
I put quotes around "white" and "brown" since pure skin appearance tells us little about a person's actual ethnicity and after all, I am commenting on the simple optics of the situation.
What this writer rhetorically poses is whether this scene, apparently borne out of ignorance or intolerance or possibly both, is a function of the culture of fear being propogated by government through popular media in this City.
For, it seems to me that the mere presence of a kirpan on the person of a peaceful citizen is in no way threatening...and certainly does not justify State intervetion to the level of having:
"Police officers [ring] the entrances to the convention centre, and the HAWCS helicopter [circle] overhead."
Why have the citizens of this City become so accustomed to such police involvement in our daily lives? There appears to have been no crime committed whatsoever and yet reactions by "security" people working hard to make people "safe" led to a huge destabilization of the peaceful nature of the event.
In fact, it would appear that it was the peaceful and law-abiding mindset of the kirpan wearing "offenders" and the later ejected concert atendees which prevented a full-scale riot.
(This is why I am reluctant to too quickly attack the official CPS presence, because regardless of how the situation escalated, it did pose a potential risk of getting out of control once the large crowd was forced out into the street by security)
Newsflash - to all Calgarians (not just overzealous security officers) - the overwhelming majority of the million or so others we share this City with are non-violent, non-threatening, and generally trustworthy individuals. If it were not so, law and order would surely be powerless to do anything about it.
Security and police personnel - be on your toes at all times, no doubt, but for crying out loud, consider a boring and uneventful night to be a success...don't look for trouble where none really is. Perhaps if Lady Injustice were as blind as her twin sister, we wouldn't see so much of her meddling in the routine affairs of law-abiding citizens.
Michael Bates
http://www.ruttanbates.com/
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