Multimedia
Audio
Video
Photo

Quebec, rubber bullets, and me.

vieuxcmaq, Martes, Abril 24, 2001 - 11:00

mitchell lanecki (omen_one@hotmail.com)

police brutality, injustice, Justice, reality check

I was one of the unfortunate ones to have been shot with a rubber bullet, 3 times. Refrain from judgement until you read my situation
I was in the "front line" on Rene Levesque on Saturday April 21 from 3 pm onwards. I was seen the watercannons bash my fellow protestors around. Then the cannons ran out of water. I made my way up to the fence and stood my ground with my fist in the air as a symbol of defiance. 10 minutes later the police launched about 10 tear gas canisters at us. This forced us to move. We were pushed back to the next cross street and then were blocked in by a shielded, body armoured equipped, gas mask wearing, baton weilding, line of about 50 privately owned police enforcers.(I say this because they were not there to serve nor protect). We, the protestors, sat down and started to voice our opinions in bite size pieces. We were seated about 20 feet from the line of police enforcers. Then a teenage girl went forward with a flower in her hand to offer it to a police enforcer. needless to say about 50 photographers saw this as a prime photo-op. This also brought the frontline to 3 feet from the front.
What happens next occured in quick succesion. A police enforcer broke ranks to tackle an individual. Tear gas was launched into the middle of the sit in. people started to scatter. I held my ground, closed my eyes and waited for the tear gas to blow away. My vinegar mask and my strong resistance to tear gas helped. I turned around and noticed that they were still launching tear gas. A canister landed 10 feet from me and about 10 feet from the line of police. I ran and kicked it back at them.
Then I was shot. the bullet pierced my pants and slammed against my inner thigh and testicle. To say the pain was intense is an understatement. I turned and tried to limp away way but succumbed to the injury and fell. A humanitarian rushed through the tear gas and propped me up against a concrete structure and told me,"I'll be right back with a Medic". He then disappeared to get a medic.
Then I was shot again from a distance of 20 feet, twice! The bullets targeted my leg. One of them hit so hard that it sprained my ankle on impact. I was alone, surrounded by tear gas and menacing cops and had to hobble 400 feet on my freshly screwed up ankle to get ambulance assistance.
Fortunatley(?) I was one of the first ones shot and there was an ambulance. Unfortunatley I feel I was targeted and am now still unable to walk, my teste is the size of an orange and I have no way of vinidication. If any one knows a way to get justice, I'm ready to hear it.
Long live the revolution!



CMAQ: Vie associative


Collectif à Québec: n'existe plus.

Impliquez-vous !

 

Ceci est un média alternatif de publication ouverte. Le collectif CMAQ, qui gère la validation des contributions sur le Indymedia-Québec, n'endosse aucunement les propos et ne juge pas de la véracité des informations. Ce sont les commentaires des Internautes, comme vous, qui servent à évaluer la qualité de l'information. Nous avons néanmoins une Politique éditoriale , qui essentiellement demande que les contributions portent sur une question d'émancipation et ne proviennent pas de médias commerciaux.

This is an alternative media using open publishing. The CMAQ collective, who validates the posts submitted on the Indymedia-Quebec, does not endorse in any way the opinions and statements and does not judge if the information is correct or true. The quality of the information is evaluated by the comments from Internet surfers, like yourself. We nonetheless have an Editorial Policy , which essentially requires that posts be related to questions of emancipation and does not come from a commercial media.