Police clear protesters from Caledonia site
OPP riot unit arrests 9 at property where man was beaten a week ago
September 20, 2007
Paul Legall
Torstar News Service
CALEDONIA, Ont.–The last pocket of native protesters was cleared yesterday from a residential construction site where a house builder was severely beaten last week.
With neighbours watching and cheering from their backyards, about 50 Ontario Provincial Police officers in riot gear marched in and arrested nine men and women who had defied their native elders by refusing to leave the Stirling St. site in Caledonia.
The operation went off without a major hitch as natives watching from the sidelines made no attempt to assist the protesters. It was a marked contrast from an abortive OPP raid at Douglas Creek Estates on April 20, 2006, when protesters with clubs and crude weapons chased off a heavily armed police team, injuring several officers.
OPP Sgt. Dave Rektor said police were still processing the protesters last night and weren't prepared to release their names or ages to the media. He didn't know the specific charges they would face, except that they would include criminal offences and possibly some non-criminal provincial offences such as trespassing.
He said two officers suffered minor injuries during the arrests, which could form the basis for some of the criminal charges.
He stressed, however, none of the people arrested yesterday was being charged in the beating of Sam Gualtieri in a house on the site that he was building for his daughter and her fiancé. He suffered numerous injuries, including fractures to his nose and collarbone, and spent almost a week in hospital before he was released yesterday.
The Six Nations Confederacy and the Six Nations elected band council have both condemned the violence and offered their prayers and sympathies to the Gualtieri family.
Mohawk Chief Allen MacNaughton had described the assault as an "atrocity" and said the protesters had been occupying the site without the confederacy's approval.
Joe Gualtieri, the beating victim's brother, said he noticed police massing on the site yesterday morning when he went there with some bricklayers to work on his brother's house.
In the early afternoon, police started setting up checkpoints and roadblocks around the subdivision and told workers to leave for their own safety. By about 2 p.m., a large number of vans and other police vehicles were rolling onto the site, along with two canine units.
Half an hour later, there were about 100 officers on the site, including members of Hamilton police, and a large contingent of tactical officers in riot gear.
Apart from residents in adjacent neighbourhoods, several dozen S
ent.
Rektor said they never attempted to interfere as police carried off the protesters one by one over a period of about an hour and placed them in a secure transport van.
Confederacy spokesperson Hazel Hill said she was saddened when she heard about the arrests. She knew many of the protesters, who she said ranged in age from teenagers to people in their 30s.
Hamilton Spectator
Contents
September 2007 Reports
Last updated on September 20, 2007