Reports claiming that a bicycle was thrown under a police officer’s horse should all be retracted. The video evidence (seen below) shows what really happened.
Early this week, Trudeau ordered police to break up the peaceful Canadian Freedom Convoy protest and it didn’t take long for things to get ugly. The protesters remained peaceful as vehicles were towed and arrests were made. Two people were injured after Ottowa mounted police rode horses through the crowd.
One was an elderly woman using a wheeled walker who struggled to get out of the way in time. Ottawa Police Chief claimed the act was justified:
“They faced a barrage of resistance, shoving and vitriol. We all saw that the protesters were aggressive with the officers and we needed to use horses at one point,” Police Chief Steven Bell said at the conference. “As a result, we responded this morning by adding helmets and batons to our equipment for the safety of our officers.
He continued, “Our officers continued to face resistance at one point, a flare was ignited by a protester. Officers used a chemical irritant also known as pepper spray, to disperse unlawful demonstrators who were resisting police orders. Sadly, we again saw young children being brought to the unlawful demonstration and to the front of our police.”
Reporters questioned Bell on rumors and video that purported to show violent clashes between the horse-mounted officers and protesters.
“What I can indicate is there was two members of the protesters who did collide with the horses. They fell down,” Bell told the reporters. “They immediately got back up and started to again engage in their protest and demonstration activity. That is one of the circumstances where as we monitor it, we’re identifying this information as quickly as we can, providing accurate, real information about what is occurring on the ground.”
The police reported claimed that a bicycle was thrown in the horse’s path, claiming that the person ‘intentionally tried to harm a police service animal’. The following video stands as proof that was a lie. The elderly woman, who was one of the two trampled, was standing using a wheeled walker. You can clearly see in the video that she did not throw it into the horses’ path. In fact, she gets knocked in front of the horses when one mounted officer broke the line outwardly, trapping both Canadians in the parade of police horses:
Another camera angle of the incident shows the elderly woman trampled by police horse in Ottawa.pic.twitter.com/xrK4s5JHoX
— Daniel James Dulhunty (@dulhunty) February 19, 2022
Later Bell went on to say that protesters would be allowed to just ‘go home’, but the statement he made shortly after shows him vowing to hunt them all down in their homes:
“As indicated earlier, we will have the opportunity to review all of those files. There are complaint mechanisms for people to enter into if they feel that there is excessive use of force by members of our police service,” Bell said. He added, “This occupation is over. We have advised them that if they peacefully leave, they may go home. That still exists. We also indicated that we would escalate and forcibly remove people from the streets if they did not comply. Some of that is what you’re seeing. So I will stand here today again and say this demonstration is over. Go home. If you don’t go home, we will remove you from the streets.”
“If you are involved in this protest, we will actively look to identify you and follow up with financial sanctions and criminal charges. Absolutely. This investigation will go on for months to come. It has many, many different streams both from a federal financial level, from a provincial licensing level, from a criminal code level, from a municipal breach of court order breach of court injunction level, it will be a complicated and time-consuming investigation that will go on for a period of time. You have my commitment that that investigation will continue and we will hold people accountable for taking our streets over.”