Blue Like You

Archive for September 16th, 2007

In case you missed it, Christina Blizzard gives us her take on the attempt by McGuinty handler Ben Chin to stifle freedom of the press - “Grits try to change the channel”.

There are a few articles in yesterday’s Hamilton Spectator that provide some insight into the brutal beating of builder Sam Gualtieri, and provoke more questions.

In “A brutal, brutal attack“, reporter Paul Morse has done an excellent job attempting to get versions from both sides:

In an interview, Davies said he, Gualtieri and two others were checking on the home when they saw a protester standing on the front porch.

“They started to heckle us, saying, ‘If you want a piece of this, come in here,’” said Davies.

The four went into the home and Gualtieri ordered the protesters out. Davies says he didn’t see who threw the first punch, but described Gualtieri struggling with one person while the others squared off.

The 33-year-old said he and a cousin left the house to grab two-by-fours and started back in to discover Gualtieri lying on the floor as he was struck with a piece of wood. Davies said he screamed to natives outside the house for help and the attackers fled.

The native version:

They say the builder and his companions entered the house and attacked them.

They say the protesters were only defending themselves.

Police say they are still investigating the incident.

O.K. If that’s true, there should be some native youth out there with bruises or some kind of injuries. That should be easy enough to investigate; especially after Gualtieri was able to I.D. one of them.

Now the OPP is saying that they were ‘caught off-guard‘ and didn’t witness the assault:

“Had we seen something taking place, we would have definitely stepped in,” said OPP Sergeant Dave Rektor.

The assault took place at the “exact opposite end” of a construction site where a protest, watched by police, was taking place, he said.

The clash appeared to take place at about 4 p.m. Thursday.

Media standing at a yellow tape barricade at the top of Stirling Street saw natives running diagonally across the subdivision to the home on Kyler Court. They arrived at the house within a minute or two.

At the time, police were stationed at the barricade, with some just inside the top of the subdivision.

Other OPP officers were manning a post a block down Stirling Street where they turned away cars trying to approach the development.

So it would seem that the media noticed something unusual, but not the OPP who were busy trying to keep the non-natives away, or so it would appear.

Plainclothes police and one of the developers arrived at the home in time to see a group of youths emerge from behind the house and walk along a berm on the boundary of the site.

No one appeared to stop them.

Why didn’t anyone try to stop them?

Rektor said police’s main priority was saving the life of the victim and making sure the person got the medical attention needed.

They all had to attend to the victim? They couldn’t afford to have anyone go after those who were fleeing the scene???

OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino’s office was contacted by The Spectator to speak to the events. A spokesperson said Fantino is on vacation outside the country and is unavailable for comment.

But Rektor said police have been instructed by Fantino to not tolerate criminal acts at protests.

What? Were the rank-and-file previously instructed to tolerate ‘criminal acts at protests’???

Joe Gualtieri’s story contradicts that of the OPP:

Joe Gualtieri said Ontario Provincial Police officers on the site “stood there, and they did not intervene” until after the beating, when the attackers had fled.

Someone appears to be stretching the truth, don’t you agree?

Meanwhile, Caledonia Mayor Marie Trainer warns that “if native land disputes drag on until the end of the year, Haldimand County’s economy will take a hit of about $40 million this year.”

Further up the Grand River in Cambridge, Mayor Doug Craig is preparing for similar problems.

“Mike (Hancock, Mayor of Brantford) warned us that it’s coming our way, and he’s quite correct, we know that,” said Craig.

Next time you hear Dalton makes another fiscal promise on the campaign trail, ask him if that assumes that the native conflicts will be resolved.

Or will we be hearing about another ‘hardest decision of my life’?