Chasse au phoque/Manif à Halifax/incident

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Group: Bus driver should have been charged
Baton-wielding transit worker harassed anti-sealing protestors
By CHRIS LAMBIE Staff Reporter
Mon. Mar 16 - 12:04 PM

Demonstrators gathered near the Halifax Public Gardens Saturday in Halifax to protest Canada's seal hunt during the International Day of Action Against Seal Hunting. (CHRISTIAN LAFORCE / Staff)


The head of an anti-sealing group says it’s “extremely alarming” that Halifax regional police have decided not to press charges again a Metro Transit driver who stopped his bus, ran into their protest and attacked a mock seal with an extendable baton.

The weird attack happened around 12:40 p.m. Saturday in front of the main entrance to the Halifax Public Gardens. The driver, who was in uniform, stopped his bus near the corner of Spring Garden Road and South Park Street and ran toward the group of about 25 protestors brandishing a baton, said Bridget Curran, director of the Atlantic Canadian Anti-Sealing Coalition.

“It was a black retractable baton, which is a weapon, I saw it quite clearly,” Ms. Curran said Monday.

“He was running across the street, brandishing this baton in his hand, running at us. A few people actually thought that he was coming for them. But he ran over to a homemade seal that we had on the ground as part of our demonstration and he started whacking the ground by the seal.”

As he ran toward the protest, the bus driver called out to nearby television cameras, “Are you rolling?” she said.

After the odd incident, “he ran back across the street, got back on his bus and drove away,” Ms. Curran said. “We were all quite shocked. Because we were there to demonstrate against violence against animals and, in this particular case, the seal hunt, violence against seals. But he obviously thought that it was quite funny to simulate an act of violence against a seal.”

The bus number was 1036 driving east on the 1 Spring Garden Road route. The middle aged driver was “medium build and medium height, and he had a bit of a belly on him,” Ms. Curran said.

“There were loads of people on the bus. The bus was very busy.”

A Metro Transit supervisor took statements from witnesses and “apologized on behalf of Metro Transit for the driver’s behaviour,” Ms. Curran said.

“It’s extremely alarming (police have decided not to lay charges against the driver) considering he rushed at a group of people who were holding a peaceful demonstration. He had to cross the street to do it, brandishing a weapon, threatening and physically intimidating people with a weapon, and they’re not charging him,” she said.

“What the police are saying by not charging him is that it’s completely acceptable.”

Police are always present for anti-sealing demonstrations, Ms. Curran said. “And yet when somebody commits an act of violence against us and our property, the police decide to turn their face away … That’s sending a very, very dangerous message to the public and to the pro-sealing community in particular.”

Neither police spokeswoman Theresa Rath nor Metro Transit spokeswoman Lisa Cormier could be reached Monday morning for comment.

Metro Transit drivers have been dogged this month with complaints of road rage and racism.

http://thechronicleherald.ca/Front/9011076.html