Thugs & Lousy Policing, 1: Free Speech, 0

Thugs & Lousy Policing, 1: Free Speech, 0

LONDON, Ontario. March 24, 2012. For the second time in a week, London police lost control of a riotous situation and failed to protect citizens' rights.

Last Saturday, riotous drunks and rowdies burned a car, lit fires, damaged many police cruisers and smashed property near Fanshawe College and were not subdued until dawn. Today a mob of anti-fascists, Occupy London goons, some armed with lead pipes and hatchets, and others with orange Mohawk haircuts, faces covered with bandannas, tried to attack 30 people assembling in a downtown underground parking lot for a White Pride Parade. One van window was smashed and another car kicked. A woman was menaced by a goon with a hatchet.

Several fights with armed antifascist thugs ended with four of them incapacitated.

However, the European Pride parade was halted by the police. Those assembled were ordered back to their cars and told "Leave this part of London now. Do you understand."

"The policing was an outrage. They were either utterly incompetent and unprepared or totally unwilling to protect the rights of free assembly," fumed Paul Fromm, Director of the Canadian Association for Free Expression, who had driven from Toronto to cover the event for the American Free Press.

"I asked the cop who ordered me to leave that part of town for his name," Mr. Fromm said. "He just arrogantly pointed to the 'police' letters on his jacket. That's not identification."

"Those of us celebrating European Pride had the right to assemble peacefully and to hold our rally," Mr. Fromm added. "The police failed to control the antifa goons and, say, force them to the other side of the street so that we could march peacefully. Thuggery and incompetent or lazy policing cancelled our right to freedom of expression."

Worse, still, Mr. Fromm added," rally organizer Max Heinz had been contacted by the police and had assured them the European Pride folks would not being carrying weapons. We weren't but many of the masked street thugs were."

At least one antifa was arrested but it's unknown whether he was charged.