Simply Seeking Justice

"He was highly aggressive. He would charge at our lines, come within inches of my officers. It was lawlessness. It was very evident this was a violent protest, with people bent on property damage and causing injuries to my officers. ...taunting officers, using profanities. He was very aggressive. He was trying to incite the crowd to attack the police."
Sgt. Jeff Alderice, Squad Leader, Public Order Unit, Toronto Police Services

The man in question, being described by this veteran police officer, is Adam Nobody. Quaint, is that not so? Adam Nobody. Who in real life works as a stage hand. A tall, athletic man, hefty. And obviously someone who is inordinately suspicious of police, holding them in contempt. To him they are not representatives of law and order but rather repression and violence. And he obviously felt it was quite in line for him to foment violence against the police, to urge others equally distrustful and lacking in respect for a difficult profession, to become as involved as he himself was.

Sgt. Alderice watched as the man busied himself grooming a restless crowd to confront police at the G-20 summit that was taking place in Toronto in 2010. Problems were expected. Police were called to duty in Toronto from surrounding jurisdictions to ensure that enough control could be exerted on crowds hosting some pretty questionable elements like the Black Bloc who smashed store-front windows and torched police cars. Police had their hands full.

Sgt. Alderice explained to the Toronto court where Toronto Police Const. Babak Andalib-Goortani has pleaded not guilty to assault with a weapon (a nightstick) during the violent arrest of Adam Nobody, that it was clear he was deliberately confrontational, eager to convince others to attack police. And that he had himself sent arrest teams into the crowd to pull Adam Nobody out to apprehend him and put a stop to his obvious attempts at incitement to violence.

Both times he eluded them. And once, he dropped a bottle he had been holding and attempted to retrieve. That bottle came into possession of police who suspected it might contain some volatile substance to constitute the makings of a Molotov cocktail. An on-site sniff test confirmed just that, and later laboratory tests identified the contents of the bottle which Adam Nobody admitted was his, to include alcohol, water and toluene, a flammable substance. Potable spirits, claimed Adam Nobody.

Eventually Adam Nobody was tackled by police who finally arrested him. He was injured in the melee, sustaining a broken nose and shattered cheekbone. He was violently resisting arrest and it took a team of police to restrain him. These were police who experienced what it felt like to by struck by bricks, golf balls, liquid-filled bottles. Adam Nobody insists he was simply viewing what was happening, not in any manner involved in anything untoward.

And he has lodged a $14.2-million civil lawsuit against the police. Any misadventure that occurred during the three-day Toronto summit had nothing whatever to do with him, an innocent bystander who had been roughed up by police, necessitating a three-day hospital stay.

Life is just so complicated, and unjust. And Adam Nobody isn't going to take that kind of abuse without doing something about it. $14.2-million-worth of something.