On Saturday, July 19th, 2025, the State deployed a multi-agency police force in a choreographed operation to attack and suppress the Palestinian solidarity movement in Tkaronto.
This use of calculated and premeditated police violence secured for the State the largest mass arrest at a Toronto protest since the Lamport Stadium encampment evictions in 2021.
The Toronto Police Service and the Ontario Provincial Police mustered an excess of troops to enact their agenda, dramatically outnumbering the actual protesters.
And make no mistake: “drama” was the key word for the day.
Spinning a Narrative.
The State brought the full theatrical experience in creating a pretence for the targeted arrests of organizers and activists. Some highlights:
Police shut down Spadina Avenue, including streetcar lanes, bringing traffic along one of Toronto’s busiest transportation arteries to a standstill.
Why? To park their own vehicles. Protesters kept to the northbound lanes.
Police used the streetcar tracks to drive back and forth with sirens blaring, creating an air of urgency as part of the pretext for the violent onslaught they unleashed.
They menaced protesters and passers-by alike with ARWEN37s loaded with impact batons, so-called “less lethal” ordnances; weapons literally half the height of the officers carrying them.
In a particularly gratuitous display, police supplemented their already disproportionate numbers, with mounted units: towering horses trained to function as weapons. They were marched down Front Street for maximum visibility — only to discover the protesters were now sitting.
But there was one area in which police neglected to go to excess: communication. Police apparently declared the protest unlawful twice — declarations made so quietly that scarcely anyone heard them.
But this, again, was just pretext for the real mission:
They had come with a shopping list of community organizers to target, and were prepared to go to any lengths to manufacture conditions to justify their arrests.
An Attack On the Right to Protest
The joint operation was a blatant ambush on the right to protest:
They blocked all but one egress from the protest gathering point, then physically pushed the group to march in the direction of the Gardiner.
They mounted REPEATED attacks on the group, at multiple points on their enforced route, violently entering the crowd to kidnap those they believed to be key figures.
Near the end, officers corralled the march, refusing to let the group disperse even after organizers made that call. With people’s movement restricted, they beat, shoved, bruised, and concussed multiple attendees for a THIRD time.
Finally, as organizers awaited the vehicle to pick up equipment, cops identified additional individuals of interest, and brutally snatched them on trumped-up charges.
Aftermath.
Though the last arrests were carried out around 6 PM, it was not until 6:00 AM the next day that the police released the last arrestees that weren’t being held for bail.
While in police custody, arrestees were met with long delays in processing that denied them their right to counsel, but also left without food, water, or medical care for long stretches after their arrests.
The state’s strategy has been repeatedly demonstrated at protests:
They make targeted arrests, and subject arrestees to repressive and unconstitutional release conditions.
They spin a narrative through the media that the arrestees were engaged in criminal and disreputable behaviour, damaging the lives of their targets while discouraging others from joining the struggle.
They do not care or even acknowledge that, of the 120+ arrests that have taken place at Palestine protests since fall 2023, despite the millions of dollars spent and incalculable other resources exhausted, none has resulted in even a single conviction.
And they don’t have to care because:
Regardless of whether the charges stick, the repression has been enacted.
The process is the punishment, and police brutality is a sanctioned tool of the State. It uses it in the hope of causing movements to lose momentum through fear, exhaustion, and attrition.
But much in the way that the State underestimated our resolve to hold together during jail support outside 52 Division throughout a chill, rainy night, until the sun came up Sunday morning, they also underestimate the depth of our conviction to see actual justice, both here and in Palestine.
Land back.
End colonialism and capitalism.