Jason Crowley
Jason Crowley spoke 456 times across 1 day of testimony.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
It's the Bible, please. Thank you.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Jason Crowley, J-A- S-O-N C-R-O-W-L-E-Y.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Good afternoon.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I am the Interim Deputy Chief of Operations.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That's correct, sir. I was the Superintendent of Investigation Services at the time.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That's correct.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
There is one small correction on page 3.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Could we go to that, please? I think it's near the bottom. Very last paragraph it says, "protesters block the lanes that lead to the Ambassador Bridge." They actually protest -- or they actually block the southbound lanes away from the bridge originally. It's the only correction.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, sir.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
There are a couple clarifications, if I could.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Paragraph 23, sir, please. More of a clarification. It says the Public Order Units were from the OPP and Waterloo Service started to arrive on the 9th, I believe. Can you scroll down just a little bit, please? Yes, on the 9th.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
So they did -- there was, like, a slowly through the night. They weren't deployed that night. They were just slowly arriving amongst other agencies as well, but that was just a clarification. They all didn't show up on the 9th.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
The other clarification is paragraph 58. So, essentially, the Public Order Unit was moving southbound down Huron Church. This paragraph refers to that. And it talks about the -- other -- a secondary group of officers travelling northbound. If you could scroll down, please? To the southbound -- in the southbound lanes of Huron Church to move the crowd eastbound onto Tecumseh Road. So that was the eventual movement once they hit Tecumseh Road, that was the movement towards -- on Tecumseh Road towards the east. It just -- those two roads intersect, as we know, so I just wanted to clarify that. That's all.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
And that is it.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That's correct.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I oversaw the entire division in investigations, so everything from the investigative side of the house, which includes major crime, and property crime, right over to the support side of the investigations, so the drug units and, you know, ident, things like that. So that was my designation at the time. I also was the -- in charge of our Critical Incident Command Program, and I oversaw that as well.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, I am.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That's correct.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
No, we did not.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
No, we did not.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
We had critical incident -- or, sorry, we had critical negotiators, critical incident negotiators, but not PLT per se.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
M'hm. So the Windsor Police would be responsible for municipal policing within the batteries of Windsor. There is an OPP presence on the provincial highways that lead into Windsor, which I believe now includes the Herb Gray Parkway, which is the extension of the 401 to the new bridge. And the RCMP, they do have a presence that is more, I believe, customs and excise, things like that with -- when it comes to international responsibilities, but nothing as far as municipal policing goes at all.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
The Windsor Police do.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That's correct.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
They started months before the bridge blockade, months. We were dealing with them on a weekly basis, all over the city, but the ones that pertain to the bridge, really, we were well -- like, made aware of them that weekend they were going to be ramped up, which would have been the 4th, 5th and 6th.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That's correct.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Typically, they would be -- you know, last two or three hours. We would assign a certain group of officers to basically monitor it, manage it. There were never any issues typically. The slow rollers were -- typically, they were cooperative, and we would work with them prior to the slow roll. We would reach out to them to ensure that they -- you know, if we could do something for them essentially, as in facilitate their route, or things like that. But we would try and reach out to the organizers to maintain that communication piece.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, I am.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes. But I did have -- I was not responsible for monitoring Hendon. I had an inspector that was responsible, Insp. Karel DeGraaf, who was on those calls daily, or as much as they were happening, anyways. And he was responsible for intaking those Hendon reports and updating me on any pertinent information.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
No, I read them on Insp. DeGraaf’s recommendation.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes. And particularly when Windsor was mentioned, but that wasn’t very often at the very beginning of Hendon.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes. Anything I thought they needed to be aware of, I would certainly bring that to their attention.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I think I do, yes.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Again, these are -- this is our best source of intelligence, so we would obviously meet and discuss potential blockages, but there was also reports saying that numerous bridges might be blocked, so we would basically just keep that intelligence handy. I was on the -- I still am, actually, on the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police Emergency Preparedness Committee, and this is -- these are the things that were discussed during almost a daily meeting on those -- that committee.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
This was being learned about for the first time, essentially.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
So there was -- if I can take you back to that time, you can imagine Ottawa was, you know, just starting to gain some traction and the protesters had just rolled in here. We were dealing with protests in Toronto, as a committee, on the weekends at Queen’s Park. So a lot of the discussion went there in this -- this intelligence and this information wasn’t really at the forefront at this time.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Just what I had previously mentioned about, you know, potential bridge or border crossing blockades, but nothing that I recall that was specific to February 3rd.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
At this point I met with our patrol inspectors; I asked for an Operational Plan from them regarding the slow rolls. They seemed to have more traction and be a bigger entity than we had been dealing with, so I was asking for an Operational Plan. I also started to include members of the bridge, so CBSA, the bridge company; that was their contact so indirectly they were involved. Our Intelligence Unit, I included them quite a bit. So this is the day the meetings really started about, okay, we’re going to deal with these slow rolls but what if? This is where these conversations started.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Well, this was the problem. So I think it’s been discussed prior to this about the difference between intelligence and information. Intelligence was very -- was limited, in my view, at this point, about confirmation of a blockade or a slow roll that would bearhug the bridge. To me, that was more information at this point. They still didn’t explain how they would do it, how it would be done and what we could do to stop it. I think what we really were thinking at the time, this bearhug idea. If you can recall the geography of the bridge, it’s essentially the road is a circle around the entire bridge property. And they talked about the bearhug and if that -- essentially, if vehicles went around the bridge, stopped, that would essentially shut down the bridge. So that’s kind of where we were thinking that might happen, so we tried to put some mitigating plans in place there, for that.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Correct.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
So we were of the mindset, amongst other police services in the province, we were trying to find that balance of people’s ability and right under the Charter to protest. We felt it was better to work with the protesters to facilitate their slow rolls; it maintains public safety, which is what we were concerned about, and we did not certainly want to escalate any situation, and it was in the model of the way slow rolls were being policed throughout the province.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
So not undifferent [sic] to other slow rolls, we were in communication with the organizer; very cooperative, worked with the police, supportive of our involvement. We had no issues with this slow roll group, this -- for that weekend. But as the weekend progressed, this intelligence became a little bit more solid, I would say, and that’s when by the Sunday, which would have been the 6th, we started to gain more information about this date being legitimate of a blocking bridge. Again, the problem we ran into was how? How are we going to -- how are they going to block the bridge? We had no intelligence. Again, the geography of the bridge is very porous; it’s critical infrastructure in the middle of our west- end, with side streets and access to the bridge, exits to the bridge; it’s not as easy as a one-way-in, one-way-out. So we were trying to make considerations for numerous plans, but nothing was in stone because we didn’t know what we didn’t know.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, that’s correct.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
So that weekend was very busy reaching out to numerous partners. So locally, it was the Chief of Fire, Windsor Fire Rescue, Steve Laforet. Also Bruce Crowder, from our Emergency Medical -- EMS. Again, I already said we spoke with CBSA. Those kinds of plans started logistically. Again, “What if this happens? What do we need to do to help our partners?” We believed right from this point it was a police response. So we certainly were trying to help out our partners as best we can to plan for them, as well as us.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, that’s correct.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I think in email, there was some discussion about -- I was not on that call, sorry, to clarify that. There was some discussion about getting some local assistance from the OPP from the two detachments within our area for some help. Also, sending some Public Liaison officers, PLT, down to Windsor to assist us on Monday. Those were the discussions of potentially maybe having 35 officers or so come and help us. And at that point, it was strictly to -- for traffic control, intersection control. That kind of thing, to set up a perimeter that we felt was manageable.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, essentially. So to prevent the blockade, to manage the slow roll, all these things that, again, we didn’t have specifics where we could plan a specific response to a specific action by protestors, but certainly we were trying to do a very general response to be able to react to something that could possibly happen.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, the information I had was that the bridge would be blocked if they didn’t get what they want, meaning relief of vaccine mandates, things like that. That was the only information I had on Monday.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Dwight Thib is the Chief Superintendent of the Region. So as a result of Chief Mizuno’s conversation with the Commissioner, I spoke to Dwight, who you can see here that he put me in touch with Diana Earley, who is a Superintendent of the Region, one of the superintendents for the OPP, basically saying if you need something, please don’t hesitate. And he CC’d Supt. Diana Earley, who oversees our Emergency Response Team.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes. That original discussion with the Essex Detachment Command Team was more of an information sharing session at that point, and they were going to monitor the 401 for us. But exactly what -- the intention there was to continue discussing with them.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct. I would call those, like, informal requests.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Approximately, yes.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Essex, and Lakeshore, and anywhere that might be close to those.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I’m assuming. I can’t say for sure. But I would assume.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct. So my first call was to a Chief Superintendent RCMP officer in London, who put me in touch with Kevin McGonagall, who is a border integrity officer. I believe he’s also out of London, but he was the closest contact for me, as far as the RCMP goes, as the border -- it pertains to the border. So I spoke with Kevin and basically said, you know, their resources were stretched thin because of other -- potential threats to other borders in the province, but certainly they had people on call and they would assist as needed or as could be.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Not at that time. In speaking with CBSA, I asked them if they had an operational plan, I believe on the Friday the 4th, and they didn’t. They were referencing Coutts as well, because the Coutts blockade was not on the border property, it was down the road, similar to ours. So they were just trying to work with us in our response and help us in any way they can.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
M’hm. So and again, we didn’t know what we didn’t know. With the geography that presents itself to us, the bridge is very difficult to plan something solid that we don’t know what’s going to happen -- how it’s going to happen, I should say. We did discuss, as was suggested earlier, about, you know, potentially rerouting traffic off the 401, closing the 401, which just was not an option, coming into the city. So there was all kind of discussions on how we might be able to do it, but essentially we thought if we could control that intersection around the bridge, that again, we were in the mindset of this Bearhug, if we controlled the intersection, limited vehicle traffic through it, we would be able to essentially control access to the bridge.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Okay.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That was the first noticeable difference in any of the slow rolls that we’d had. There was a little bit more aggression by the protestors at Mic Mac Park. There was a fair number of them. And that was the first time that, like, officers had to actually disengage some of the protestors, because of the aggression that they showed.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Again, we’re trying not to escalate things. We’re trying to plan -- you know, knowing what’s going on in Ottawa at the time and in Coutts, we’re trying not to escalate anything and work with, as all the previous other -- the previous slow rolls, we’re trying to work with the protestors. And also at this time, we are also planning for information we had received was for the next morning of a potential gathering at Comber Rest Stop, which is about 25 minutes outside of Windsor on the 401. There’s a truck stop. And we were potentially planning for this gathering. So we had planned for our surveillance team to go out as well as the OPP. They were going to be there and try and engage the truckers to see what their -- their plan was and their intentions were that morning.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
So I think -- to be honest, at this point we were so involved in our planning and what we had been doing, I can’t say that there was a -- you know, a lot of takeaways at this point from Ottawa, but certainly we knew about private property, engaging our partners and our business owners at this point about who is willing to have protestors on their property and the other bridge so we didn’t have to waste any kind of valuable time in the -- in the moment. Again, dealing with protest leadership was a big one, and also we knew a strong command team had to be set up.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes. So part of it was because of this Emergency Planning Committee that I sit on. A lot of the other police leaders were in Ottawa, you know, could see that -- some of the issues they were going through as we went to planning and things like that, so I realized that this was a large piece of what we needed to accomplish.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Okay.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Is me, yes.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
So this was one of the major differences from Ottawa. Again, we assumed a lot seeing what we had seen here. This is not -- so at Comber that morning, there was some trucks, which there always are going to be trucks at the truck stop, but there was more pedestrian cars than we expected. We had information again that there was convoys sitting in concession roads off the 401 hiding, waiting to join the trip down the 401, which never materialized, but it was something we thought, okay, that’s the information. That’s what’s happening. But the main difference was, it wasn’t all semis. It was a lot of pedestrian vehicles, pick-up trucks with flags, and at this point when we were there, we don’t know who a protestor is at that point other than, you know, people with flags, for instance. So it was very difficult to even determine who is a protestor and who’s just driving down the 401, essentially. So stopping a convoy just wasn’t as easy as it sounded.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I wouldn’t say it was as obvious as it became at this point. Like I said, we had very good relationship with the organizer of the slow rolls and that was the first -- that Sunday group was that first different group that we said, okay, there’s a different leadership faction here. And in fact, the original slow roll organizer actually pleaded with the other group not to block the bridge, so he -- we had to develop that relationship with him to, on our behalf, try and plead with them not to do it. So that’s the first, but it wasn’t as obvious down the road.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I don’t believe he did. I just can’t say for sure, but I don’t believe he did.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
At that point, it was just a connection that was made with Kevin and offering if there’s anything they could do, let them know.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
It was more of an intelligence thing, I think, at that point. We didn’t really utilize Kevin McGonigal’s services at this point.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
M’hm. The police resources were spread very thin throughout the province. It was very clear to me, being as a part of the Emergency Planning Committee, it was quite clear that resources were in high demand, so yes, I saw that quite clearly.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes. At this point, the bridge had not been blocked, so we were -- you know, we were okay with just having boots on the ground providing traffic, you know, resources at that point. But I had sent Dana Early an email, I believe the night before, or maybe -- maybe this -- on the 7th, asking, “Hey, if things go a bit sideways here, how available is any POU resources?”. So that was really my first, again, informal ask just to get an understanding if we need to look that way, what does it look like for you.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I don’t know. I’d have to see the email exactly what the response was. But at this point, Dana was working with us from London still, basically trying to put resources together. I think the response, essentially, was if you need something, we’re going to supply it for you.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
This is this, correct. Yeah.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Again, I think it was if -- you know, let us know what you need and we will try and make arrangements, essentially.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
So at the very beginning of it, we were managing the blockade from our Windsor Police Headquarters in a project room to later in the day, we moved to the EOC and stood it up. At that point is when I expanded the command team and invited CBSA to be a part of the command team. So they supplied personnel at that point to be that direct link with us to CBSA, and they were providing intelligence and any information they had, along with the resource at that point.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
At this point, I would say CBSA was the only external partner that was in the EOC with us. We had expanded our internal resources to include Major Crime at this point. We expanded to include more Intelligence officers, along with the sergeant that was already in the Command Team. And some more resources for logistics because we -- it was growing, we needed some help.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
You know, that's a really good question. I don't recall if they did or not. I had never heard of PLT until this weekend ---
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
--- unbelievably, and I don't recall if they made it or if it was just regular OPP officers discussing intentions with the Comber people.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, that's correct.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
So in those first days, when we were really relying on just essentially, you know, mostly Windsor Police resources, we had some difficulty in negotiating ourselves with all the protesters. Again, we talked about the fraction of leadership and different groups. The PLT, how it was explained to me through local OPP resources, were, you know, they have relationships with a lot of people through different protests across the province. They -- that's their -- essentially that's their role to maintain these relationships, and because of that trust is built, and they are able to, you know, basically fulfill their mandate with the negotiations with any kind of demonstration. In this case, they were able to -- and again, it was so dynamic over the first four or five days with lanes closing, lanes opening. I can't tell you times or days, but there was numerous times where lanes were opened and closed, but essentially it was PLT doing that for us. They had also brought in a couple of minor tactics with printed pieces of paper for officers and their notebook for common messaging handouts for the protesters. So it was all about education and communication with them, and they did a fantastic job.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes. So we had the -- we were monitoring many open sources for Intelligence. We actually heard a lot of the conversation from the protesters about their conversations about the police on a Zello app, and - - so that was part of it. We could hear the infighting. So somebody would negotiate a lane open and someone else would step up and say, "no way we're giving -- we're not giving this to the police", and their people would come and clog it up. And then we would hear that right on ground as well. So it was quite obvious that the leadership was not -- there was no solidarity there for sure.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That's correct.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
So if I could just back up to the Monday. One of my first questions was, again, when it comes down to lessons from Ottawa, knowing that the tow truck companies did not want to participate with the Ottawa Police or help them that was one of my first questions. Are -- we have a contract with the company in Windsor, and my -- to Inspector Crosby, I remember asking her, are they onboard? And she said she already had asked that question, and they were. So that was good news to us. And that first night, again, the -- we were trying to keep protesters off of private property and Assumption High School is, as the Mayor said, right in the protest area on Huron Church, between Tecumseh and College. We started seeing protest vehicles go into the school property parking lot, and we went over there to discuss with them to, you know, "You're not welcome here. We've already talked to the Board, you're not welcome, it's time to go." And we kind of gave them an ultimatum, saying, "Listen, you have 10, 15 minutes to move. We're going to tow you." So we held the tow trucks back out of sight as best we could, again, not wanting to escalate things, you know, and somebody spotted one of the tow trucks. And we had some altercations, or sorry, not altercations, some of the protesters came out of their cars with tire irons, and we were at times, not only on this occasion but almost outnumbered in getting swarmed a little bit, and again, having our officers have to disengage to not escalate. So then they ended up moving after some negotiation. But that was the Assumption High School incident.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That's correct.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
So under the Trespass of Property Act, we cannot remove someone from private property without -- we act as an agent for the owner. If they are not -- if they're willing to have someone go to their property and not be removed, then the police are -- have no authority there to remove them. So we did not want to give any kind of, you know, spot for the protesters to basically congregate. Essentially right there at Tecumseh Road, we have very large parking lots, there is a grocery store and numerous a mall essentially, so it's a very big parking lot. So that could've really led to some -- you know, another protest area, essentially, plus we had smaller businesses of the cab company, all these places, that we just did not want to interfere with business anymore than we already had and keep things under control.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That's correct.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
So we had carried through with the plan that we had talked about with trying to control the intersection of College and Huron Church, which is the first intersection south of the entrance to the bridge. And what we did we established control of it with traffic officers, our traffic enforcement officers, by basically just letting two or three cars go at a time, and if they went on the bridge and crossed then we'd let another two or three. So that's how we controlled for quite a while, actually. Same with coming off the bridge, we would try and do that best we can -- we could. And then I think doing that for sometime, it was frustrating. The protesters, again we were listening to open source media, and they were getting frustrated with us. So I think the comment was one of them basically said, "I wonder what happens if I just stop my truck right here in the southbound lanes?" And that's what happened. Best truck stopped, a pickup truck stopped, I would say 200, 300 metres south of College, another one stopped and another stopped, and the next thing you know all three lanes were blocked, and that's how it started. So from there, the traffic started to block up or clog up very quickly, and within probably 20 minutes there was a line of semi-trucks that were just regular commuters for industry creating a line of trucks miles into Detroit and Michigan. So that's how it started.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That's correct.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
so the why would be, you know, people were stuck on this bridge for hours. The bridge is almost a hundred years old. So we were worried about structural integrity of the bridge. We were worried about commerce. We were worried about people having no, you know, food, water, you know, washrooms, being up on the bridge. We wanted to get that bridge cleared off. So the how was very difficult. So, again, the geography of the bridge, there's one main entrance that comes out onto Huron Church Road, which is southbound. There is a secondary entrance -- or exit, sorry. If I said entrance the first time, I meant exit. There's a secondary exit that turns to the west and goes up a small road, part of Huron Church beside the bridges towards Wyandotte. And then the only other access to the bridge is off of Wyandotte Street. It's an entrance. So at that point, again, very dynamic. There was blockages at all three at times. So we were -- at points, we were using an entrance on the north side of the bridge for exiting. We were trying to get out that secondary exit, which wasn't possible because cars and trucks had clogged that small section of Huron Church just west of the bridge almost instantly. There was a decision made at one point by myself to allow trucks access to College westbound, which I didn't want to do because that was out emergency route for fire, because they - - their fire station is just east of Huron Church. And if protesters clog College, we were in a bad way. But there was no -- there was just no other decision to make at that point. We literally had to do what we could to clear that bridge. So, and again with negotiations through all that to allow us to essentially, you know, open this part, open that part, to eventually clear the bridge, and I think the bridge was cleared of traffic by about 10:20 at night. So they were up there a while.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Marc Murphy is an inspector ---
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I don't know if I got this email, but I definitely got a message, either directly from Murphy or from our Communications Centre, our 9-1-1 Centre, that this call was coming in to them as well. The bridge company wasn't happy with us. I think they thought we were blocking the bridge, and we were just trying to tell them we are doing the best we can. And my question to them was, "Have you stopped letting trucks on the bridge?" Because that just wouldn't help us to continue to let trucks on the bridge. So at some point, they started routing traffic to the Bluewater Bridge, which at this point, they had no issues there so.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I don't have a clue.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yeah, I can't say. I didn't have anymore conversation or contact with the bridge company at that point. That was my only contact with them.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
No, I don't.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
So being the EOC, I mean, we were approximately 10 kilometres away from the bridge. So, like, I was getting reports, but to be all honesty, the pressure that we felt, just knowing the impact of what was going on in the EOC was enormous pressure. We felt that we wanted to do more but we were so handcuffed at this point with what was going on. But certainly, you know, just reports in mainstream media and the economic impacts, we knew it was humungous. It was just giant.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
No, that was not in my realm at that point, but growing up in Windsor, I grew up my whole life, I understand that the essence of what -- how important that bridge is to our community and our country, to be honest. So it's not lost on me the impact that that would have.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
No, I think that was me.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Oh, sorry; was I?
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Okay. Sorry. Then that would be Deputy Chief Bellaire at the time, yes.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes. The background of that actually was before the -- sorry, that was on the 9th. Before that, I had received a call on the 8th at about 6:30 in the morning from Superintendent Mike McDonell from the OPP, who I was a colleague with on the Emergency Preparedness Committee. And he obviously had seen on the news what was going on, and he asked me what we needed. And I just told him, "We need some bodies." So his ask to me was -- and this was over time. This was not on that first conversation. He said he would talk to the Commissioner. But again, informal request here; right? This is a Superintendent asking another Superintendent. It's an informal request. So within time, he gets back to me and says, "I need a plan of what you're going to do with 100 officers." And I understood that just to ask for a hundred officers, so I put together a very generic plan, considering there was 2 -- you know, 24-hour coverage, 2 12-hour shifts, essentially, and we are also policing a very busy city with our own resources and resources for the bridge. So that was really my ask and I put together this very generic plan for them.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
No, he asked me what we needed, and, you know, just literally doing the quick math kind of right there, I said, "I could probably use a hundred officers." But he asked me for a plan. "Well, I need to know what you need a hundred officers for." I said, "No problem."
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yeah, I think so, yeah.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yeah, I would say it is, yeah. And this is being put together with not knowing anything about the OPP's collective agreements, what shifts they worked, what -- you know, I came to found out over -- find out over time how this is very normal for them, and they all expect deployments like this. And, you know, this is very normal. So but this is at a time where I -- you know, I'm trying not to step on another organization's collective bargaining agreement, and to try and, you know, satisfy our needs as well so.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I think this was still fairly early in the sense of this conversation happened essentially less than 24 hours after the bridge was locked. So, again, our plan at the time was to negotiate. We had set up a perimeter and to negotiate with them. And at the time, this is -- we thought hopefully we could get there at the end of it through negotiation. Again, not trying to escalate anything, but that's why, you know, my background told me three days before to ask Dana, "Hey, if it goes this way, what are we looking at?" But that was not in the plan yet, and again, knowing what was going on here and in Toronto.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I was not aware of that at that time.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I -- in preparing for this, I found that out, and I’m assuming that that ask was the formal ask because of this. But I can’t confirm that. I don’t know.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I don’t recall that she did, no.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
No, I don’t recall that at all. I -- I was sending situation reports to them regularly, and there may have been conversations back and forth, but I don’t recall them, to be honest.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yeah, I can’t explain this. I did not know about this when it happened. I mean, if you look at the time, it’s 11:20 at night on the 9th. I was working straight midnights at point and if I would have known this at the time -- you know, I understand there was mass confusion to a situation that we have never dealt with. So I can’t explain this email. I did not know about it at the time.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
No, but the Police Services Act of Ontario is quite clear, that is we can’t provide our own, for instance, in this case, public order unit, we need to go to the OPP, and our directive, our policy, says that as well, so.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I was not present during these sessions. I was working midnights at this point. Karel Degraaf our critical incident commander on days, but I was not present during this, no.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
No. I mean -- so Dana Earley came with numerous resources. It was clear that the Windsor Police, to all of our admission, had no experience in public order. So it was my understanding right from the beginning that Dana and her team was in charge of the public- order response as well as numerous OPP resources. So that would just -- my understanding was we would be forming a unified command team.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I would say before she arrived. That was the intention. We did not have that experience, and we were asking for help, essentially.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
No, that was not my understanding. I was never told that. My understanding was unified command of which again -- so in my experience, before I was a Critical Incident Commander and as a Critical Incident Commander, when you have multi-jurisdictional command and unified command in that multi-jurisdictional command, there are times to step forward as a Critical Incident Commander and there are times to step back, and that’s what unified command is. We learned through this process that Supt. Earley's command was -- she was in command of public order response, was in command of OPP resources. Those were the times she stepped forward, and there was operational times when the Windsor Police would step forward, be it myself or Inspector Karel DeGraaf.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
It was, again, this unified command. I can't say anyone was in charge of the overall operation. Unified command, there is consultation that goes on. Like, for instance, even the POU plan where Supt. Earley was clearly in charge of the POU plan, she consulted us on it after it was done. She would consult us, any issues, any logistical issues, any Windsor issues. So that’s -- that is the true meaning of unified command. So this, I was not part of those discussions, so that was not my understanding.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Well, I agree with the working alongside. Yes, it's 100 percent, I agree with that. I don’t know about this. I was never informed of this. I would say that yes, we worked alongside each other and again, that concept of stepping forward and stepping back in unified command was present right from the immediate arrival of Supt. Earley and her team. And I would also say that Windsor Police was always the police of jurisdiction. We never were not the police of jurisdiction through this event.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Okay.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, I do.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
It's not my document, no.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
So this document was -- there's a lot of opinion in this document. The way it was prepared, the superintendent that was in charge of this document of preparing it essentially sent out opinion papers to all our subject matter experts within our service, and this -- I don't know where that came from. It didn’t come from me, but certainly, that was just part of a recommendation that somebody felt that, you know, was legitimate.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, very well.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
So prior to the OPP command team arriving, we had our command table. Supt. Earley came with her command table, which essentially, in the positions, kind of mirrored ours. But -- so her team arrived on the 10th, and immediately, that team was inserted in our command table effortlessly, seamlessly. So she had a scribe, as I had a scribe. She had another inspector involved in logistics. She had a boardsperson that is in charge of all the whiteboards with all the information on it that we -- that is changing throughout the event. Essentially, it was the very same setup, a very similar setup than we had. But the day they came in, they had some recommendations on the actual layout of our EOC which were taken into consideration immediately, things like more boards, you know, things like that. So those were taken care of right away, but after that, they hit the ground running with us, and there was -- it was a seamless transition, to be honest.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, that’s what I would say.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
So again, that shared or unified command in stepping forward and stepping back. So for instance, a perfect example is the POU response. Supt. Earley put that plan together with her team, consulted us after. There were other times, for instance -- and I don’t want to jump ahead too often or too much -- but on the Saturday night, for instance, there was a bomb threat. It was a tactical call. I stepped up and took a lead on that. So those are the kind of things -- you know, and again, even if I'm making decisions at that bomb threat, Dana was right next to me. We were talking about decisions as they're made, you know, because that’s that shared command. So that’s kind of the dynamic, if that helps. But that’s the model.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
So the part of Dana Earley's team was the Public Order Commanders, so that would be Jason Younan, Inspector Younan and Angela Ferguson. The two inspectors were in charge of their OPP Public Order Units. They would come up with the plan because they’re the subject matter experts. Just like in any critical incident, that’s what a Critical Incident Commander relies upon, their subject matter experts to come up with a plan, and then within the framework of Critical Incident Command, the Commander will either approve it or not approve it. May have questions about it, may have -- you know, may suggest things that may be added or deleted. But essentially, they have questions -- they’ll be able to approve or not approve that plan. So it wasn’t -- as a Critical Incident Commander, it’s not Supt. Earley’s job, or even maybe not even her subject matter expertise to physically make that plan. So that’s why it has to be approved by the Critical Incident Commander, because the CIC is essentially in charge of every decision that’s being made in that Command Team.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, because -- in that planning team though, there was other POUs involved. We had other municipalities in that Public Order Unit. So the Public Order Commanders have come up with this plan. They send it to Supt. Earley, because that’s who is in charge of the Public Order Plan, and then she approves it, and in that process of approval, she consults with Insp. Degraaf, myself, whoever was there and, you know, “Is there any concerns?
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
This is why you rely on your subject matter experts. So, you know, this planning informally starts with those first few phone calls and emails to Supt. Earley, you know, “Hey, we might need some Public Order help.” So the situational reports were going to her and her team before they even came to Windsor. So they knew the geography, they knew what was going on with us, they knew what was happening with the protestors. So when they get there, subject matter experts can work very quickly to come up with a plan to essentially clear the bridge. And that’s what happened.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, it was a very busy day, actually. It was.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I would say the injunction was impactful for us. It allowed -- obviously, just another tool for us during the whole planning of everything. But it allowed us to really focus on exterior or perimeter roads, as opposed to just Huron Church. So if there was parking -- and, you know, that came into play later. But towing cars off of side streets. That was -- the injunction was very helpful for things like that. It was another tool. Plus, of course, it was another charge that we would be able to lay if we had arrested anybody. The Emergency for the -- under the EMPCA really, I don’t think, was much of a consideration for us for this plan.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Well, the rest were made during Public Order action on the 12th and 13th, and the subsequent charges were laid after that. Like, you know, the investigators then take the files and lay the information subsequent to the arrests. But prior to the injunction, we already had reasonable grounds for criminal mischief. Like I said, the injunction was simply another charge that we would be able to lay on the protestors upon arrest.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Those are estimations. I think my point, I was never involved in the scheduling. I was involved in some discussions with the officers we had scheduling out of our training branch. It was hectic. We had people reporting that we didn’t know were reporting and, I mean, you can imagine the logistical -- you know, it was very difficult for our schedulers. So those were estimations, judging by what we knew the OPP had sent and other municipalities had sent us.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I really don’t have that information. I think that’s probably better directed at the OPP. But I would say, like, from my point of view, the 100 -- the original ask of 100 officers was simply an initial response to the beginnings of the blockade. The blockade grew enormously throughout the week and it really peaked on the Saturday night to really, and I call it the highest point of incivility that I’ve seen in a long time. So I would say that’s probably why. The number of officers, the conditions we were working in, it was cold, the snow, Public Order had done their thing that morning on the Saturday. They started their action. So I would say just -- and then they were -- I wouldn’t say that there were 700 officers at one point. I would say there was probably in and out, because there was officers going from Windsor to Ottawa and to Toronto and to all these other things. They were in and out and almost interchangeable at times, from my understanding anyways.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Well we were side- by-side with OPP, and RCMP, and, you know, other municipal officers. So we would have, say, like, for instance, it came up earlier about swearing RCMP officers in. So before we could swear the RCMP officers in for provincial legislation, we would have to pair them with a municipal officer or an OPP officer to ensure that they would have those abilities to enact provincial offences. So we had -- at times, we had an OPP cruiser with two Windsor Police officers in it. Like, it was just -- it was shared resources for perimeter control, for any kind of uprising that we might need, like the bomb call, or we had an abandoned house fire at one point in the area. So these are the kind of things that we were trying to manage that perimeter with the boots on the ground, those initial officers other than POU.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, I would consider it very successful. We had -- eventually, I think we charged 44 people. I think that was the number. We had no injuries, no property damage, and we were able to clear that bridge relatively quickly, in my book anyways.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
So at this point, when we had control of the area through jersey barriers and police presence, we had no problems with protesters that were still in the area on sidewalks, and there wasn't very many of them, but there were a handful, mostly up at the Tecumseh Road area at Huron Church, and that was okay. So that's -- that was still respecting people's right to come out and protest on the sidewalk. We don't want you to block critical infrastructure. And then relying again on the OPP's experience in these long drawn out protracted demonstrations, we adopted this plan, that mostly it was from their experience. And so we were able to control that area from, essentially, E.C. Row Expressway to the bridge through jersey barriers, and if there was protesters out on the sidewalks or even on foot in some of the parking lots, we just allowed it.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Well, at this point we were dealing with, like probably under 10 protesters. Again, I'm still working midnights at this point, so the crowds at night were, you know, four, five in the morning, people were sleeping. So you might have five or six, seven protesters on the corner of Tecumseh and Huron Church. That was okay, we weren't going to remove them. They were off the road, they weren't, you know, in any danger, and they were allowed to protest.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That's correct. We had left a safety out in case somebody accidentally got up and tied up in the -- at Tecumseh Road, but we didn't advertise that. If somebody came across and said, "Hey, I don't really want to go on the bridge, I'm just here on accident", there was an out for them. But essentially, it was a tunnel of jersey barriers from the expressway to the bridge, yes.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
No, the bridge was open. If members of the public wanted to go over to the States they could have used that. But once they would have to enter at the expressway, which was very -- you know, a few kilometres south of the bridge.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
No, no. Yeah, they could not stop and -- no. We -- but we didn't have that problem, we didn't -- not to my recollection at this point anyways, we had anybody stop and try and block that, but there was numerous threats of it. And that's why we would re-evaluate every single day to where the traffic plan was and when can we start demobilisation of that traffic plan. It was very measured and very conscious of what, you know, what the Intelligence was and what the potential threat of protesters coming back to the block the bridge. Again, open sources, we were hearing people asking other protesters from Ottawa and Toronto to come down to Windsor. "We're going to come at them again. We're going to block the bridge again." This was daily. So we would re-evaluate with our Intelligence our information every day, and then act accordingly from there.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
It was helpful every day.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I know it was a major inconvenience for the citizens of Windsor, and I think the Mayor explained it well. People on the west end trying to get to the other side or the east side of Huron Church was very difficult. I would hear it on the radio myself of our local radio stations, and you know, the frustration of the people because that was closed, or not closed, but that was -- we were controlling those roadways for a considerable amount of time. So we understood the frustration, but we just -- that's why we would re-evaluate every day. We really understood the importance of maintaining that posture there by the bridge to ensure that we wouldn't lose it again.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
M'hm.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I can't say operationally that we didn't use the Emergencies Act after that, but I can't imagine it didn't dissuade people from coming back, but I -- that's just a speculation. We did not use the Emergencies Act at all.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That's correct.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Well, yeah. If I'm a citizen of Windsor trying to cross, yes, it seemed long, but really felt it was necessary. And again, we're relying on the experience of the Ontario Provincial Police in these matters. So we would take their advice. We did -- in the demobilisation we did modify the plan more than once because of those re-evaluations daily of "Hey, are we at a spot where we can open up a little more than the plan says?" And we did that probably three or four times throughout those weeks, and... But it was very important to us, especially when we got up to Tecumseh Road, to take a very measured approach on reopening. We were very paranoid about it happening again.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Just on open source. So I don't recall any credible Intelligence or information from law enforcement, but I -- that's just my recollection right now, I could be wrong, I stand to be corrected on that. But certainly on the -- on open source, on all the social media, we had heard numerous pleas and numerous threats that it was going to happen again.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
M'hm.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I can't answer that at that point, it's -- that's not my document. I don't know what that's referencing. I would assume that that's what it's referencing. But again, we were a medium-sized service trying to police a city and deal with this at the same time. So -- and just because everyone didn't know about an Operational Plan and the ins and outs of an Operational Plan, you know, some of these opinions may come from that; right? Like, they didn't know what the -- you know, we weren't communicating what the Operational Plan is to everyone in the organisation.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
We may have. It was a very -- even I think the protesters were disorganised at the very beginning. Probably at the height of -- because we talked about this fractured leadership that they had, they were probably as disorganised at the beginning as throughout the whole protest. So if we would have had a Public Order Unit in place and the experience and the subject matter experts I would think that we might have been able to act accordingly because of the state of that initial few hours, but again, that's an assumption by me. I don't know, I don't have that experience in public order.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
It was an enormous resource issue. We -- again, this is an opinion that someone had, but certainly, we had nowhere else to draw from other than our regular patrol and investigative personnel to police the bridge. So were our patrol personnel very tired and getting very burned out? I imagine they were, as were the OPP and all the other municipal officers that came into town for sure.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I didn't quite hear. So which regulation is it?
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
We do not have a formal agreement with another police force. I think what -- and our policy is mirroring -- that mirrors this Adequacy Standard and this legislation. Essentially, what our policy says that we shall enter into an agreement in the event we need one. Like, for instance, the London Police had one right away when we asked for help and we signed it -- well, the mayor signed it, I think. So certainly, no one asked us to do that, but certainly, we are ready to, upon requirement, we would enter into an agreement for sure.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That's correct.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yeah, that's correct.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Exactly.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, I'm assuming it is, yes.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That's correct.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
So that's -- that is very -- it's explainable. So the OPP provides many services to many municipal services throughout the province. For instance, we don't have a dive team. We don't have an agreement to use the dive team. When we need to use the divers, we gave a formal request to the Commissioner, "We would like to use your dive team for this investigation." No problem. They get sent down. There's no agreement. We need a technical expert in, say, in vehicles with extracting information from the computers. The OPP have those. Informal request goes to our Chief to the Commissioner, comes back, no problem, here you go. So there's no agreement for any of that. It's a Chief-to-Chief request. And certainly, this is no different. But if the Commissioner would have come and said, "Hey, we have an agreement, would you please sign it?" I'm pretty sure our Board would have signed it immediately.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
No, we never -- as far as I know, we never received any agreement except from the London Police Service.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Okay. So a perfect example of informal request was this Emergency Preparedness Committee that I sit on for the OACP. Again, we are meeting at least two, three times a week by -- just by -- on Zoom or Teams or whatever it was. And the discussion, at this time, before our blockade, was focussing on Ottawa and the Toronto weekend protests that were happening every weekend. So amongst police leaders at our ranks and superintendent, inspector, those were the requests saying, okay, who can send people to Ottawa? It necessarily wasn't POU specific, but it was who can spare some bodies for Ottawa, or who can send people to Toronto. So after our blockade was concluded, months went by. Ottawa had two other pretty robust protests, Rolling Thunder and there was another one, I don't remember the name of it, but we sent people from Windsor, because they needed people on ground. We don't have Public Order, but we sent resources because, you know, that was the right thing to do, and we felt that we really had a debt to actually pay for a lot of the other services. So that's just an example of an informal request. They would eventually be formalized through the Chiefs, which again, is covered in the Police Act. Chief makes a request to the Commissioner and that's one, you know, one of the ways that those -- or those formal requests are made. I can't see that a Superintendent is going to authorize these requests without the Chief knowing so.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
No, I can't really comment because I didn't know about that directly, like, I wasn't involved in that conversation. What I did get, what I think my testimony was that Chief Mizuno asked me to contact Chief Superintendent Thib, because those were -- that was a small request and that wasn't a POU request. That was a local request to get local resources from the local detachments, and I don't think that is something that necessarily the Commissioner was concerned with a local request to the local detachments.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, I would think that. Just the formal request of resources locally and the Commissioner knew about it through the conversation with the Chief, and but that's -- that was my direction. I was told to call Chief Superintendent Thib and that was my direction and that's what I did.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I don't, no. I don't. I think at the beginning of that process, we just -- we didn't have as big of an event on our hands.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That's correct, my whole life.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I am.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I was.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Well, that's a good question. I don't know that. I've never run the marathon, so I don't know. I would like to, but, no, I don't know if it's restricted or completely closed, but either way, it’s for a very small period of time.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
It’s always on a Sunday I’ve worked it. It’s always on a Sunday. It’s usually very early, 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning, yes, for maybe a couple of hours.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Thank you.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Good afternoon.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Fractured.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, that’s how I would describe it, yes. That was my opinion.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct. That’s what it seemed like.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, at time.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Well, I mean it impacts our daily operations greatly. We -- our fleet vehicles are parked in the basement. I would imagine exiting and entering the building if it’s blocked would be very difficult. It would impact our employees coming in and out of work, I would imagine. It would just impact every -- every use of our operating -- you know, our operations every day.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s exactly right.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, there were.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, there were.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
No.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
No, we had to deploy resources to all three of those places that you mentioned, as well as very concerning -- that whole corridor where our headquarters is, it had hospitals and essential services that, if that area got blocked, it would have caused enormous problems for us, not mentioning the tunnel with what the mayor said was thousands of people going over there to work.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, that’s correct.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That we had to deal with, yes. It was made ---
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
--- and we had to put resources to it, investigate it, and -- yes.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I imagine there was. I don’t know for sure but I imagine -- there was all kinds of live footage that we were watching in the OIC that was open- source, and that was part of it.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, we cancelled -- I cancelled the days off from -- I think it’s -- I would have to check the dates but I cancelled a week of rest days of our own officers, let alone the ask from the OPP and the municipal forces to be away from home and cancel their days off as well. So, yes, it was -- there was long, long days.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Absolutely.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Well, the unpredictability of any crowd gathering is an enormous consideration for us. But in something like that, we had to make plans with Children’s Aid Society on arrest plans. We had resources dedicated to just Children’s Aid. Obviously, there’s a huge safety concern. There was talk on open-source communications that they were going to use children as human shields at one point. So there was all kinds of considerations for us to keep the welfare of children, you know, very, you know, safe.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, sir.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That was my opinion, that police resources across the province were getting spread thin, yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Certainly, because of the asks on the EPC Committee, and the public order being spread thin, and -- for sure.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Absolutely. I watched it myself on open-source YouTube channels.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, we have a very busy police service, yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Absolutely.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s my opinion, yes, for sure.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s what -- yes, that’s fair to say for sure.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Absolutely.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
It certainly could.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
There's traffic cameras, yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I'm not aware of EC Row. It could be.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I'm going to say that’s probably a drone picture.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yeah.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes. They were actively being monitored.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
No.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
To be honest, we didn’t -- this CTV camera was not very helpful, and the one at College was old and we had to put up our own camera, to be honest.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
No.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Approximately.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
No idea. This was a dynamic intersection as well. It would be like this. There would be 50 cars there. It was dynamic.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I don't know.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I'm only aware of one egress -- or sorry, one -- no, wait -- two egress and two in -- yes, sorry. You're correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That was part of it, but it was expanded to, you know, the intersections on Huron Church, expanded that way. But for sure, those would be part of it.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
No, I don’t.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
There was discussions amongst the POU plan to -- of what day it would be actioned, but I don't know exactly when it was. But that when initial plans formed, initial days.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I probably saw this at some point, but I don’t recall it.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
It could be. So Inspector DeGraaf worked mainly days, and at night, I put myself on nights because of this. My experience, these kind of situations, that’s when it ramps up.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
It was probably in the development of the plan, that’s correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Well, this would have been after, because OPP was in charge of the POU plan, of developing it.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Twenty-one (21) days.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That looks accurate, yeah.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
It looks like College to be with the berm on the top left there. It looks the university property, but I can't say for sure, but that’s what it looks like.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, that’s correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, for sure.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
No, but credible or not, we still have to ---
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
For sure.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, that’s correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, but the roadway here, under the legislation, is fence line to fence line.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
We’re trying to establish a perimeter in a controlled area. That’s what we’re doing.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
We were trying to clear out an area, so that’s why she’s getting arrested.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, I would agree with that.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, I do.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I believe so.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I don’t recall that that’s why, but I recall the walking on Oullette, yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I don’t recall ever being a protest of 1,000 people, but weekly there was protests at the flag, yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, I recall that.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Again, the reason I don’t know, but, yes, protests were happening weekly.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I remember a vaccine policy, but I don’t know anything about that. I had nothing to do with that.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
No, I don’t think so.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Good afternoon.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, I would say it’s very effective.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, I agree with that completely.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, I could say that.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Oh, the Preparedness Committee. Yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
M’hm.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
A little bit. Are you talking -- you’re referring to right before ours started? Or right in that same time period?
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
A little bit -- yes. A little ---
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, I recall.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Certainly. Yes. We had those conversations. So it’s my understanding of the Blue Water Bridge, I’m well aware of the 402 coming off the 401. It’s one exit when you’re going west bound. And there was farm equipment, from my recollection, trying to block that area. Police took a proactive stance there, the OPP, and stopped that one road coming off the 401. And like any highway, there’s exits and entrances along the way. But limited. So a little bit more manageable from an emergency preparedness and emergency management, you know, lens, where our infrastructure is kilometres long, side streets everywhere. So we did discuss blocking access to Huron Church. That leads to blocking access to the other -- where the 401 splits -- Heron Church goes to Dougall. Dougall goes right to our tunnel, and the hospital, and all these other things that we wanted to keep the traffic away from. We did not want to put any focus on the tunnel, because that was our main access for our citizens that work in Detroit and in Michigan, plus the hospital was a very big concern for us as well. So in those initial discussions we just -- we could not -- we did not have the resources. We couldn’t -- it was just a -- logistically, there was no way we could block all those intersections and shut down Windsor, essentially, from incoming traffic, like they did at 402.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Absolutely.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
It was reasonable and really we -- other than the fact that we didn’t know what the tactic might be, that was the most reasonable tactic that we could use.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, that’s correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s exactly what ---
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, that’s correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Absolutely not.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, that’s it.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct. Like, yeah, they developed the plan.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Exactly right.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Absolutely, 100 percent. That was -- that was the -- again, especially with my background, that was the ask. That was the ask, for them to come in and provide us their experience, and that’s what they did, admirably.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s right.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
But that being said, a lot of consultation went, you know, afterwards, both ways, so...
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yeah.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
No, that’s a testament to the experience that they bring.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, that’s correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, I am.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, I’m aware of that.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Sure. I think that a lot of the document is true. Like, you know, like, this document is all about transparency for us. We're trying to improve. We're trying to develop policy and procedure that can maybe one day mirror the experience of the OPP. So these kind of things, like, internal communication was a big one, improving that. Improving who was actually in the EOC, not at the Command table but in the EOC for, like, say, for finance, and for maybe the Executive Officer or the Chief should have been there for a better communication, for internal communication. These are the things that, you know, we right away realize that, you know, we're learning, and certainly there was -- there would be some changes, but the things that worked were when the OPP came into town, we were completely welcoming. And the -- that seamless integration of Superintendent Earley's team with our team, everybody was pulling the rope in the same direction, and that was what helped us. That was our success.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, sir.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Okay.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I don't -- no, I don't. Like, if that's what I said, I don't know if we had an inability to act on information. It was the inability or maybe the desire to act on information at times that was not legitimate or confirmed or things like that. That's ---
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
--- maybe what I meant.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, sir.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Okay.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
As a Critical Incident Commander, I mean, I can't disagree with it, but I certainly was not willing to interject in that point to escalate the situation.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
No.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
We were not.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
No.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I would agree.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Well, compared to what Ottawa's dealing with, I would say yes, but, I mean, we had times we were estimating up to a 100, 150 vehicles.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I'd have to trust you on that. I don't ---
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
My intelligence was going by drone shots and things like that. I mean, 10 kilometres away. Right.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Ontario, I would -- most of them. There were some locals. As we ran plates, the officers on grounds running plates, you know, there was different areas of the province.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I would say mostly Ontario though.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I don't recall, sir, I really don't.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
No.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yeah, that's fair.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yeah, I don't think I did. I mean, I was working midnights at the time. I don't think I did.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, sir.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
It was.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
No, I mean, we all had our roles. My role was Critical Incident Command. I was either working or sleeping at that point.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Very little of the - --
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
--- last, yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Certainly.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That's correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Okay.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
No, I was not.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I -- no, I was not aware of that. I was aware of a possible date change, but I was not aware when it went back to the 12th.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Okay.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
No, not at the time.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That is -- I don't know that. That may ---
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
--- be an OPP policy, but I ---
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
--- that certainly wasn't a Windsor policy.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Okay.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Thank you, sir.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Good afternoon.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
No ---
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
--- night shift.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
No, that’s -- you’re correct in saying that.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Completely respected it, yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
You’re correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct, yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s fair.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
On certain things, the things that I talked about earlier, certainly, but not everything. I mean, like, for instance, when the OPP came down and we, you know, started to share command and work as a team, that was just the way I -- it went. Like, that was just -- that was an accepted practice in my book. That’s how I wanted to work. And I’m sure Supt. Earley will same the same thing -- or -- and should say the same thing because that’s -- it just worked that way.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I can’t -- I can’t confirm that, sorry.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Okay, just judging by the time, I was not at work yet. I was still on midnights of the email, but I certainly can’t disagree that maybe it is the same.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
It’s part of their use-of-force model, yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct, sir, yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
You’re talking about the Public Order Plan?
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, that was not in place, no.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That is fair, yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
No it was not a complete plan at all.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, sir.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Likely.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct. It is an escalation, for sure.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Thank you, sir.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Good evening.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Fair.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I have no idea. I don’t even know if I ever saw this back then.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Don’t know.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I don’t know.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Potentially, yes, but I can say that -- like I said, I don’t even think I saw this.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
But when it talks about “real evidence”, when I heard the protesters themselves on the open chat talking about human shields -- children as human shields and seeing a picture with children holding hands across the intersection here in -- Church and College in the early stages, that’s hard evidence for me.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Out Special Investigations Unit was definitely involved and they -- to deal with the children, the harms against children, along with CAS, for sure.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
What’s the date on this, sir, 12th? Okay, thank you -- 4:00 in the morning.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Not at this time, for sure.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
We did not rely on it alone, but I would agree with that, you cannot rely on it alone, yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Thank you.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Good evening.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
These are the Windsor scribe notes, yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Oh, sorry, I didn't hear you say that. Yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
They're WPS scribe notes for the -- yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yeah, I hear you.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That's correct, yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That's correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That's fair, yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I'm assuming. I -- this was a dayshift, so I wasn't there for this part. I'm assuming it was relayed, yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
It's fair.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That's correct.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
It could be. I don't recall to be honest. I know that we were in need of those kind of services. We only had the one contracted service in Windsor, but I can't say that if I knew that or not.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
At the POU Action Day, we did receive help from the State of Michigan. They ended up sending a handful of trucks, tow trucks over to Windsor. They were staged at Mic Mac Park, which is approximately 4 kilometres from the bridge, but we did not use them.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I'm not aware of any.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Thank you.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That would be the Ontario Provincial Police, the Windsor Police, the London Police, and the flash of the RCMP.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
We had assistance from the Hamilton Police Service and the Waterloo Police Service. Off the top of my head, that may be it.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Certainly. So we utilised mainstream media, we utilised social media. We printed the documents, put them on telephone poles, jersey barriers, anywhere we could. We handed flyers out to the protesters. We made every effort we could with every source of media that we could to educate people on the existence of it. And the consequences would be, of course, charge of -- a criminal charge of disobeying a Court Order.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, sir.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Well, they potentially have numerous purposes. They can be used to block intersections to assist us in that capacity. In this state, on the 12th, they were there to -- you know, you can imagine the unpredictability of an even of this kind at this point, so in Critical Incident Command, there's a saying that rather be looking at it than asking for it. So typically, those are held for a higher ground. An officer can be at the top of -- it's a very high vehicle -- can see the crowd from a better perspective, and also it is essentially sat back in case we need it for crowd control or anything worse.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
No.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
No, not at all.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Zero.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes. Sorry, sir. So they're -- let me explain. When I said that about the protestors on the sidewalk, that was outside of the area of control that we had tried to establish. So once -- after the 13th, we established basically from the bridge to Tecumseh Road and a little bit to the east. So there's a Canadian Tire, for instance, right, on that northwest -- northeast corner. If they're on that sidewalk outside of our jersey barriers, we had no problem with that. If they're inside the area of control that we were trying to establish, they were asked to leave, and if they weren’t, they were arrested. So that arrest in that video that we were shown, that is in that area of control on Huron Church north of Tecumseh Road between the Tecumseh Road and the bridge. That is the area that public order was clearing of vehicles and of pedestrians, essentially. So again, once that area of control was determined and established, anyone outside of it could stay on the sidewalk, no problem. That video was not in that area that I'm talking about on the sidewalk.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That was the area that POU cleared, but south of Tecumseh Road was part of the traffic plan with the jersey barriers. But that was another area of protestors, if they were on a sidewalk in that area -- which they weren’t -- but if they were, no problem. They were out of that area of control south of Tecumseh Road. So that’s -- yes, from Tecumseh to the bridge was the area that we were trying to maintain no protestors.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Two kilometres or so.
-
Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I'd say two or three, maybe -- yeah, two.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct, based on their areas of protest for that week, because they had areas at Tecumseh Road, at that south side of the bridge, and the north side of the bridge. That was the area we were trying to clear.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, sir, there were.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I assume.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I wasn’t personally because again, I was on midnights. Inspector DeGraaf would have tuned in to those, but when I flipped over to days about halfway through, I would be on those meetings when they were scheduled, yes.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
That’s correct. There's a POU hub. That’s how we try and work it within the province of distributing necessary resources in these cases, yes. So there was those discussions at those meetings.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
Yes, in my opinion and being a part of that committee, it seemed like there was.
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Jason Crowley, Deputy Chief (Win-WPS)
I was on those meetings, but because Windsor didn’t have POU officers to offer because we don’t have a POU, you know, I was just a part of it. I wasn’t an active part of it because I had nothing to offer, at that point.