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'Officer Bubbles' Sues YouTube Commenters Over Mockery
An anonymous reader writes "'Officer Bubbles' — the Toronto Police Constable who was videotaped threatening a G20 protester with arrest for assault over the crime of blowing bubbles at a police officer has had enough of mocking videos and comments on YouTube. He has decided to sue everyone involved (commenters included) for more than a million dollars each. The complaint is detailed in his statement of claim — most of the comments seem fairly tame by internet standards; if this goes anywhere, everyone is going to have to watch what they say pretty carefully. The lawsuit appears to have been successful in intimidating the author of the mocking cartoons into taking them down."
Yes. In Canada they're Royal douches!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Sue me.
You can't take the sky from me...
A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
This guy must be really pissed-off about missing Kent State where he could have killed a protester for placing a flower in his gun. So in memory of Kent State student Allison Krause who was killed on 4 May 1970 and said, "Flowers are better than bullets", after placing a flower in the barrel of a national guardsman's rifle, 40 years later I remind Officer Bubbles that, "Bubbles are better than bullets."
/.'s Psychic-in-Residence: Psychic to the Geeks
Found 'em: http://www.youtube.com/user/MisterOfficerBubbles
I think it's pretty clear from the video that he wasn't talking to the mob. He was talking one-on-one to a single individual.
It took all of two seconds to find a copy of the video in question here. Not sure why the officer's lawyer thinks they got it taken down successfully unless I'm missing something....
I just love the look of shock on the female cop's face when this guy suddenly butted into a polite conversation between her and the completely peaceful, friendly female protester and threatened to arrest her for assault if one of the bubbles touched him. The "tell" was that her jaw dropped *very* visibly. So even other cops on scene thought his behavior was out of line. Based on that, it's hard to believe anyone could defend his behavior.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
They've probably been in situations in the past where it turned ugly.
One second people are blowing bubbles and the next they are throwing bubble bottles and then next it's rocks and people are setting cars and buildings on fire and looting.
To be fair it doesn't count when the people throwing rocks and setting cars on fire are "agent provocateurs" (for which Canadian police actually admitted to using in the past).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_provocateur
Actually no he's not power tripping. Defamation of a public figure and suing over that is legal in Canada.
Welcome to Canada post Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Then again most people outside of Canada, and most inside Canada have no clue how the law works here.
Om, nomnomnom...
You seem to forget that in the US, you're not allowed to protest these things at all.
Apparently the right of people to peacefully assemble somehow means that the government is allowed to tell people where they can peacefully assemble, so whenever something like a G20 summit or the Democratic National Convention occurs,US Police set up "free speech zones" where people are allowed to protest without any danger of anyone noticing them.
Protesting anywhere else will get your arrested.
And, yes, I'm calling out the DNC here, not because the Republicans don't do it too (they do), but because the Democrats did it first.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Because playground "law" is EXACTLY the same as street law. Not.
As an adult, just try punching someone who was "annoying you" and see how far you get in court.
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
If "provoking a police officer" were illegal you might have a point. From the video, the girl does not "gets in the police officer's faces" at all, in fact the female officer is happily chatting to the girl from the outset.
At no point after being asked to stop does she blow any bubbles, so bang goes the provokation theory.
Also, a foot? Really?
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
You do know that here in Canada we have free health care, including mental-health, right?
So the fact are:
- the police admitted putting "undercover" agents in the civilian crowd.
- the agents were concealing their identities
- they were holding rocks
These are all far more intimidating actions than blowing bubbles into the air which a civilian was punished for.
Perhaps your police buddy can beat some sense into c6gunner.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/08/23/police-montebello.html
"Police said the three undercover officers were only at the protest to locate and identify non-peaceful protesters in order to prevent any incidents.
Police came under fire Tuesday, when a video surfaced on YouTube that appeared to show three plainclothes police officers at the protest with bandanas across their faces. One of the men was carrying a rock.
In the video, protest organizers in suits order the men to put the rock down, call them police instigators and try unsuccessfully to unmask them."
This video shows the broader context of the "Officer Bubbles" confrontation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVwXOKZh4Os&feature=channel
You can't take the sky from me...