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🧵 Why are we suing the Calgary Police? It’s hard to describe what happens to you physiologically while being smeared in public by powerful people. It’s a mix of uncertainty, fear, frustration, rage, indignation, and anguish, on a thick layer of pity — for self and others you know are in it, too. 1/

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Thanks - at that point I didn’t realize I was concussed, hadn’t yet registered my injured hand, and certainly wasn’t ready for the emotional trauma to come.

I remember the pictures and can't imagine how scary that must have been May your lawsuit succeed, and may everyone wake up to the realities in this timeline - in time to make a positive difference 🙏

I remember the moments after a police officer smashed me in the face, purposelessly, several times while face-down on the ground. I craned to face the student next to me, going through a similar ordeal. We reassured each other. It was a show of mutual care amid utter violence. 2/

We got arrested and split up. The student was handed directly from the police to EMS. Face bloodied after multiple officers witnessed my assaults, I was never even offered medical assistance. In the days to come, the police chief would tell everyone no injuries were reported. 3/

A weird thing happens when you go through something like that but powerful people say you didn’t. You watch reality get swallowed, digested, and reconstituted by power in real time. I think a lot more people can see that now, two years on. 4/

I’ve done everything to reconstruct the events that we know happened, that we all had injuries and medical records to show for. Nearly 40 freedom of information requests. Countless hours sifting through redacted documents. All the while watching power digesting, reconstituting our story. 5/

Thank you to you and your fellow plaintiffs. I know you do this for all of us and hope the courts will find those accountable, who took away your rights to speak and peacefully assemble. Those who injured and traumatized you. Since the event, it is clear how deeply this affected you.