Request For Further Disclosure

Hello.

I am requesting further disclosure on the case of Regina v. Parent, J. Case ID: 79487. 

This letter is being prepared for delivery to the Crown Attorney’s Office in Chatham, via the Windsor Office. It will also be presented to the Justice of the Peace and the Crown’s Representative in court room 6 on the morning of October 24th, with intent to schedule a follow-up court appearance on October 31st. I am willing to schedule a resolution meeting and subsequent pre-trial as soon as I am satisfied with the disclosure on the topic, but not before then, so long as the court allows for the reasonable delay.

With that said, I think that it is reasonable to review the situation, up to this point, to understand the nature of my requests for further disclosure. Something went very wrong here, and I want to get to the bottom of it.

I was arrested, without being shown a warrant, on the evening of September 24th (the details of which are best left for the trial process, but center around a “threat” i made to take the complainant, an upper class landowner, to the human rights commission for discrimination in housing, i think with cause - a threat the complainant decided was harassment) and held for approximately 20 hours before being released on a recognizance of $100 and an order not to communicate with the complainant, or be near any kind of weapons. I was fingerprinted. The crown initially had a lengthy list of demands on my release, included $4000 bail, but the justice rejected each of them as without evidentiary basis. An extremely oppressive impact statement - where I was accused of being “illegitimate” and “unwelcome here” - was bizarrely read into the record by the crown, ironic (and relevant) given the circumstances of being accused of harassment for “threatening” a discrimination suit. I was then formally charged with harassment and ordered to appear before the court in two weeks, under the assumption that the crown was moving forward by indictment, as I had been fingerprinted and arrested and held for nearly 24 hours.

I appeared before the court on October 10th and explained that I had not yet received disclosure, despite making a formal request on October 1st (and an informal request on Sept 27th). It was decided that we should give the crown another week for disclosure, and I should come back again for October 17th.

On October 11th, I was told that there was a conflict of interest on the case, and the file would be moved to the Chatham office. I was not given any information regarding the nature of this conflict of interest, and still do not know why the file was moved. I am requesting this information as a part of the full disclosure. At my last appearance on October 17th, it was decided that the crown should be given another week, due to the circumstances around the conflict of interest.

On October 22nd, I received this disclosure and learned the following things:

1) I was indeed arrested without a warrant, before I was fingerprinted and held for 20 hours.
2) The charge summary states that I was held for those 20 hours for SHOW CAUSE - that is, I was literally held without cause. I suppose that somebody decided they could figure that out later, and then never did.
3) The crown will be proceeding summarily, on a conditional discharge around the recognizance conditions. No jail time. No indictment.

So, I was arrested without a warrant for “threatening” to file a discrimination suit, fingerprinted and held without cause for 20 hours before the justice finally dismissed the crown’s position as having no evidentiary basis. Then, after the crown declared a conflict of interest on the file, and you will note that the complainant is a powerful and wealthy landowner, it eventually elected to proceed summarily - after it had already held me for 20 hours and fingerprinted me. It almost seems as though I was being sent a message not to file. So, who is being harassed here? 

I will be following through with a charter challenge around s. 9, for arbitrary detention as a consequence of police harassment, to begin with, and am requesting detailed disclosure for that reason. 

Please provide the following:

1) A detailed explanation of why the case was moved from the Windsor to Chatham offices, on a conflict of interest. 
2) All audio/video and photographic material of the accused (myself) in custody, including the audio/video & transcript of the bail hearing. There is a conflict of interest on this file.
3) All fingerprint and mugshot reports, to prove they occurred, as they should not have occurred. 
4) A detailed history of any previous complaints that Caroline Chevalier or Ryan Myon have filed with the Windsor Police. There is a conflict of interest on this file.
5)  Any reports surrounding the mental health of the complainant, as her statements suggest she may be suffering from a schizo-affective disorder and/or paranoid delusions. I will be requesting a full psychological evaluation of the complainant.
6) Transcripts and audio of any and all communication between the complainant and police from July 1st, 2018 to the present. There is an acknowledged conflict of interest on the file.
7) The original statement from the complainant that was read at the bail hearing. This appears to have been modified in the disclosure package. There is a conflict of interest on the file, and it is relevant to better understand the complainant’s true motives in filing charges.
8) The discipline record of the officers, particularly officer montino. There is a conflict of interest on the file.
9) Any record of charges filed against the complainant, including charges of filing false reports or charges of criminal harassment.
10) Transcripts, email records and audio of any and all communication between the original prosecutor and the officer, and between the original prosecutor and the complainant, and between the original prosecutor and administrative and management staff in the attorney general’s office, and any other known recorded communication with anybody that works at 200 Chatham Street East regarding this case, or regarding the complainant. There is a conflict of interest on this file.
11) A complete record of all “emails” in full, not snippets taken out of context or enumerations of how many “emails” were sent on a specific date. This is not just relevant, it is the central aspect of the case. How can we determine if there is an objective ground to deduce that the communication caused the individual to feel threatened if it is not available to be examined in full? You’ve given me a mustard sandwich. Please arrange the “emails” in  absolute chronological order, and number them for the purposes of further reference, as detailed reference to them will be made in the course of the trial. There is no reason not to disclose the “emails” in full, and if you will not or cannot do so then you should end this absurdity and drop the case. This is the most vital evidence that there is, here.

I am also requesting that you remove the redaction on the following components of the initial disclosure:

1)  the confidential witness list. i claim this is relevant for the charter challenge, as we have an admitted conflict of interest and a potential bias in the officer’s conduct. this “confidential witness” may be the cause of the conflict, in which case it would be necessary to uncover the witness to carry through with the charter challenge. so, please provide an argument otherwise, or disclose on request.
2)  the mcneil list. i filed an opird report against officer montino on sept 14th, so this is more than relevant but necessary for the charter challenge. i suspect that this was redacted to protect the officer from potential charges and is withholding vital evidence. please provide an argument otherwise, or disclose upon request.
3) the cpic query on my name. why was this redacted? this is my own record. it may be useful for the charter challenge. and, i would like to see it simply because it was redacted - and frankly think that’s a good enough reason, too. so, please provide a reason you’ve redacted, or disclose.

I also have important documents to disclose to the crown and we can talk about that at the resolution meeting.

if i can figure out why a conflict of interest was declared, it should help me move forward on the s. 9.

so, i'm going to talk to duty counsel in the morning, and may decide to retain counsel, in the end.

i've decided that a charter challenge under section 9 - arbitrary detention - is the correct way for me to go after the cops, on this. i just need to figure out what the mechanism of doing so is.

Detention undertaken for improper motives may be held to be arbitrary. Anything in the circumstances of the detention or arrest which would make it suspect on any other ground, such as an arrest made because a police officer was biased towards a person of a different race or nationality, or where there was a personal enmity between a police officer directed towards the person arrested, if established, might have the effect of rendering invalid an otherwise lawful arrest (R. v. Storrey, [1990] 1 S.C.R. 241 at 251-252). “Individual liberty interests are fundamental to the Canadian constitutional order. Consequently, any intrusion upon them must not be taken lightly and, as a result, police officers do not have carte blanche to detain. The power to detain cannot be exercised on the basis of a hunch, nor can it become a de facto arrest” (Mann, supra at paragraph 35). 

the justification made by the officer is that i was "unpredictable", which is essentially a hunch - and a poor reflection of the facts, as my behaviour was incredibly predictable: i replied to the same ad (when it was reposted) the same way every day. absolutely predictable. and, i do believe i can demonstrate a bias & enmity, as well.

i believe that i need to launch the charter challenge at the pre-trial.

http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/rfc-dlc/ccrf-ccdl/check/art9.html

you know, this is a hybrid offence.

they could have moved forward with an indictment.

i want a preliminary inquiry, so i'm going to ask for one. we'll see if they give me one or not.

"listen, here, nigger. if you call me a racist to my face one more time, i'm going to charge you with being uppity, and send you back to the assembly line where you belong. you got it, nigger?".

and, now that i've seen the disclosure, i think it's a better idea to wait to file the human rights complaint, because i can use the acquittal or dismissal in the claim.

it doesn't matter how much money or influence she has, she's only half at fault. but, it certainly demonstrates the point.

"how dare that nigger call me a racist? i'm going to lock her up for vagrancy. the nerve."

and, what i should do is state on the record what happened.

- i was arrested on sept 24th at 21:00. 
- the crown argued that i should be held indefinitely, without bail.
- i was fingerprinted on sept 25th at around 12:00. i dunno; i was in jail. 
- the justice rejected their claims and let me out with $100 recognizance, and an order to not touch guns or contact the complainant. i was released around 17:00.

this would suggest the crown was proceeding by indictment. right? fingerprints. no bail. 

- i requested disclosure informally on sept 27th, and formally on oct 1st. 
- i came in on oct 10th for my first appearance, to inform the court that i had not received disclosure.
- on oct 11th, i was told there was a conflict of interest on the file and it would be moved to the chathham office.
- on oct 17th, i appeared before the court to inform them that i had not received disclosure yet.
- on oct 22nd, i was told the crown would be proceeding summarily.

so, my fingerprints should be immediately destroyed, then. right?

i was in custody, i could hardly refuse.

if i get the right justice, she could even throw the case out right then and there.

still awake.

i really thought i had the right to elect to proceed via indictment if i wanted, but it seems like the difference comes down to appeal. and to an extent the indictment is just skipping to the higher court.

it seems like i get a pre-trial, which should give me the resolution meeting that i suspect will lead to dropped charges. that's good.

but, i'm not going to get a preliminary hearing. or, maybe, the trial is itself the preliminary hearing - and the appeal becomes the actual trial.

if i was proceeding by indictment as i thought, i would get the opportunity to put the case before a provincial court to determine if the evidence should go to trial in the superior court. there would be a hearing in provincial court, but no trial. if the provincial court decided there was enough evidence for a trial, it would just go right to superior court. but, because i'm proceeding summarily, i get a trial at the provincial court, instead. if i feel there's an error in law at the provincial court, i can then appeal to the superior court.

so, i think the difference is a little less than i initially thought, it's just a question of where the trial begins at. i was thinking that a preliminary hearing was an extra step that you introduce before you go to trial. but, it seems more like it's skipping a step, really, by eliminating the trial at the provincial court.

there's a part during the trial where i can move to dismiss the charges due to a lack of evidence - meaning i can treat the trial like a preliminary hearing, to an extent.

so, i'm still going in to set a meeting with the crown on wednesday, although i'm also going to ask for some more documents - all of the emails, and the complainant's impact statement. i will have documents to give the crown at the resolution meeting, including the opird report, the transcript of the bail hearing & my own written statements in this space.

one of the issues at trial is going to be a debate over what happened the week previously.

and, there is no mention of the 4 am phone call, at all - which i have the recording of.

kijiji only keeps responses for a month or so, so the direct responses are all deleted.

so, i can't provide those responses.

that might seem backwards, but the point is that i'm only sending my phone number. and, the ad was reposted daily, so the response schedule was in fact reasonable.

what i'm concerned about is that "x responses were sent on this day" leaves too much to the imagination. this goes back to the error in law made by the officer - the idea that harassment is the same thing as annoyance. if i'm being charged with annoying a rich woman, i'll plead guilty. but, harassment is something more precise than that. so, i actually want the full response entered into the evidence list, to demonstrate that there was nothing threatening in it.

afaik, all of the missing responses are one line of text - my voip box #. and, that is a reasonable response to an ad.

i'm otherwise willing to stand up for my responses and essentially provide a commentary for them in court.

and, right now i am sleepy. the truth is that i've had a long day.

kijiji only keeps responses for a month or so, so the direct responses are all deleted.

so, the ad response record is incomplete and misleading - not quite enough to claim the information is false, if close, but enough to request actual copies of the responses. you can't say something like "x emails were sent on this day". that's not admissible evidence. you have to actually present the actual responses.  

i'm also apparently missing the impact statement that was read to me at the bail hearing, and which was what i really wanted.

so, i guess that the next step is to request further disclosure.

but, i wanted disclosure to review the information, to check for inaccuracies and misleading statements, and to gather information for the complaint. and, while i think i can represent myself well. what i need to understand is the process.

i understand that they should not have fingerprinted me, but they did. now, getting those prints destroyed is my actual primary concern. a lawyer would know how to react to that. it's one thing to read the rules and point out an error, it's another to know how to hold people accountable for it.

i suspect, to begin with, that i should have a strong argument to get those prints destroyed. who do i make that argument to? the justice?

a commonality throughout the documents is not that i've committed a crime, but broadly suspecting that i might commit one, maybe.

....meaning i was arrested on suspicion that i might commit a crime, rather than on a claim i actually committed one.

and, that's not how things work in a country like canada.

i'm going to be seeking a payout from the cops on this. horrifically egregious...

ok, we've got the responses in the file, and i can see what she's trying to claim.

there are some technically false statements in the report, and they may have played a role in how things unfolded, but, overall, it seems like a schizophrenic fantasy built on an exaggeration, rather than a completely false attribution.

it seemed completely invented at first, but an unreasonable misinterpretation of the responses could have led to the statements, as filed.

there's also some files in here from 2014/2015 that are...

well, i thought it was my mom that sent the cops here on a suicide call. she denied it, though. i haven't really spoken to her much since. there's a confirmation, though. hrmmn. mom lied to me. sucks. but, what do you do when you confirm a five year old lie that you saw right through in the first place?

i can't get into the details of it, but these reports - by an organization called COAST - are so far removed from reality as to be comical. the way i'd describe it is if you could imagine a child having a detailed discussion with einstein about relativity, and then trying to write a summary of that discussion. on top of that, the agents working for COAST appear to have made things up entirely out of nowhere.

i have never requested medication from anybody, with the exception of the hormones. in fact, i am broadly opposed to the idea of medication in mental health - and have written widely about it over the course of many years. any suggestions that i was ever suicidal as a reaction to an inability to gain access to any medications are completely invented out of whole cloth. in fact, it is exceedingly unlikely that i would fill any medication that was given to me, as i would not want it to affect my individuality or my ability to create art. again: i've written about this extensively over a long time period. my contemplation of suicide during this period of time was a purely rational reaction to my disinterest in labour, and my preference for death over labour.

i do not know why a support worker would write a false report of this nature.

i would like these documents to be destroyed, frankly - not because they say anything about me specifically, but because they have absolute inventions and poor interpretations in them. i mean, what do you do when you get your file and realize the people writing into it are literally making shit up? honestly?

the notes from that period are actually up here, so i'd advise anybody interested in the question to consult my own perception of this rather than that of the COAST workers.

this is legitimately a completely false report.

i have to be careful about what i'm publishing here because i can't share the information in the report, but there's three possibilities:

1) she misattributed some of the responses. that is, she assigned responses that were not mine to me. if this woman suffers from a psychological condition - as i believe it is clear that she does - then this may have been an error brought on by psychosis.
2) or, it might be done on purpose.
3) or, she just made it up.

if 2 or 3, the purpose would be to prevent the human rights complaint. 

i haven't made it through the document yet, but, right now, it seems like the thing i'm going to be requesting on wednesday is the responses to the ads themselves - which are being referenced, but might not actually be in the document.

and, is it time to legally change my name to jessica, just to be safe on the border check?

hey.

if you want to bring a social activist in on false charges, you should expect a lengthy process out of it.

wait.

ok.

so, i was arrested on an indictable offence - and fingerprinted - but then charged with a summary conviction, in the end.

hrmmn.

like, they tried to hold me on bail, and then they charged me with a summary offence? if you're going to hold me on bail, indict me, you fuckers.

i'm going to look into this further tonight, but i think it's time to call a lawyer. that might be the best way to get what i want. it seems like they fucked up enough that the charges should probably be withdrawn or dropped, immediately. but, i want to do this in a way that makes sure that the file is destroyed - as it should have never been created - and the cop and the woman are both held legally accountable.

again: i'm not looking for an easy way out. i'm looking for justice.

i got my disclosure; it's on a dvd, and we'll see what it says.

but, the information sheet made a few things clear.

they're not seeking jail time, which undermines the entire premise of the charges. i'm supposedly a threat to the public. if that is true, why aren't they seeking jail time?

and, they want to proceed summarily.

so, they want this to be done quickly - they want me to plead guilty to a minor offence, take it on the chin and be on with it. why spends months fighting a minor offence?

i'm not going to do that. i'm going to request an indictment. i'm going to fight the charges with everything i can. there's going to be a witness evaluation. a pre-trial. i'm going to subpoena the cop. i'm going to make a huge deal out of this, and drag it on for months or years.

why?

because the logic is backwards - i don't gain anything by getting this done with quickly. i lose border access, and possibly run into problems with my income. but, if i drag it out, i gain the possibility of compensation, increase the chances of the officer facing discipline, get to the point of charging the woman with filing a false report and get to my end point - which is not even acquittal, but file destruction.

i had a tremendous injustice done to me by a thug that should be in jail and a woman that belongs in an institution. i'm not going to forget about it. i'm going to fight until every single person responsible for this gets what they deserve.

and, they will get what they deserve.

trust me.

first, i'm going to review these files. but, i should be ready to file the human rights complaint in the morning.

no.

listen.

i'm perfectly happy - and in fact somewhat eager - to be the punk in the court room. we've swung far too far to the right recently, and this patriarchal faux feminism masquerading as progressivism is a prime example of how we've taken massive steps backwards over the last several years.

my defense is going to be to appeal to liberal rights theory and libertarian values, in opposition to this fake feminism, which is just a front for authoritarian capitalism.

but, it's not just that my defense requires this - the society requires this.

i've been as clear as i can that i'm on the other side of this argument, and i'm both eager and able to make these arguments in a court of law.

yeah?

well, fuck you and the tipper gore you rode in on.

so, i'm back to stable access and could potentially get back to work over the next few days. i still don't have those shelves i've been putting off getting for years, but everything else seems to have fallen in line over the last few days, so now i just need for the court to disclose so i can take this psychotic, decrepit, senile old dyke to the human rights commission and teach her a fucking lesson in public law. seven figures. i'll let the crown pull me along as long as they'd like, but this is ultimately not in the public interest or a worthwhile use of public tax money or public resources at the court house, and i consequently have enough faith in the court system that somebody along the way is eventually going to say "this is retarded" and pull the plug on it.

the woman at the counter said tonight or tomorrow. i'll need to take a run down this afternoon to see. and, it's going to be interesting to see what they give me.

there's an off chance that they might try to arrest me for filing the complaint, as it's "indirect contact" but if they try that then it will just expose the fraud underlying the charges. you could imagine that bail hearing, right.

"you arrested her for filing a human rights complaint?"
"well, it was a breach of the recognizance."
"and, why was she arrested in the first place?"
"for pointing out that she was being discriminated against, and threatening to file a human rights complaint."
"you charged her with harassment for 'threatening' to file a human rights complaint?"

i mean, i kind of have to do it, to make sense of my defense - which is that when a thug shows up at your door, in a blue uniform or not, and threatens to put you in jail for exercising your rights, you are obligated to exercise those rights. and, if that thug arrests you for standing up for yourself, that thug will need to face the consequences of his criminality, in the end.

one thing at a time.

i need disclosure, first. and, if they give me something redacted or something half-assed, i'll go back to the court and demand they do better. i'm not willing to move to the next step until i'm happy with disclosure, unless the justice enforces it. and, if she does, the pre-trial is going to be a messy affair.

as previously, my wholesale reseller isp is completely incompetent. they insisted on a remote install in a unit with no lines in it, and of course it failed. i have to wait until monday for a cogeco tech. it's cheap when it's working...

i think the kid upstairs is smoking inside and that she might think she can blame it on me. she might be skipping school, too. the reality is that i quit smoking almost three years ago and never smoked inside, anyways. so, she's in for a rude surprise when i point the truth out to her dad. and, daddy's going to have to believe me, too. i'm not yet at the point of bringing it up. but, the situation is incomparably better, and i'm broadly happy with the move.

i want to note here that my netbook was turned off at some point yesterday, when i was in court. that's when i was gone, between 10:00 and 2:00, roughly. i last used the device on the afternoon of the 16th, was home on the evening of the 16th and was home on the evening of the 17th. i discovered it on the afternoon of the 18th. i reset the device as a precaution. but, i'm more concerned about the potentiality of police harassment - it seems like somebody took a look around when they knew i was gone.

i lost tabs, but i can get them back. i'm more upset about the unjustifiable surveillance.

i was hoping the charges would be dropped by now, but i need to check for disclosure again pretty much now. i don't need time to set a resolution date: i know what i'm expecting, which is a lot of contrived bullshit. but, the crown may need time to make sense of the absurdity before it.

if the crown is smart, it will conclude that it will cause less damage to itself if it drops the charges than it will if it discloses. and, while i'm likely to look for a foia request regardless, i should get what i need for the discrimination lawsuit out of the bail hearing.

i reiterate: i was arrested on false charges to prevent me from filing a discrimination suit by a cop that was already out to get me. and, the documentation produced by the process should help me go after them both, if it's released.

so, this is the choice the crown is making: does it want to risk the consequences of disclosure on an extremely weak case that it will probably lose at the preliminary stage, or is it better off backing away from the situation altogether, to prevent the consequences of disclosing the corruption?

personally, i'm in this for the long run and looking to make people suffer for what they've done.

i do not yet have internet. tuesday. maybe.

i'm typing from a brand new chrome book, an ibm thinkpad. this will make blogging remotely a lot more possible, for me. it's a big update. i just got fed up with being non-mobile, and had no interest in learning how to type on a phone....

the move itself went flawlessly, although i'm still waiting on the washing machine. tuesday. maybe.

i had my hearing on wednesday, and found out on thursday that the prosecutor has been removed/resigned due to a conflict of interest. i don't know the details, but i suspect a relationship with the cop. so, they're bringing in a prosecutor from out of town. but, i expect the charges to be immediately dropped. i have to reappear on wednesday, and i'm going to request a stay due to delay on disclosure, if the charges aren't already dropped.

i'm going to wait to type further.

so, i've started moving some small things over, already.

i need to spend the night packing what's left. i may have to take a few more short runs.

it seems like there's been a second overdose in the alley at the 7/11 in the vlogs. it's for the best that i get out of this neighbourhood.

i have a truck coming tomorrow morning. 

i should hopefully get the keys and the notice of abandonment to my landlord tomorrow afternoon. 

i can't tell you where i'm moving for at least the next ten days.

the hydro switches on wednesday.

if everything works out, i'll have a teksavvy technician available on thursday morning, although i'll need to call on wednesday night to make sure. and, i'll type up some long updates, at that time.

i expect full disclosure by the end of the week.

i'm vlogging. and it'll come up relatively soon, actually. i should finally get back to work in the next week or two.

i wouldn't expect much in the way of updates until then.

we'll talk soon.

i need to move.

so, what actually happened? what's the story, here?

around 20:00 on monday evening, i sat down to make some spaghetti. as i was about to slice into my tomato, some cops banged on my door.

as mentioned, my primary concern was avoiding resisting arrest, so i was very compliant. whether i've committed a crime or not, resisting arrest is always one, so you don't want to do that.  

i was arrested for "criminal harassment", and brought to the station in cuffs in a windowless van. i called a lawyer when i got there, for the purposes of informing somebody i was in jail, but i did not expect to be in custody for more than a few minutes. i am, after all, being charged with repeatedly applying for an ad.

i was instead placed in a holding cell for over twenty hours. i spent most of that time screaming for access to a judge, who i knew damned well would snicker at the situation, yelling the situation into the cameras (for the record) and counting to....i made it 10,500 before my throat forced me to stop. i suspect i could have counted to 20,000 if i had metallic vocal chords.

i decided i would charge $1000 emotional damages for every second left to rot in a cell for the crime of replying to an ad. so, when i get around to it, the suit against the city will be for $11 000 000. that should be enough to find somewhere to live that is smoke-free, right?

i did not sleep. i urinated once, close to 16:00 the next day. i ate one of the three meals they gave me.

i was brought out to see several people during the day, including duty counsel and a representative for legal aid. as mentioned, duty counsel was a conservative older lady that i trust was acting in what she perceived were my best interests, but she seemed quite concerned that i was going to become irrational in the court, and feared i would harm my own well being. i fully recognize that she spends most of her days helping people with low levels of education get out of terrible situations, and there's obviously a lot of altruism in that, but it sets up a mentality of fiduciary duty; she wanted me to go sit in the corner and be quiet and let her deal with it. which i did actually do, because, on some level, she was absolutely right. i just worry that i wasn't present for a set of important conversations. it's one thing to tell me to be quiet in the room and let me listen, and another to tell me to sit in the other room.

it seemed like the outcome of the hearing had already been decided when they finally brought me into the court room at the very end of the day. the justice was clearly baffled by both the situation and the charges, stating into the record that it was unacceptable to arrest somebody with no prior record and leave them in a cell for twenty hours. i was not permitted to speak and was in fact asked to sit down repeatedly, but i think i might have helped her understand, if i was permitted to do so. duty counsel was a nervous wreck, clearly frightened i was going to undo her careful work...

but, i stayed quietly. i didn't sing o canada through air guitar. i didn't call the judge a fascist. i didn't curse the accused, or swear at the prosecutor or do anything of the things that....that she probably actually deals with on a daily basis. it was perhaps incorrect to see me the same way as most of the people she represents, but i can't fault her for it. that's what she knows. that's what she sees.

the judge only seemed willing to reject the crown's argument up to the point of triviality. i suspect that she would have dismissed the charges if she could, but, given that she couldn't, she had to leave the conditions in place. so long as the charges exist, i must be ordered not to reply to the ad. and, while she did not feel that she could remove the recognizance altogether, she reduced it from $2000 to $100 - a functional dismissal.

she repeatedly stated that there is no evidence to justify the conditions.

when the crown read the charges into the record, she talked about how the owner of the apartment felt unable to show the apartment to other "legitimate" applicants because she feared i might be using false identities to reply to the ad (which is simply schizophrenic nonsense, imagined whole cloth, and without the slightest evidentiary basis), and told me i was "not welcome here". i reacted by scoffing at the absurdity of the presented scenario, and the oppression inherent in the language - and the justice seemed to agree with me.

so, i can't go near guns. like i'd go near guns, right. that's a standard condition, and i had no argument, because i don't care. and, i can't reply to the ad until the charges are dropped or defeated. if i do either of those two things, i will be arrested a second time, and have to pay $100.

i need to reappear on october 10th, if the charges are not dropped before then.

to me, continuing to reply to this ad is a rights issue. i hardly expect to be approved. but, i have the right to be annoying - independently of whatever schizophrenic fantasies anybody wants to have, or pretend to have. however, i have been charged with a crime and agreed to not engage in this behaviour, until such a point comes that a judge upholds my right to be annoying. you could articulate this different ways: i am providing for due process, or allowing for judicial review. but, it's one thing to tell a cop that he's wrong and close the door and another thing to get charged by that cop and go to court and need to have a judge state that the cop is wrong. i will expect compensation, in the long run.

i was released a little after 17:00.

yeah. ok. careful language in the code.

"release from custody by officer in charge" - that was the warrant/non-warrant binary, which comes with the $500 max.

but, i was ordered released by the judge. so, i don't have a max, because the cops didn't actually agree to releasing me at all.

the cops didn't want to release me at all.

for the crime of replying to an ad. 

lol. fucking idiots.

but, listen: the justice thought this was retarded, entered into the record that she was upset at the amount of time i spent in custody and ordered me released on the most lenient conditions that she could. i expect any judge to agree entirely with the justice: this is vexatious. i fully acknowledge that these details are something i'm just learning about now, but i understand the legality of the situation fairly well and it's a flatly stupid case. in the end, the more ridiculous the crown is about it, the harder the judge is going to come down on it.

i snickered when the charges were read, and the duty counsel cringed, but the justice smiled - she agreed.

this is stupid.

is the difference that a regular release is agreed upon by the cops, and a judicial release is ordered by the judge?

'cause, if that's the case, it was clear to me that the judge thought this was a pretty stupid thing to charge somebody with.

ok.

on third thought, i'm in a different section, a "judicial interim release". see, lawyers aren't logicians. so, they don't recognize a binary between "arrest with warrant" and "arrest without a warrant". i would think that these are the only two possibilities, but apparently a third one exists.

there are no maximum recognizance conditions set on a judicial interim release, and that is apparently true whether there was a warrant involved, or not.

but, see, this is the kind of thing that i didn't have explained to me. what is the difference between this situation and a regular release on recognizance? in both situations, the accused is being released before a trial, right? so, why is there a separate section for this?

well, if he arrested me without a warrant on a hybrid offence (that is unlikely to result in jail time), it's just another strike against a guy that shouldn't have the job that he has.

frankly, i'd be surprised if a judge issued a warrant.

i guess we'll find out.

actually, the maximum amount is $500, regardless.

period.

there is no situation where they can lawfully ask for more than $500 recognizance.

yet, they did.

when the crown attorney breaks the law in court, right?

"in progressive canada, the (in)justice system commits crimes against YOU."

and, see, here's the thing.

maybe i could have stopped all this bullshit before it started if i knew this stuff off of the top of my head. but, what fun is that? see, then the cop gets to keep his job, and i don't get to sue for damages for harassment and negligence.

there will be a proper investigation, in the end. and, the fuckers will be held accountable for their errors.

so, that's something else i need to figure out - was i arrested with or without a warrant?

the thing going through my head at the time was "i don't want to resist arrest, i'll figure this out afterwards". so, i was compliant for that reason. because you hear about that all of the time - cops show up to arrest you for swearing in church, and then instead of the cop getting fired, you end up in jail for assaulting a police officer.

you know, i'm wondering something else.

i didn't ask for a warrant. maybe i should have.

these are the rules for releasing somebody arrested via warrant.

"(b) release the person on the person’s entering into a recognizance before the officer in charge without sureties in the amount not exceeding five hundred dollars that the officer in charge directs, but without deposit of money or other valuable security"

they tried to charge me $2000, but the justice said that was crazy because there was no evidence (take note.) and cut it down to $100. so, in the end, what happened was lawful.

but, did the crown make an unlawful request, or was i arrested without a warrant?

because, if i was charged with a hybrid offence without a warrant, i should not have been arrested at all - i should have been asked to appear in court.

the more incompetence i can uncover,  the bigger the payout.

the duty counsel got me out of jail without any meaningful conditions. that was what she said she wanted to do, and that's what she did, and on a certain level she's right - that's the most immediate concern.

but, if it was done at the expense of me understanding the accusations against me, or putting me at a disadvantage in relation to the trial, then it was a pyrrhic victory.

i need to confront her about what documentation she has to pass on to me, tomorrow.

the crown did read something into the record.

it could be that that was all there was to it, but i know i wasn't getting the whole picture. what do you do, in that scenario? you can hardly escape the cage and barge in. you just have to figure out what happened and hold people responsible for it accountable for it.

they obviously can't conduct a bail hearing without me, and then tell me that evidence is admitted later. that's all on the record. they'll all get fired.

but, none of this can happen, it's all impossible.

so, we'll see what the transcript says, right?

i was not asked to testify.

i was not asked to present evidence.

i was told this would occur later, both by the counsel provided and by the justice.

again: i accepted duty counsel because i was unclear of the proper procedure and unable to research it. when told that the evidence would be presented later, i knew it seemed wrong, but i deferred, due to being unable to verify it. and, i am confident that the charges would have been dropped outright if i had been given the chance to present anything at all resembling a case.

hrmmn.

if i got fucked around at the bail hearing, that's just another reason to sue the city.

let's see what the transcripts say...

i have neither heard nor seen, in writing, any allegations made against me.

see, this is not what happened.

and, i asked about it, repeatedly.

i was told by both duty counsel and by the justice that no analysis of the evidence would occur until a pre-trial.

i was brought into the court at 16:45 and asked if i agreed to the conditions or not. i did not see a witness. i did not see an officer. i did not get a chance to present evidence. i pointed out that this seems wrong, and was told otherwise.

i have not met my accuser.

the more layers of corruption there are, the more layers that will fall, in the end.

let's see what the transcript says...

http://lawfacts.ca/node/146

ok.

i'm going to wait and talk to a lawyer about the holding cell video, as there's no obvious way to do it. i'll probably need to make a request to a judge.

i have a stress disorder. putting me in a cell on trumped up charges is pretty egregious. i don't think it'll be hard to get a judge to release the footage. but, it's going to take an argument of some sort. that's ok.

right now, i need to focus on getting full disclosure.

...and, on determining whether a part of the bail hearing happened without me, or not. i suspect that i missed some of it...it just didn't seem like the whole thing, to me...

i was arrested for replying to an advertisement on the internet, and held in a cell for twenty hours.

i'm sure he thought it was very funny.

but, it was also very illegal.

hey, listen.

this cop made a huge mistake for the benefit of his ego. it's like having sex with a camel: you might enjoy it for a few seconds, but then you have to live with the consequences.

and, he's going to pay the price for that mistake.

yeah, so, with the bail hearing, i should order a transcript, and i've sent out an email about it to a transcriptionist.

it should cost roughly $20, but we'll see an estimate for it.

now, how do i ask for video footage of myself in detention? that could be harder.

because i'm not licensed, i need a judge to order the audio from the bail hearing.

that's whacked. i understand the restriction as it applies to media or the general public, for privacy reasons. i don't really want a newspaper combing through my bail hearing without a court order declaring it's public knowledge; i get it. but, it's my fucking bail hearing. is my self-interest not obvious?

worse, i have to sign a waiver that says i can't use the audio for any meaningful purpose.

i guess the transcription lobby has some power, huh?

it would be a lot of effort to get a recording, and i couldn't do anything with it. let's see if the rules around transcripts are equally draconian.

ok.

no, i knew this already...you have to hire a transcription service to get transcripts...and that's expensive...

i wonder if i can just order the audio for $20 or something.

so, what do i need to do for tomorrow?

1) file the appeal with the fee exemption. remember: i'm poor. i don't pay court fees. there's plenty of justice for the impoverished; it's the working poor & middle class that get reamed.
2) request full disclosure from the crown.
3) ask for the transcripts of the bail hearing, including the sections i missed.
4) ask the duty council if she has any documents i'm entitled to see. i should have done that the other day. i was not exactly thinking straight. she should also have some information for me regarding a legal aid certificate. was there a warrant for my arrest?
5) ask for video of my time in detention, as i was clearly in anguish. tortured. dying inside. so sad. so sad...

i think i will need to wait until the process plays out before i can prosecute the officer, or file the complaint. right now, i want data. i just have to figure out how to get all of these things.

i think it's freedom of information. and i think it's a $5 fee.

i've never seen a bar exam, i don't know how i'd do on one.

is it oral or written?

i guess he wasn't expecting the spanish inquisition.

https://windsorstar.com/news/local-news/prosecutor-on-probation-for-meeting-prostitute-in-court-house-washroom

i'm going to get something to eat first, but this looks like what i'm up to.

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Canadian_Criminal_Procedure_and_Practice/Disclosure

my voice is a little better, now.

i've graduated from beginner trumpet player to sounding like stephen hawking.

maybe i'll do some physics tonight? naw.

i know, i'm such a badass, aren't i.

sexy, isn't it?

lol.

so, i'm going to write the crown a letter requesting immediate disclosure and leave it at the court house tomorrow morning. i just need to figure out the proper protocol...

and, i can be persistent about that, too.

what are they going to do?

charge me with harassment?

ok.

i took three years of a "law and society" course, which included courses on tort law, constitutional law, aboriginal law and criminal law as well, but i have never studied the procedures involved in an actual trial. and, they tell you this, right. "this course will not prepare you for a court room". this is why lawyers go through an apprenticeship process, right.

so, i need to teach myself how this is going to actually happen.

one of the reasons that duty counsel was so necessary for me yesterday is that i didn't have access to a computer, meaning i was unable to research the topic. i've never studied bail conditions. i don't have any idea. if you gave me the night to figure it out, mind you...

i assumed i was going to go to a pre-trial hearing first, and a bail hearing second. that is, i assumed the judge would base their bail decisions on a pre-trial. well, how is a judge supposed to figure out proper bail conditions without looking at the trial evidence? apparently, what they actually do is look at prior history. i guess you could argue that i'm missing the point: the bail hearing is not intended to weigh the value of the evidence, but whether i'm eligible for bail, which is not determined by evidence but by history. but, that still strikes me as irrational. i do believe that had the judge looked at the actual evidence, i would have been released without conditions - and the case would have been dropped.

if i am right, and the judge dismisses the case immediately, i am going to be forced to deal with the consequences of a charge pending on my record while i am searching for housing, in a very critical period, in the first few days of a stay. it's difficult to underestimate the potential damage that this is going to create for me. and, while it may work out in my favour in the end, it's an outrageous scenario in the short-term.

imagine a scenario where, on sept 30th, i am permitted to sign a lease on the condition of passing a police check, fail that check, and then have the charges dropped on oct 1st. that's a lawsuit the cops can't win, sure. but, it's a deep cost for me, as well.

so, the purpose of the date on the 10th is supposed to be to ask for disclosure. but, i really feel that the crown should have had that information available before they even arrested me, and that it should have formed the basis of the bail hearing.

i frankly do not think it is unlikely that the court will drop the charges before the 10th, making the hearing and disclosure unnecessary - although i will ask for disclosure, anyways.

but, the longer this drags on, the more annoying it is for everybody, as the harder it is going to be for me to leave.

at this point, i don't even know if the crown is seeking to send me to jail or not. while i would consider that extremely unlikely, it's kind of important information for both me and a potential landlord to have, as i am about to sign a lease.

i suspect that the actual truth is that the situation was driven by the officer, who essentially filed a false report. but, this is what we'll need to determine over the upcoming weeks. either:

1) this woman legitimately thinks that somebody aggressively applying for an ad puts her in some kind of risk category, which indicates she's dealing with some kind of schizophrenia, or some kind of stress disorder. she appears to be imagining that i'm following her around. i've never met her. but, if her fear is truly honest, it implies she requires psychiatric attention. or,

2) the cop manufactured the situation to go after me, in whatever collusion there was with this woman.

so, it's either a crazy woman that needs help or it's a malicious cop that needs to be fired - or both.

we'll figure this out, soon enough.

i really had no option but to sleep.

i'm up now....

the most annoying thing about what happened yesterday is that i lost the day to applications, and i'm going to lose the day today, as well, because i lost my voice. i spent much of the night and day screaming to see a judge.

i sound like a kid learning how to play the trumpet: sound for a second or two, and then wind. if i yell, it comes back a little. i probably just need to rest them. hopefully, i'll be able to talk again tomorrow.

20 hours. i was very close to being released; the magic number is 24. 

i'm going to roll with the system so long as i have to, but i don't think things are happening the way that they're supposed to. i have yet to see the charges laid against me, or any evidence or arguments from the crown. i told them i was representing myself, but they put the situation in the hands of a duty counsel instead. she had a conservative approach that was focused on getting me out of jail, and she did - my conditions are that i can't apply to the ad again (until the charges are dropped) and that i can't be around guns, which isn't much of a condition at all. if somebody sees me with a gun, i'll have to pay a $100 fine. but, i would have taken a much more aggressive approach in insisting there are no grounds for any restrictions at all.

in my view, the situation essentially reduces to due process. the woman is making an accusation against me, and i need to defend against it. this accusation may be frivolous and vexatious, but i will need to suffer the consequences of it until that is demonstrated - and then be compensated for any damages i suffer as a consequence of it.

as this ad is posted every day, i'm of the opinion that i have every right to apply to this ad every time it is posted. i will continue to exercise my rights in due course. but, because i'm guilty until proven innocent, and i signed an agreement, i will need to back off for a few days or weeks.

i will be aggressively attacking this woman in the court. some cursory google research suggests that she has a history of filing vexatious charges, and usually has her cases dropped. i am absolutely willing to be the person that stands up and puts a stop to this, has her ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation and has her barred from further vexatious litigation. she should expect this to be very difficult. and, am i supposed to shed a tear?

i will be aggressively attacking the officer, as well, with the intent to have him fired.

i will be suing the city for emotional damages related to locking me up on false charges.

i will probably launch a civil case against this woman for damages resulting from having to fight off a harassment charge while i am trying to move. 

and, i will be launching a human rights challenge against the apartment complex, as well. i was going to have a hard time doing that, up until this point, because i didn't have a lot of information. but, the information being presented by the court is full of language like "the tenant is not welcome". that is, her vexatious litigation is going to give me the information i need to prosecute her for discrimination, that i didn't previously have.

in ontario, applications may be denied for financial reasons like failing a credit check. but, telling a tenant that they are "not welcome here" is discrimination under the law. it's amazing that this ended up in the court documents, but i'll take my good luck, as it is.

obviously, my first order of business is getting the charges dropped, and i legitimately do not expect this to be difficult. i'm really fairly stuck until i can do this. i'm almost wondering if i'm better off waiting, so i don't scare off any potential landlords.

and, while i don't even expect the case to go to trial, there is an obscure possibility that i could be facing up to ten years' imprisonment. it's almost impossible for me to think about moving until the tenth...

yeah.

i'll need to file in the morning.

i'm going to accept legal aid, because it is available and it would be foolish not to. i don't want to pay for a lawyer, but i'll take a lawyer, for free. see, i think i understand the law well, and i'm good at winning arguments, but i'm going to need help with the procedural aspect of it. i really think what i need is a tutor, to help me through the procedure the first time. and, once armed with that experience, i can then represent myself in future cases. i'm expecting to hear something back by the end of the day, and, if i don't, i'll call after 17:00.

the one qualification i need to present is the following: given the context, i need the lawyer to be female. and, you can expect me to show up to court looking pretty, too.

the last 30 hours have been absurd.

full write-ups will happen over the evening. but, i now have to fight an absurdly frivolous harassment charge over the next few weeks, which is going to make it difficult to find an apartment. i think i'm actually dealing with a dumb cop. but, i'm now going to fail a criminal check, until i can get the charges dropped..

i have no choice but to appeal and will probably file it immediately in the morning.

in the long run, i expect to end up richer from this. a lot richer. in the short term, it's massively disruptive.

this is a letter meant for potential counsel.

http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/thoughts/kafkavsorwellinreallife.html

on that old debate as to whether kafka or orwell was the better prophet...

i had to get a few hours of sleep when i got home, as i hadn't slept in custody. they picked me up right before i was going to make spaghetti and take a shower, too, to end what was already a long day. so, i need to recuperate a little tonight.

but, you are correct: i am a creature of the internet, and i make arguments better in writing. you also tend to take control of conversations, which is a good trait, but i learned a long time ago that i need to write an essay, sometimes, to accommodate for disconnects with certain personality types.

i was barely awake during our conversation outside of the court, but if i remember correctly, you were going to speak to legal aid and get back to me before the end of the 26th. i'm hoping that this essay can find it's way to a potential lawyer that is making a decision on taking the case, as i don't think this case is really about harassment on my behalf, but more about police harassment against me. this essay should form the basis of my defence. i don't think that a bail hearing was the right time to have this discussion, but, as mentioned, it would have required a soliloquy from me that you weren't likely to grant.

i got arrested for repeatedly applying to an ad for housing on the internet, and essentially charged with stalking somebody that i've never met. i had a speech prepared, but i didn't need to use it, because the justice didn't need to hear it - how do you get from being persistent in applying for housing (however annoying...) to criminal harassment directed at a specific individual unknown to the accused? and, this was really the crux of the matter from the crown's perspective. the bail conditions were set up to treat me like i was stalking this woman, and she required protection from me, when the reality is that i was being persistent in looking for an apartment, and had no idea she even existed. the justice immediately realized that disconnect. i think you saw the gulf in logic, too. even the crown seemed less than convinced that this was worth her time, frankly. so, how do you get such a ridiculous charge out of such a benign behaviour?

ockham's razor really suggests something else is at play, and i do believe that the actual issue was that the officer was out to get me. if we need some alternate way to explain how somebody gets arrested and held for 20 hours for replying to a non-personal ad on the internet, this is the answer that seems most apparent. i had not only dealt with this officer previously, he had threatened to charge me with harassment previously, and i had in fact filed a complaint against him with the oiprd. while i do not claim to know whether caroline chevalier's fears are real in her own mind or not, i think the irony of the situation is that her narrative suggests some paranoia or ptsd on her behalf, and that that may require some treatment for her own well being. i don't want to seem insensitive towards people that are dealing with real harassment, as i actually have a great deal of empathy, but i must be adamant that this is not it, and that any attempt to frame the issue as one where a potentially vulnerable female is being threatened by a rejected suitor or aggressive pursuer is not consistent with any evidence that actually exists. i was pursuing an apartment, and under the impression that the person on the other side of the machine was ryan myon. this is a case the crown appears to be pursuing due solely to the nature of the report that exists, rather than any meaningful evidence, which reduces to an issue of framing by the officer. as such, i think this is the real issue before the court.

i initially had contact with this officer in the summer of 2018 on an unrelated call regarding a conflict between my neighbour and i about the issue of secondhand smoke. i am living in a unit with poor flooring, on top of a very heavy marijuana user. i must keep the windows open at almost all times to prevent being stoned by the second-hand smoke. this is the topic of a suit i filed against my landlord, swt-16361-18. i actually took myself to the hospital at one point and tested positive for thc, from the second-hand smoke. at the start of the summer, a new tenant moved in next door that insisted on getting very drunk and chain smoking regular cigarettes directly in my air supply, leaving me in a situation where if i closed my window i'd get stoned, and if i opened my window i'd get smoked on. frustratingly, there is a very big yard next door, and no reason this person was required to smoke in my air supply. after several polite attempts to ask her to smoke elsewhere, i resorted to more powerful tactics, including blaring loud music and yelling rude things out the window.

there's no question that i've been very rude to this person, but there's no question that she's been very rude to me, too. she doesn't have the right to smoke wherever she wants, and i don't have the obligation to live in her smoke, but most smokers don't see it that way: they think they do have the right to smoke wherever they want, and everybody else does have the obligation to deal with it. what should have been a polite and neighbourly request to move a few feet away from the building turned into frequent yelling matches with a quite belligerent drunk. and, at some point she decided i was harassing her and called the cops.

now, this is really a situation without a proper remedy. i believe i should have some legal recourse to prevent her from smoking in my air supply. if these were private houses, rather than apartments, i could sue for trespass; i can't really do that, in the existing situation. i've explored the idea of having her charged with nuisance, and i'll get to that in a second. but, there really isn't anything i can do in this situation besides make the experience unpleasant, and hope she smokes somewhere else - which is in fact what happened, in the end. but, i'm cognizant of the law, too. i knew not to threaten her or make her feel unsafe - just to be irritating enough to get under her skin. i don't expect she had the same subtle understanding of harassment, and consequently felt justified in calling the police for being irritated.

i believe that the first time i met the officer that pressed charges (an "officer muntino") was on a call from the neighbour that i was harassing her by yelling things out the window at her. and, i actually think that the key bias underlying the charges that were pressed comes from this encounter, directly. while i don't recall all of the mean things i said to this woman to try to get her to smoke somewhere else, i can be certain that i didn't say anything racist, for the reason that i'm not a racist. i'd just never do that, and i'm confident i didn't. there's certain things that you make sure you don't say to a black person, that you very carefully avoid, at all times. but, the smoker does happen to be quite visibly african in descent. i don't know how this information found it's way to the officer. it may have even been coerced by the officer, who could have accidentally framed the issue that way. but, when the officer appeared at my door, he accused me of hurling racial slurs and was quite angry and perturbed by it. again: it's hard to know what the smoker is thinking. but, the thing is that it isn't actually true. i simply wouldn't do that. this officer then reassured this woman that she has the right to smoke wherever she wants, which just fed into more conflict in the space. fwiw, she has no problems yelling transphobic slurs at me, and doesn't think twice about it, but i don't care as long as she smokes somewhere else.

as mentioned, i am of the opinion that she should not be legally permitted to smoke at such a close proximity to my window, and i should have a legal method at my disposal to force her to move. i couldn't get bylaw to do anything. trespass doesn't make sense in context. i can't sue the landlord next door for reasonable enjoyment. but, in researching approaches, something that struck me as potentially worthwhile was building evidence for a possible nuisance case. i tried exploring these options with police, and was told i need to establish intent. so, i started filming her while she was smoking - and telling her why i was doing it. i then got a second visit from officer muntino, ordering me to stop filming her smoking, under threat of being charged with...

....criminal harassment.

i told him that i was building a case for nuisance, and he said there's no such thing as criminal nuisance. there is of course such thing as criminal nuisance, and this behaviour is not harassment, either. i was not charged for this, for obvious reasons. but, there's a commonality in these cases - this cop likes to throw his weight around, and ultimately doesn't know what he's talking about.

the story i'd like to paint is one of a cop that is convinced i'm a racist, and is essentially out to get me, so jumped on an opportunity to charge me with harassment when he finally could, as trivial as it might actually be. but, i'm not a racist. nor am i even very white, really. i'm just a non-smoker trying to find a healthy place to live.

the report i filed with the oiprd on sept 16th is based on a different narrative of the events that occurred in relation to this case than the one presented by the crown. from file #E-201809161252432765,

Your complaint details

Address

15-851 tuscarora
windsor
there was a phone call & a visit to my door, of a threatening, harassing and frankly simply incompetent nature.

Incident Dates

Date
12/9/2018
Time
3:56
Date
16/9/2018
Time
12:00

Summary of complaint
Please note formatting has been stripped for preview purposes - original intact
this officer has threatened me with arrest for a non-crime on two occasions. the first occurrence occurred by phone, and i have a recording of it. the officer called me at 3:56 am - that is almost 4:00 in the morning - on sept 12, and threatened to arrest me for repeatedly responding to an online ad. the number that the officer called me from was (removed). i txted a response to this number, and was told it is not an officer's number. it must have been a friend or partner's number, i suppose. i do have the recording of the officer identifying himself and can email it somewhere. i explained that my behaviour - repeatedly responding to an online ad for an apartment - is not harassment under the criminal code, and not only would i not stop, but i am preparing a human rights case against the landlord, for discriminating against me on enumerated grounds. the second occurrence happened at roughly 12:00 pm on sept 16th. two officers showed up at my door (the other was a white male officer and said nothing during the encounter), and this "constable mancino" threatened me with arrest a second time if i did not stop responding to the ad. i asked the officer to explain what harassment under the law is, and he failed to do so in a correct manner. he seemed to believe that harassment is merely annoying somebody, rather than threatening to harm them. of course, if that were true, then telemarketing would be against the law, and the jails would be full of call centre agents. it's just wrong. after determining that the officer did not understand the law, i told him i didn't have time for this, encouraged him to launch a report if he wanted to and went to close the door. he then put his foot in the door, preventing me from doing so. i informed him that he does not have a warrant, and yet he still refused to move his foot. he did eventually move his foot after i asked him to several times. he then threatened to arrest me if i reply to the ad again - not if i conduct in threatening or harassing behaviour, but if i merely reply to the ad. on his way out, i asked him for his badge number and he refused to give it to me. he started with "184" and then said he already gave it to me, which he did not. even if he had already given it to me, that would not be a reason to not give it to me again. when a citizen asks for a badge number, an officer should state it slowly and repeatedly if necessary. this officer may have been acting out of bias regarding my gender identity, as i am openly transgendered, but i cannot state that for certain. regardless, he should not have called me at 4:00 am from an unofficial police number that may or may not have belonged to his friend or partner, he should not have threatened me with arrest without understanding the nature of the law, he should not have prevented me from closing the door without a warrant and he should have given me his badge number when i asked. i would suggest that this particular officer has a superiority complex, is unreformable and should probably look for a different line of work.

i was arrested on the evening of sept 24th and held for 20+ hours before being released.

while i understand that i am the one on trial, i think that the evidence against me is so flimsy as to dispense of it rather quickly, and i think that it is the officer that truly needs to stand trial here. i believe the case should be dismissed, that this officer should be severely disciplined and that i should be compensated generously for the ordeal. so, i would hope that potential counsel would be looking towards the longer term, in turning the situation over: for the person being harassed here, and quite violently, is in fact actually myself.

i don't have an issue with the language used. the distribution is the curve, or everything under the curve. it's a semantic point that a statistician would be splitting hairs over in "correcting" you on and most actually probably wouldn't bother with at all. a major hurricane hitting the united states would be a rare event, and whether you want to describe that using a "poisson distribution" or the "curve described by the poisson distribution" is just an issue in language, although i would perhaps suggest that you're misapplying the central limit theorem in a situation with not enough data points to do so, if that's what you're getting at by referencing normality. a misapplication of the clt like this could actually be used to argue for stasis. it doesn't change the point you're making.

and, yes - charting an increase in hurricanes since 2005 is kind of like charting a decrease in temperatures since 1998. or jet stream variability since 1725. 

but, the important thing you pointed out was that global warming is not the only factor. and, if you want to push this on this platform, that's the most important point you can make: the universe is complicated, and this increase in carbon on this planet is just one of the things that's happening in it.

as another aside, the fact that climate scientists use averages at all is kind of...it's not mathematically sound.

averages are good when there's a fixed variable of some sort. you can take an individual's average over a fixed task (exam scores, track times, etc), or you can take a fixed task like exam scores and then average it out over various individuals (joe, sally, etc). what you're really doing with an average is repeating trials over and over, and trying to get a guess on a "test statistic" that exists in some platonic reality - the idea is that the average exists in some cloud somewhere, and if you repeat the trial often enough then you'll reveal it. i'm actually not a platonist at all, but you'd be surprised by the things you hear from grown men with math degrees, behind closed doors.

what the hell are you even trying to do by averaging out temperatures over the entire earth, in the first place? there's no test statistic to arrive at. you're not finding some ideal concept of earthly temperature readings. once you get a sequence of ratios in place, you can find the test statistic for the average of that sequence, but what does that mean if the "average temperature of the earth" is a wonky concept in the first place?  it's not devoid of meaning at all, but it's more of a contrived ratio to determine policy (like the cpi, or the unemployment rate) than it is any kind of reflection of anything meaningful. it only make any sense in the context of itself.

consider the following ten data points...

toronto: -25 
moscow: -20
stockholm: -15
london: -10  
paris: -8
riyadh: 45
singapore: 46
calcultta: 47
cairo: 51 
tehran: 52

my understanding of things suggests that that could very well be a typical january, mid-century.

average temperature: 16.3 degrees. of course, this is a crappy data set, i'm just making a point. but, that's completely fucking worthless as any descriptive measure - it's only useful in comparison to the next data point.

now, suppose that the readings for these cities in 1975 was as follows:

toronto: -13 
moscow: -8
stockholm: -5
london: -2  
paris: 0
riyadh: 35
singapore: 36
calcultta: 37
cairo: 41 
tehran:42

that's reasonable for 1975, huh? i'm not looking it up, i'm making a point; i should have looked this one up. and bullshitted the other. whatever. the average temperature of this data set is also 16.3 degrees

therefore, there was no climate change over these years? eh...

i should be offering a mathematical solution right now, but i'm not entirely convinced that the idea of modelling the earth in this way makes sense at all.

you hear this push-back: weather is not the same as climate, weather is not the same as climate. i end up doing it myself sometimes. it's an easy way to explain away the fluctuations.

i'm not really convinced that you can talk about a planet's climate at all. i mean, the ratio has a purpose, but it doesn't actually physically mean anything. there is no "earth's climate", there is a collection of overlapping systems, and really several different climates that develop where these systems intersect.

and, right now, it looks like the north and south are moving in opposite directions, as a consequence of opposite causes.

i'm not at all interested in a red team / blue team approach to climate change; i won't support a political movement that i think is being dishonest in order to generate a narrative, i will call you out and tear you down with as much vehement scorn as the next liar.

in science, truth is not an abstraction, it's fact. scientists cannot tolerate this sort of post-modern, pragmatic bullshit. and, it won't work; there is no actual end point to this approach besides greed.

sorry.

there's two approaches to this: honestly convince enough people to make it a political issue and then push hard for it (it's the second part that failed under obama), or get lucky in stumbling upon a despot that understands the urgency of the situation and doesn't fucking care what the masses think, anyways.

so, why do we have winter, anyways?

no, if you don't know look it up. if you think you know, prove yourself right. do this. this isn't phd-level stuff; you should have learned about it in grade school. maybe you did, and just forgot.

but, it's because the amount of sunlight hitting the earth fluctuates, causing changes in the upper atmosphere that allow cold air to move from the polar regions into the habitable regions. this 'polar vortex' is called winter. 

so, realizing that, what would you predict is the result of the sun hitting historical lows in output? more winter, right? and, the correlation is there, if you go to look for it - as it was from antiquity until 1980, when it split due to increased carbon concentrations.

you won't find a scientist that contradicts the obvious. this isn't specialist knowledge, it's grade school science. what you'll find instead is a lot of talking around the basic point, because it's been so obfuscated by deniers. what you're doing to these scientists when you bring up the sun in a non-academic context is triggering them into bad memories that they've had of dumb arguments with scientific illiterates trying to pass themselves off as educated. you're forcing them to relive traumatic experiences, and not getting good answers out of them, because of it. they're more focused on not letting bad ideas perpetuate (and there are a lot of them...) than actually getting the right ideas out. so, when you actually bring up good points about the sun's effect on the climate, it gets ignored because they just don't want to talk about it. and, that's a failure that the talking heads need to address, because the sun is actually going through a phase right now where it's output is low enough that it will (regionally) offset the effects of global warming, at least for a while. if legitimate climate scientists don't take steps to address the point clearly and honestly, climate change is going to be seen as a theory that fails to make accurate predictions, and we're going to lose the argument - only to get roasted when or if the sun turns itself up. science cannot operate at a propaganda level if it wants to win public support. it has to be honest, and it has to win people over due to it's honest attempts to understand things as they actually are.

here's the thing: this is not as dire as people are likely to intuitively think. it's a modelling issue. it doesn't require a rethink to solve, it requires a tweak. the reality is that we don't understand the sun all that well, so we mostly model it as constant. we even have a term called the solar constant. but, the sun's output is not constant, and nobody is going to argue that it is.

what legitimate climate scientists need to do is put more effort into modelling the sun and then work those fluctuations into the models. remember: small changes in solar output can make big differences in the upper atmosphere. think of the way the sun hits the earth as a lightning strike on a lake - it ripples. and, that's where the "amplification" actually happens. in this case, what we're talking about is a decrease in total energy entering the system - and we understand how this works fairly well, with the oscillations taking repetitive shapes that are predictable functions of the solar output.

unlike the deniers, i would not expect that a better modelling of the sun would create a substantially different understanding of climate change. it's theoretically plausible, i suppose - only way to find out is to do it - but we understand the greenhouse effect, too, and the solar output would probably have to decrease by a larger proportion than is being contemplated in order to offset the effect. the point is that we don't have this model. because we don't understand the sun. the deniers, however, insist that the models can be improved - and that is tautological. they should be met halfway on this point, to prove them wrong, and to better understand the thing, as a whole. what better models - and this is a complexity issue, not a computing issue - would really help us with is in understanding the weather quite a bit better.

this article is an example of how to misunderstand the point:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/jan/09/the-imminent-mini-ice-age-myth-is-back-and-its-still-wrong

i don't really have any corrections to make on the article. but, the scientific claim here, and mike lockwood, who is cited here in an equally poor but oppositely poor context than he is in the right-wing media, has volunteered to be spokesperson for it, is not that the decrease in solar activity will offset global warming but that it will lead to the kind of regional variations that were seen in seventeenth century england. the article is really an elaborate strawman fallacy, rushing to debunk a claim that no scientist has ever made.

it's all very nice and everything to point out that a regional decrease in northern temperatures is likely to be offset by an accompanying increase in southern ones. why do we have winter, again? but, tell it to the guy that's playing hockey on the thames in april, as india suffers through 55 degree heat.

it balances out, so there's nothing to worry about, right? eh....

deathtokoalas

this research was trendy in the mainstream media a few years ago, but it's actually been thoroughly debunked. and, this insistence that all weather is created by the same factors is actually conspiratorial thinking; what's presented here isn't a counter to denial type thinking, but it's parallel and analogue on the left.

carbon concentrations are not the cause of all weather.

and, the polar vortex is quite well understood as a function of sunlight.

deathtokoalas

the very quick response is this: we don't need to cite carbon concentrations to explain the cold we're seeing. we already have a standard, widely understood model. it's the same model that we use to understand seasons. so, this is a solution for a problem that doesn't exist. and, it happens to be that it isn't consistent with the laws of thermodynamics.

i think maybe the conceptual problem people are having is that they conceive of the earth like the ancient greeks did: as though it's in a glass ball, free from the influence of outside forces. the universe is newtonian - predictable - and only gets chaotic when humans alter the natural equilibrium. in fact, the reality is that we're a jagged lump of molten rock, not spherical but only even roughly elliptical, and we're hurdling towards nowhere through an orbit full of bumps. we go through ice ages when we hit very rough patches - that is the theory of ice ages, converted into an analogy about bad roads. and, it's the basic theory of weather, too.

the reason we needed a theory of global warming in the first place was that the movement of temperatures decoupled from the sun. if the weather we were experiencing was caused mostly or solely by the sun, it should have been getting colder, not warmer. yet, it was getting warmer. contradiction. so, the weather could not have been caused solely by the sun....

as it stands, the recent exaggerated expansion of the polar vortex - which most people call winter - is happening in perfect correlation with the sun, which is entering a minimum during one of it's weakest cycles on record. if our science of seasons and ice ages is correct, our recent observations of the sun are predictive; the actual predictive science here is that this should, in fact, make things colder - regionally. and temporarily. and, this is exactly what is happening. there's no reason for what she's doing.

what jennifer francis is doing is really something along the lines of throwing an apple into the air, and trying to explain why it falls using magnetism. it's a nice story, jenn. but we already understand gravity pretty well - or, at least, we do observationally.

mike lockwood. look him up. he did the studies.

jessman9000

Deleting peoples comments only destroyed your own narrative.

deathtokoalas

i'm not interested in acting as a medium for the dissemination of false information, or outright stupidity; your comment is not correct. what deleting stupid comments does is sharpen the narrative, by eliminating the irrelevant, the superfluous and/or the incorrect. it removes misleading or useless information from the discourse.

i don't want to get into a huxley v. orwell debate, but that's where i'm going with this. when we're bombarded with false information, it's much harder to find the actual truth.

that said, i wish i still had the ability to remove stupid comments, but google has removed this under apparent pressure from right-wing extremists.

pk

FYI:   BBC Horizon 2005 Global Dimming

deathtokoalas

it is consistent with what i'm saying to suggest that coal particulates - and other pollutants - should be a measurable aspect of climate modelling. but, this isn't the same kind of long term problem, because the particles don't build up in the same way. it's more of a localized short term thing. but, if i was more interested in southern china than i am in the great lakes, i'd be arguing the point for a short term effect, absolutely.

grindupBaker

Earth surface is smooth, not a jagged lump. You referred to yourself and one or more unspecified persons as "a jagged lump". This seems quite likely but we are not sufficiently familiar with you to have high certainty of your similarity to a jagged lump.

deathtokoalas

apparently, this person is from saskatchewan, because they've clearly never seen a mountain before.

grindupBaker

you say "the reason we needed a theory of global warming in the first place was that the movement of temperatures decoupled from the sun". Correct but also note that the hypothesis of "global warming" was derived by Fourier more than a century before the experiment with coal had been conducted for long enough and measurements had been sufficient for long enough to confirm the hypothesis and make it a theory.

deathtokoalas

google is very bad at notifications. but, fwiw, i believe that what fourier demonstrated was merely the mechanism of the greenhouse effect, rather than any specific warming trends.

charles

Just another Russian troll calling him/herself Jessica. Yawn!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIUN5ziSfNc

deathtokoalas

well, i'm not a russian troll. but, you sure sound like a democratic party stooge.

my arguments do not challenge the climate consensus; francis' theory is not in it, and never will be.

charles

"democratic party stooge" LOL, Jess. I'm not from the US and A, not even from that continent.

deathtokoalas

i have no reason to believe you when you say that, stooge.

charles

I couldn't care less, Jessica. Nice name BTW. You transgender?

deathtokoalas

see, this is when the democratic party stooge reflexively retreats to identity politics to attempt to prove their faux liberalism.

charles

At least we know now what you're after

deathtokoalas

you'll have to fill me in on the conspiracy, stooge.

=====

wonderpope

This professor couldn't have explained the physics of how AGW affects the jet streams, and by that causes the local weather anomalies we are experiencing, any easier and clearer. She's not talking about carbon tax or one world government. She's basically saying "we're fucked" even if we would restore the carbon cycle to pre-industrial, because the surplus of CO2 we've been putting into the cycle in the past, let's say, 100 years will continue affecting the climate for 100 years more. And yet I read some cringe worthy comments on here, that show that some people have not listened to this video and aren't even attempting to dispute the data presented, but want to present the expert as a shill for some government entity. Don't get me wrong, skepticism is a good thing. But there's a reason why experts in a field understand things better than the average person...it's because they've spent all their life studying it.

We're driving this car called "human civilization" towards a wall at 200 mph...and instead of facing the problem and finding a way to reduce the speed, people seem to just try to turn their seats in the opposite direction to not see the wall coming towards them at a rapid speed.

deathtokoalas

in fact, this particular scientist's research is not accepted by mainstream academics.

you should look that up, rather than rely on youtube videos for information.

wonderpope

Please tell me exactly how mainstream contradict her claims. What, in your opinion, does mainstream science claim? what is the counter claim I need to look for? I can´t just google "debunking Jennifer A. Francis" and hope to find easily what you claim.

deathtokoalas

you have to realize, wonderpope, that most ideas that are not well accepted do not generate a large amount of literature debunking them. they're just ignored and forgotten. with francis' theory, because it was picked up by the msm without vetting it, what you're going to find is a lot of debunking of various validity from what are mostly very poor sources. actual scientists working in the field have largely just ignored it. i mean, these people don't have time for it.

as a consequence, it's easier to direct you to the actual mainstream theory.

you can easily find articles discussing lockwood's work on mainstream sites, like the bbc. he's actually received scientific awards for his work, along with promotions and the kind of titles that scientists covet, like a place in the royal society. this is the existing consensus: while climate is complicated, weather (and the jet stream is weather.) is caused almost entirely by fluctuations in the amount of sunlight hitting the earth. and, he's rather convincingly demonstrated the point that the existing slow down in solar activity will cause the kind of fluctuations we're seeing in the jet stream - thereby producing a predictive theory of more cold winters in the northern hemisphere, around the jet stream, during the existing minimum.

as mentioned, the most obvious problem with francis' theory is that it has heat and cold moving in directions that are not consistent with the theory of thermodynamics.

---

i googled a bit more. i'm kind of bed-ridden by choice, right now.

jennifer francis has, herself, done her opponents the courtesy of compiling a list of studies that contradict her own research (i do not know how many of them addressed her research directly, but probably very few did.), and then attempts to hand wave it away by claiming bad methodology - which is what scientists do when they can't admit they're wrong.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318287618_Why_Are_Arctic_Linkages_to_Extreme_Weather_Still_Up_in_the_Air

dan

I watched a video called "Jet Streams, more Jet Streams, and even more Jet Streams: AGU Science" In that clip he talks about a paper by Mann. When I heard that my BS detector turned up its sensitivity because Mann is the infamous author of the fake hockey stick graph.

To be honest what he says is mostly beyond me even though I understand standing wave theory and resonance quite well. God help those that are completely ignorant of such theory.  He appears to be talking about how modeling of the jet stream works. But the models don't actually emulate reality well and have demonstrated zero predictive capability.

No one argues that the jet streams play an important part in weather events and more study as to how they operate is welcomed.

But the jet stream performs much more like a meandering river than a simple wave function. It is a chaotic structure, not a pure sine wave function. Its path change is caused by minor and chaotic deviations to its flow path restrictions, its width,  and its inertia all interacting simultaneously.

So its apparent "frequency" and "amplitude" can never be more than a very rough approximation. Applying "quasi resonant effects". resonance, amplitude, Q, and R etc. apply only to sine functions. So I conclude wave theory models that use such simulations will never be able to adequately explain or predict chaotic jet stream behavior. 

He goes on to claim that aerosols contribute "hugely" to radiative forcing. If you look at IPCC reports you will see that a) the supposed effects due to aerosols have large error bars and b) as the reports become more refined their effects are being reduced. This fact has introduced a conundrum for alarmists because large aerosol effects have been used to tune models (to provide cooling to force them to agree with observed data) that contain high climate sensitivity values (predict more warming than happened). i.e. they appear to be incorrectly tuned to cancel predicted warming. Even at that, the models all quickly diverge from observed climate, predicting warming that does not occur. That would indicate that their sensitivity values are too high. Yet the IPCC averages 102 knowingly incorrect models and runs with a 3C sensitivity value!

He then goes on to talk about the paleo record reconstruction of the jet stream from ice cores. At best this is a poor proxy of snowfall location that eludes to a possible jet stream waveform. But the observation concludes that warmer periods had larger stream amplitude so he runs with it. To his credit, he admits "it's very difficult to determine what configuration jet streams had based on  (these records)".

The rest of the video sites other possible inferences and he points out that we need more research. I agree.

deathtokoalas

you might want to check your understanding of waves, dan. 

there is a basic theory in algebra that says that all continuous functions, no matter how complicated,  can be decomposed into a series of sine waves, called a fourier series. and, the fourier transform (not the same as the series) has widespread applications across the sciences. there is also a fourier theory, but that is pure math stuff. the question isn't really whether the math is reasonable, it's whether the theory is predictive, and the answer is that it only works when you cherry pick the data. this shouldn't actually be particularly surprising, though, because it's quite physically counter-intuitive.

the empirical question is really whether these waves remain in tact or not, that is the physics being challenged, and the evidence appears to be that they don't. the model then collapses as a result of bad physics, not bad math.

further, we don't try to understand the jet stream in terms of ocean currents, anyways. we try and understand the jet stream in terms of factors in the upper atmosphere. i mean, this is the theory: that the energy from the oceans is elevating itself into the atmosphere, and then wreaking havoc - which is a difficult idea on it's face and requires this clumsy mechanism to take seriously.

the biggest factor in the upper atmosphere, and especially around the earth's tilt, is the way the sun hits it. and, there is actually good science that makes predictive theories about jet streams based on solar fluctuations.

======

deathtokoalas

somebody ought to tell paul that if he wants to focus on climate change, he should hire a science journalist. i can't blame greg for this. and i don't claim anything malicious. it's just that it's wrong.

sertaki

Are you saying that a climate journalist would bring more credible facts to the table than an actual climate scientist who has worked on important studies herself?

deathtokoalas

what i'm saying is that a broader science journalist should have pointed out that this particular scientist is actually not well regarded in her field, and that her ideas are really distorting the narrative. not in those terms, exactly, perhaps, but through a probing analysis. see, aaron is a actually a good example, in the sense that he challenges people, albeit not when it comes to science, because he's not a science journalist, even when he plays devil's advocate. an interview with a very controversial researcher like jennifer francis should be presented as what it is, and should ultimately be about challenging the mechanism she's providing. this is rather presented as a science lesson, but what it's "teaching" is something that is at best extremely obscure - and probably just flat out wrong.

what you're doing is appealing to authority. and, she might be an authority on her own research. but, she's not a good authority on the broader topic.

you could throw a dart in a climate conference and find somebody who both accepts the climate consensus and is willing to challenge this theory on air.

and, it's kind of pernicious. because the reason this theory is getting more attention than it deserve is that it was run by the corporate left media. the guardian. the atlantic. now, the so-called independent media is running with it, because it appeared in the mainstream press, not because of it's actual value. that's not how this ought to work.

grindupBaker

I made an effort and spent some time with searches like "controversial research jennifer francis" and I've come up with nothing after reading NAS & all sorts of sites. So give a couple of links, just so we can confirm that you aren't just a coal/oil shill-fuckwit wasting our time. Just a couple of relevant links.

deathtokoalas

the reason i'm being obscure is that the arguments are technical.

http://www.sciencemagazinedigital.org/sciencemagazine/14_february_2014?pg=29#pg29