“I thought I was going to die,” Adam Melanson says about his Dec. 2023 arrest. Multiple officers pinned him to the ground, punched him repeatedly, and one used the banned “knee-on-neck” restraint. A year later, his charges of assaulting and obstructing a police officer were fully withdrawn after coming to an agreement with crown prosecutors. This is part of a larger pattern, argues Dalia Awwad.

Since the beginning of Israel’s genocide, it appears the Toronto Police Service’s (TPS) role has been to criminalize, vilify, surveil, and brutalize the masses showing up in solidarity with Palestine. The harm the state is trying to inflict through TPS is multifaceted, physically through beatings, psychologically through surveillance and harassment, and materially through doxxing and criminalization.