Justice Linden made the following statement as part of his Ipperwash Report:

Regarding Police Discretion:

It does not mean that anyone is above the law or that police services should have different standards for Aboriginal peoples.

Nor does it mean that the rule of law and public order are somehow subservient to Aboriginal interests.

Police discretion at Aboriginal occupations and protests does not mean that law-breakers are never charged. It simple means that lawbreakers should be charged when it is neither dangerous nor needlessly provocative to do so.

In the context of an Aboriginal occupation or protest, I believe this means police must be certain to pursue protesters or others alleged to have committed serious offences.

Lions Community Hall
57 Munsee Street South, Cayuga ON  N0A 1E0
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
7 p.m.

Directions: Take Hwy 54 South into Cayuga - becomes Munsee North in town - to the traffic lights at Hwy 3 (Talbot Rd). Continue through lights onto Munsee South. Lions Hall is on right side.

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Contributing to this extensive deployment was the Mohawk's own fortifications. At the time of the July 11 S.Q. raid, the Mohawks had approximately 75 men armed with shotguns, high powered and semi-automatic pistols, a magnum revolver, assault and semi-automatic AK-47 rifles, a fully automatic machine gun, and several thousand rounds of ammunition. Over time, the Mohawk Warriors made more contributions to their arsenal, including a semi-automatic machine gun capable of firing 450-600 rounds per minute and of penetrating an APC. After a preliminary assessment of Mohawk fortifications and arms, the Army concluded that the Mohawks were "a highly organized paramilitary force." Although newspapers reported that Mohawks had as many as 6000 guns, the more plausible figure of 500-600 was reported by Geoffrey York's text. Guns and ammunition continued to be smuggled in during the crisis, with a shipment of 80 AK-47s arriving in Kahnawake on the third or fourth week of the standoff. A number of decoys were also set, leading to television reports, for example, of a M72 rocket launcher. Similarly, it was never determined whether the wiring located on Mercier Bridge was actually an explosive or a hoax. A number of tank traps were set to halt APCs progress, and the bush in the Pines around Highway 138 was littered with lethal traps, resembling those the Vietnam veteran Warriors had perfected in that war. At its peak, as many as 500-600 Mohawks armed the fourteen bunkers and barricades surrounding the disputed territory.

...there are good reasons for pause before lumping indigenous insurgents together with terrorists. This intuitive hesitation is supported by international legal doctrine suggesting that indigenous peoples carry some special international legal status importing special treatment.