Footage posted to Youtube on Thursday shows police brutalizing a youth at a “Beat the Pipelines” May Day gathering in Vancouver, BC.
The incident occured during a protest against pipelines carrying tar sands oil from Alberta into export hubs in BC. Witnesses say the teenager was photographing the protest from atop a bicycle when members of the Vancouver Police Department forced him off his bike and pinned him down on the sidewalk.
“Please stop, I’m a minor,” the teenager screams as an officer kicks him twice in his lower back and stomach region.
As BC increasingly becomes an epicenter for processing and transporting North America’s fossil fuels — including coal, tar sands oil, and liquified natural gas from fracking — demonstrations against government and energy corporations have become more and more combative. Many in the region view the approval processes for new fossil fuel infrastructure as sham.
