Anarchist Alex Balch being led into a police cruiser at Ryerson university…
I walked into the Ryerson University Student Union building this afternoon and was welcomed with a shocking surprise. I was only half-way through the front door when I recognized someone who I’ve been looking for since we last met. His name is Alex Balch, and he’s the anarchist who came charging after me and attacked me with a Black Bloc flagpole back in June.
It was at that moment I realized I needed to hide myself from him. I slipped the hood of my raincoat over my head, dashed into the coffee shop, and quickly back outside to where I could see him from the front window. It was an exhilarating adventure- would I be able to get the police there in time to catch him, would he see me and run away?
I called the police from the front of the building. I first tried calling Detective Williams of 14 Division, the officer assigned to my case. He wasn’t there but another officer listened to my story, he told me to call 911 and then tell them he sent me. Five minutes later they agreed to send a car.
Balch was sitting at a table at an exhibition of Ryerson University’s student groups. He was at the table for World in Exile an organization that describe themselves as “Ryerson’s Counter Culture Campus Group”. There’s not much about this group online- but, they did post an invitation to the event on Facebook:
Iconoclast Media is one of the most hardcore Anarchist publishers in Canada- their site’s banner currently sports an image of a burning police car from the Toronto G20. Balch writes for them and was presumably there as a representative.
In addition to Iconoclast’s magazines, Balch was offering a book of poetry by incarcerated G20 Anarchist Kelly Pflug-Back titled “These Burning streets”. Some of my long-time readers may remember back in July when Pflug-Back very inaccurately compared herself to Jesus. She’s currently serving a two year sentence in prison for her G20 crimes.
It took about 20 minutes for the police to arrive (but felt like ten hours). I gave them Alex’s description and told them where he was sitting. After a short phone call (which also felt like 10 hours) they went inside of the student union building, approached Balch and told him he was under arrest. They handcuffed him when they reached the back of the police car.
Click to expand (then click again)
Balch is part of an incredibly dangerous and violent gang of youth who have been exercising political violence across Ontario. From my experience it’s clear that they’re capable of a whole lot more than simple property damage- if you get in their way they will get violent.
My really big question for Ryerson is how does it turn-out that a violent anarchist with an arrest warrant is able to run a recruiting table in their Student Union Building? I’ll be calling Ryerson tomorrow to ask for an explanation- will keep you updated as I learn more…
Oh, yes, and a special thank you to Curtis Nixon- without his assistance I may never have caught Balch. Thanks Curtis!
Flagpole Alex’s new look…
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Good to see a victim get some justice! Looking forward to hearing what Ryerson has to say for themselves. Assault with a weapon is a serious offense. What if he had a warrent for sexual assault?
Agreed! It’s high time for photojournalists/reporters to take concerted action in their own defense against the ‘fatwas’ put out by these violent (A)narchists. Some journalists are beginning to arm themselves for their own protection against these violent street elements. There’s no excuse for these attacks. They imperil the public’s right to know/press coverage as well as the injured individuals. The chilling effect extends beyond those ending up needing medical attention. Such brown shirt tactics must be resisted for everyone’s sake.
Did you already approach ryerson prior to this with info or how would they know about Alex otherwise?
Good job keeping the streets just and though its a shame that you ever faced a violent response from them with your peaceful actions, at least this guy was arrested and taken in without any more violence.
The university is itself not the ones who are responsible for the actions of the student union. The student union executive at the Ryerson Student Union are very deeply in bed with the anarchist community as they are with just about every ultra left wing fringe group out there. The group in question is particularly very close to the executive as Elyse Moya one of the founders of this group is a very close personal friend of one of the executive members, Melisa Palmero. You will also see other well known anarchists there such as Mark Brill, Doug Kynikos, Nolan Engel, Ashleigh Ingle and Eleutheros Potamoskulos at such events
These very same violent socialist anarchists are the people who will make idle no more look like a bunch of terrorists when they commit acts of sabotage and hang it on the native peoples.
Will make????? Too late for that Lawrence :( They are making:
http://eyecrazy.blogspot.ca/2013/01/going-off-reservation-pseudo-natives.html
Have a look and you will see names like Krystalline Kraus and Zack Ruiter. To go along with Sakura Saunders and Dave Vasey in Sarnia. And the majority of Canadians have already turned on them:
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/01/15/majority-of-canadians-concerned-about-financial-accountability-on-first-nations-reserves-poll/
They are like cockroaches. Once you see the first one it is already too late. It is a real shame that they would use native people this way.
Oh good! Finally! Thank goodness, Greg! Took the police long enough! No matter what they (black bloc etc) think of you, no one can just attack and beat up someone without having to be responsible for that. Finally this conflict will be resolved. It’s really dumb of the police to ignore it this long. How can the public trust them if they just pick and choose who they protect?
Thanks for the comment- I was thinking exactly the same thing- how do they chose who to protect? Would Rob Ford’s family members be treated the same way?
Seriously? Trust the police to do their job and enforce the rule of law? They seem to only do that selectively these days. Even when instructed, quite pointedly, to do so from the bench.
Your Toronto Media Co-op flowchart is incomplete.
The two co-founders of it are Tim Groves and Geordie Dent.
Tim Groves is a long time executive member of the Ontario Coalition against poverty. He bills himself as “Tim Groves is an investigative reporter and an organizer with the Toronto Media Co-op”. He regularly gives seminars with UofT radical groups on how to research people and groups and was promoting the creation of an “Enemy Professors database” of politically incorrect professors at Canadian universities students should be confronting “as a matter of principle”.
Geordie Dent is the Executive Director of the 95% City of Toronto funded (to the tune of $370,000 a year) Federation of Metro Tenants Association, a group founded by the Communist Party of Canada. It is still closely associated with them, the New Socialists and OCAP, having found the latter, their new home across from Allen Gardens at 157 Carlton Street, just a few blocks away from their offices to make it easy for them to have joint executive meetings.
Geordie was a former executive member of No One Is Illegal Vancouver, before moving and getting his only job in Toronto. He was also the “impartial mediator” for a meeting of the warring board members at former CKLN radio station, not declaring that he is a good friend of close associate Andy Lehrer (who goes by aliases such as Firebrand, Abba Kovner and Bearcat among dozens other). Needless to say he ruled completely in favor of Lehrer and his co-conspirators who bled the station dry and killed it.
The quote I like most, is one from Geordie Dent at one of the Media Co-ops first meetings, “If you can create a sense of consensus on an issue, you will create a consensus in the public for your issue.” It is a sentiment worthy of Goebbels.
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Thanks for the information. I was reading about Dent just last night- this confirms what I thought I’d found. I’ll have to learn more about Groves too.
The night before last I got a very eerie and threatening comment on my story about the Ontario Socialist Party- the name was Abba Kovner. I saw the IP address was for an Internet cafe, hopped on a bus and who did I see there? You guessed it, Lehrer.
This is getting interesting…
So many questions. Like how did the other anarchists react when Balch was arrested? How will Rabble and the Toronto Star spin this to try and make Balch into a political prisoner? Will there be antics in the courtroom? Will Zach Ruiter make a video in wich Sakura Saunders says “All he did was hit someone in the head with a flagpole.”
Be careful though. This group clearly has no respect for the law. And their own self-righteousness makes them feel as though they should be above the law. They also have a history of witness intimidation which we all saw first hand with the George Horton court date. They sat in the courtroom shouting at a witness. Then acted shocked when they were made to stop.
Keep your camera and cell phone handy. I can see these clowns trying to intimidate you.
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Personally, I’m waiting for Antonia Zerbisia’s next story on the anarchists. Perhaps she could do a review of Kelly Pflug-Back’s poetry? Which reminds me, I have a review of a Toronto Star article to finish…
I’ll definitely be more careful walking around at night in the future- that’s for certain. But, equally, this attack only solidified my intent to keep researching and writing critical analysis. A world where its acceptable to use violence to stop someone from writing is a world few of us want to see. The bump I have in my scalp from the flagpole is quite symbolic of why we could never allow these people to take any sort of leadership in our community.
Yes! If someone can offer a meaningful distinction between these violently inclined street radicals and Mussolini’s brown shirts, it’d make for interesting listening. The 2nd Amendment follows closely on the heels of the 1st. It’s intended to guarantee the right to defend against ALL enemies, both foreign AND domestic! Elements who issue ‘fatwas’ against and assault journalists ARE the enemy. -amicuscuria.com/wordpress-
Hammer, intimidation never works on people who spaek the truth and are fearless about standingu up for what is true and right. They tried it with me some time ago as well when one of the idiots made the mistake of touching my camera with his fanarchist umbrella. i told him very clearly, in front of his so called freinds that if he ever touched my camera again, I would shove his umbrella so far up his ass he would have to blow his nose to open it. he knew I was not joking. These peole act all tough when they are in groups , yet, they are totally useless when those they try and intimidate stand up to them.
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That’s the secret with bullies- they only succeed of people concede their power to them. The only reason these people have got as far as they have is because of those who’ve been enabling them. What amazes me is that so many of the enablers are peaceful people who want a peaceful world in the future. It’s absurd to think we could accomplish that new world using violence, bullying and deceit.
Madness…
What you have both said reminds me of Joseph Stalin, one of the biggest bullies in history. Josip Broz Tito, the Croatian leader of the Yugoslav Communist Partisans would not follow Stalin’s line and eventually Yugoslavia was kicked out of the Comminform. Stalin then started sending agents to murder Tito. Until Tito wrote Stalin this letter:
“Stop sending people to kill me. We’ve already captured five of them, one of them with a bomb and another with a rifle (…) If you don’t stop sending killers, I’ll send one to Moscow, and I won’t have to send a second.”
Stalin remained terrified of Tito until his dying day. Bullies do not know how to handle someone standing up to them since they are not used to it.
Of course, those carrying out the violence are almost never the ones calling the shots. Those calling the shots never like to get their hand’s dirty. Balch is probably nothing more than a pawn. He is either acting on the orders of or trying to impress one of the shot callers.
You were probably not in the city when this Star article came out. It was easily the worst piece of main stream journalism I have seen in Canada. Looks like something that Press TV would publish. Basically, through inuendo, the person who wrote the article accused the Toronto Blue Jays of being racist. Not suprisingly the people most offended by the article were the minority players on the Blue Jays roster. It also cost the Star a lot of subscribers do to its obvious bias:
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2003/media070703.htm
http://www.rrj.ca/m3823/
I cannot find a copy of the article on the Star website. There are however articles about this article.
Understanding this article and the mindset behind it will help you understand the mentality at the Toronto Star. They have appointed themselves as activist journalist crusaders out to save the public from themselves and expose “The truth” to the ignorant masses. Influencing opinion is now more important than reporting the news.
The red Star has lost it’s way and most of its credibility. Not all. The comics are still ok. :)
Try reading the comments on some of their articles. Then look at the “Agree” and “Disagree” on the comments. You will see that most readers of the Red Star do not buy their propaganda.
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[…] bearded individual he directed me to. These blog articles I’ve mentioned can be found here and here. I do not post these to “out” Alex Balch, but if there is any validity to these stories, then […]