Police

For Immediate Release: Calgary Police, City of Calgary and University of Calgary sued by demonstrators for excessive force, breach of rights in 2024

Drug Data Decoded writer/editor joins eight other plaintiffs in a lawsuit seeking damages and vindication that Charter rights were violated during the brutal police operation to remove a peaceful demonstration at the University of Calgary on May 9, 2024.

The student-led tent encampment was erected early in the morning on May 9, 2024. Within around half an hour, Calgary police were already mobilizing to remove it.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Calgary, AB

Nine demonstrators who suffered injuries, psychological trauma and criminalization for exercising constitutional rights in a May 2024 civic demonstration at the University of Calgary are suing the City of Calgary, its police and the university for damages.

In service of a foreign genocide using products of Canada’s weapons and research sectors, the police bludgeoned demonstrators with batons, shields, and fists, light- and sound-emitting pepper grenades and pepper bullets, before several violent arrests.

Injuries to demonstrators, including women in their sixties, included:

concussions,
rib, jaw, and hand injuries,
cuts, bruises, and scrapes,
psychological trauma including fear, mental anguish, distress, public humiliation, and hypervigilance of police.

Several demonstrators also incurred costs and mental distress related to defending against charges by police.

All charges were later withdrawn by the Crown prosecutor.

The lawsuit was filed on May 4, 2026 by Chris Wiebe of Engel Law at the Court of King’s Bench in Edmonton. The nine plaintiffs include three University of Calgary students and four alumni, a Palestinian woman, and advocates for peace from Calgary’s diverse communities.

The plaintiffs will read a statement at 12:30PM on Monday, May 11 at the TFLD Quad.

Early on the morning of May 9, 2024, student demonstrators erected an encampment on the University of Calgary main quadrangle to protest the University’s complicity in the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza by the state of Israel.

For decades, the University’s main quadrangle has been a regular site of civic demonstration, including encampment protests. In contrast, minutes after the start of the demonstration, the University activated Calgary police to monitor the demonstration and demanded the removal of all tents and protests from the University grounds.

Exercising Charter-protected rights, the students continued their peaceful demonstration. Beginning at around 8 P.M. that evening, up to eighty-five Calgary police officers with riot shields, body armor and less-lethal munitions were dispatched to the University campus to carry out the removal of all demonstrators and their belongings under a petty trespass order. Negotiations through the evening resulted in the encampment’s complete removal by demonstrators, who by this time included students and community members, all of whom remained peaceful. However, following a vote held by the students in attendance, approximately twenty demonstrators refused to leave and were subjected to a violent removal operation by Calgary police at around 11:15 P.M.

This lawsuit proceeds as the Calgary Police Service, City of Calgary, and University of Calgary have universally failed to take measures to repair the harms they caused on May 9, 2024. These defendants continue to demonstrate complicity in genocide, with weapons for genocide continuing to flow through Calgary Airport, the police service continuing to repress peaceful demonstrations, and the University failing to provide transparency on financial holdings and academic ties to Israel.

Further to damages, the plaintiffs seek vindication that their Charter rights were breached.

“Never in the history of Canadian student movements have administrators and police acted so quickly, so violently, to suppress the Charter-protected rights of students and community members. Universities are important locations for discussion and debate and the use of force against peaceful protesters runs counter to their very purpose.” Roberta Lexier, Professor at Mount Royal University and expert on the history of Canadian student movements.

Independent Jewish Voices Canada unequivocally supports the student encampments that took place across the country in the spring of 2024. We have provided leadership support, legal assistance, and actively challenged false claims of antisemitism to ensure that anti-Zionist Jewish students are heard. Despite aggressive attempts by universities like the University of Calgary to silence students through injunctions and invitations of police interventions, IJV remains unwavering in its commitment to their cause.
We categorically condemn the use of police brutality against student activists in Edmonton, Calgary, and Vancouver. This violent repression is completely unacceptable and constitutes a direct assault on students' fundamental right to protest peacefully.
IJV demands that all Canadian universities and people of conscience respect academic freedom and students' right to safety in their peaceful protest. The example set by the student organizers in Calgary demonstrates a clear and necessary path forward—one that prioritizes life and justice over repression and violence.
-Independent Jewish Voices Canada

Many observers have raised the question of whether the actions of police and the university violated the Charter rights of protestors on May 9, 2024. The MNP report commissioned by the university and released in November 2024 failed to address this question, and this lawsuit will hopefully provide some long-awaited answers.
- Jennifer Koshan, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Calgary

Donations to the legal fund are being accepted through a chuffed.org fundraiser.

Plaintiffs will be available for commentary on their experiences at the UofC TFLD Quad on May 11 at 12:30PM. For matters related to the legal case, media are invited to seek commentary from their lawyer, Chris Wiebe, at chris@engellaw.ca. For commentary on student movements, media can reach out to Dr. Roberta Lexier, rlexier@mtroyal.ca.