From a small crowd of protesters, the eighty-year-old is grabbed by two young Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers. Struggling to walk—Ball is blind in one eye and suffers from the effects of two heart attacks—he’s taken to a wall and slammed face first into the brick before being handcuffed. Shortly afterward, according to Ball, he’s dumped roughly into the back of a police car and sent to the station to be reprimanded. Everything happens in the space of a few minutes, turning an ordinary act of civic participation into a hellish ordeal.

When Ball saw someone snatch a protest sign from a vehicle, he confronted the person. “I saw this man try to throw it away. I went to put it back on the car, and all hell broke loose.”

According to Ball, the snatcher grabbed the sign from Ball and lunged at him. When Ball tried to defend himself, RCMP officers arrested him and hauled him away, over the loud cries of “Shame on you” from the crowd. Ball says none of the officers at the scene tried to intervene to de-escalate the situation. “I was scared stiff. I thought I was fighting for my life.”