Punky in the Middle

In the summer of 1996, the Montréal street population, including its punk community, twice rose up in defiance of the police: the first time, punks allegedly pillaged shops; the second, they occupied a public park after hours, resulting in over seventy arrests. These uprisings, ¹ characterized as “riots” in some media coverage, punctuated mounting tension between street kids and police throughout the summer. As the rest of the world geared up for an Atlanta Olympic summer, the game of “monkey-in-the-middle” ² —in which punks, police, and politicians (always under the watchful eye of the media), hurled and dodged accusations and blame—occupied the street kids and the police at the site of the 1976 Olympics. This game, however, had less to do with the Olympics’ “power of the dream” and more with the power of social authorities in constructing attributions of deviance.