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MONTREAL - As Montreal cops brace for this years edition of the march against police brutality which will coincide Thursday with student demonstrations against tuition hikes the officer in charge of overseeing crowd control operations has a message for would-be participants:

We know theres going to be a lot more people present at this years anti-brutality march, Chief Inspector Alain Bourdages told reporters Wednesday. And we want those people to know that bad people are going to be present, and theyre going to use the fact that theyre (inside a crowd) to commit criminal acts and other people are going to be caught in it.

This years march is the 16th. Out of the last 15, 13 turned into illegal assemblies that ended with arrests. Id urge anyone who shows up tomorrow who sees any illegal act going on to leave the march.

Weve had demonstrations of 30,000 students; it went very well. People have shown that even in large numbers, they can behave. The problem is when you have 100 or 200 people whose only intention is to hide in that group and to start breaking the law.

Bourdages made his comments during a rare meeting between police and the news media during which the Montreal forces approach to crowd control was explained and illustrated.

The meeting took place a week after a March 7 protest outside Loto-Qubecs office on Sherbrooke St. during which student protester Francis Grenier suffered a serious injury to his right eye after apparently being struck by a police flash grenade.

Bourdages called the incident deplorable and said it is under investigation but added that the crowd control grenades would remain in use.

The Rubber Ball grenade is meant to be thrown over the heads of protesters and explodes into two pieces with a 175-decibel blast before depositing a cloud of CS gas less intense than pepper spray onto those below.

Nine such grenades were used when demonstrators clashed with police March 7, police said, while aerosol cans spraying CS gas were used 37 times.

Bourdages said Montreal police applies a continuum of force when it comes to crowd control. Verbal warnings to disperse are followed by physical but non-forceful contact repeating the message.

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Montreal police brief media on crowd control