G20 Protests turn violent

G20 Riots in Toronto

Really great photos

Quote :

Black-clad demonstrators broke off from a crowd of peaceful protesters at the World Summit, torching police cruisers and smashing windows with baseball bats and hammers.
Police with shields and clubs earlier pushed back another small group of demonstrators who tried to head south toward the security fence surrounding the perimeter of the Group of Twenty global economic summit site. Some demonstrators hurled bottles at police.

"This isn't our Toronto and my response is anger," Toronto Mayor David Miller told CP24 television. "Every Torontonian should be outraged by this."

The roving band of protesters in black balaclavas shattered shop windows for blocks, including at police headquarters, then shed some of their black clothes, revealing other garments, and continued to rampage through Toronto's downtown core.

Protesters torched at least two police cruisers in different parts of the city.

Police in riot gear and riding bikes formed a blockade, keeping protesters from approaching the security fence a few blocks south of the march route. Police closed a stretch of Toronto's subway system along the protest route and the largest shopping mall downtown closed after the protest took a turn for the worse.

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So guess where I was today.

inb4 fuck-the-police idiots

Downtown?

So was anyone hurt? Or arrested? Do we even know what they're protesting? Do THEY even know what they're protesting?

It was an anarchist group called the Black Bloc.

A few of them were injured. Nobody else was, to my knowledge.

Received this tweet from Sunny Hundal today:

Quote :

Wow, riots at G20 protests in Toronto eh. Who knew Canadians even knew how to riot?

We riot politely, apologising after every window we smash. While wearing toques.

My dad said someone hurled a concrete chunk over his head and smashed a window with it.

It's the G20. Of course there was a riot. There's a riot every time they meet.

Same with the WTO.

Who didn't see this coming? I mean, our most popular weekly newspaper was providing tips on how to deal with tear gas, be prepared for sonic weaponry, and legally resist arrest.

I stayed away because the paper said they had attack dogs, and I've been scared of police dogs ever since my unfortunate encounter with George W. Bush.

saeku wrote:

tips on how to deal with tear gas, be prepared for sonic weaponry, and legally resist arrest.

Link, perchance?

Khajidu wrote:

saeku wrote:

tips on how to deal with tear gas, be prepared for sonic weaponry, and legally resist arrest.

Link, perchance?

This week's NOW magazine was the G20 protest issue. Check out the ultimate G20 protest kit to make your own all-natural gas mask! (I couldn't find the "how not to get arrested" sidebar; I think it was only in the print version.)

Thanks. Read it.

Also, this.

I never said it was unexpected.

*le sigh*

As a residual of the hot '70s, we have a law forbidding to go around in public with your face covered except for safety issues (eg motorcycle helmets and paint masks). Is there something similar that can be exploited to corral these guys and put them in the locker for a few days?

I'm as much against globalization as the next guy, but looting shops and burning cars is a criminal offence.

Not to mention the pigs then dodge the bad guys and beat the good ones.