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Report: Toronto Police Rough up Journalists, Arrest Peaceful Protesters at G20
Reporters covering the G20 summit in Toronto say they were the target of police violence overnight, as riots blamed on anarchist groups left four police cars burning in the financial district and resulted in the arrests of some 150 people.
"A newspaper photographer was shot with a plastic bullet in the backside, while another had an officer point a gun in his face despite identifying himself as a member of the media," reported the Canadian Press news agency. The agency did not say if it was its own reporters who were targeted.
Previously: Toronto gets ‘secret' arrest powers ahead of G20 protests
In a remarkable series of Tweets early Sunday morning, journalist Steve Paikin of public broadcaster TV Ontario said he witnessed "police brutality" against a reporter and the arrests of peaceful demonstrators.
"I saw police brutality tonight. It was unnecessary. They asked me to leave the site or they would arrest me. I told them I was doing my job," he Tweeted.
"As I was escorted away from the demonstration, I saw two officers hold a journalist. The journalist identified himself as working for 'the Guardian.' He talked too much and pissed the police off. Two officers held him a third punched him in the stomach. Totally unnecessary. The man collapsed. Then the third officer drove his elbow into the man's back. No cameras recorded the assault. And it was an assault."
Paikin had been at a demonstration in Toronto's Esplanade neighborhood, a densely-populated area near the waterfront. He said police moved in on a crowd of peaceful, "middle class" protesters and began arresting them.
"Police on one side screamed at the crowd to leave one way. Then police on the other side said leave the other way. There was no way out," he Tweeted. "So the police just started arresting people. I stress, this was a peaceful, middle class, diverse crowd. No anarchists. Literally more than 100 officers with guns pointing at the crowd. Rubber bullets and smoke bombs ready to be fired. Rubber bullets fired."
Paikin, a respected journalist who has hosted national election debates in Canada, said he was "escorted" away by police before he could see how many people were arrested, "but it must have been dozens."
"I have lived in Toronto for 32 years. Have never seen a day like this. Shame on the vandals and shame on those that ordered peaceful protesters attacked and arrested."
Earlier in the day, police told media that a small group of "Black bloc" demonstrators broke off from a protest of 10,000 people and began smashing storefront windows along the city's trendy Queen Street.
The CBC News Network reported that protesters smashed in the windows of an American Apparel outlet, pulled out the mannequins and spread feces on the floor. The storefronts of McDonald's and Starbucks locations were also damaged, as were numerous bank branches.
Police shut down all public transit in the city center, including subway and streetcar lines. They also shut down a large downtown shopping complex after reports of looting. AFP reported that some 200 people were trapped inside, unable to leave after the mall was put into lockdown.
Watch: Protesters seize police car
"When the G20 protest began turning violent Saturday, police abandoned some of their police cars," reports the Toronto Star. "This one was briefly occupied on Queen Street."
The following video was shot by Jim Rankin of the Toronto Star.
188 Comments so far
Show AllJust doin' the work for the man. Pigs is pigs. They allow the pigs they work for to have exquisite manners.
Police want to make sure there are no photo's of their agent provocatuers
Agents provocateurs galore, I suspect. If any "protestors" did "spread feces on the floor," as claimed, as supposedly an act of defiance at an economic summit of the elites, that certainly sounds like the work of agents provocateurs.
So, you have trouble imagining that some people may be angry enough to do this - that they must have been "agent-provocateurs"? Note that the targets were all large retail corporations and banks - and the police themselves.
Wouldn't an agent-provocateur have targeted small businesses for better effect?
Your bourgeois privilege and smugness is showing. You must like the status-quo. What is it going to take to get you angry?
What???
I was implying that the means employed would not likely be effective in positively influencing public sentiment, that engaging in random property destruction that would have no significant effect on the property owners, using a means that most members of the public would find disgusting and repulsive, would not be the best way to rally support or achieve the goals of the protestors (i.e., the means employed do not significantly impact the oligarchs or positively impact public opinion). So it seemed likely that agents provocateurs would be behind such actions. Either that, or some of the protestors are not very bright.
As for anger, the first amendment limitations as developed by the S.Ct. over the years do not allow me to express here my recommendations for actions in response to the corporatist efforts to enslave the world's population.
Are your tactics working?
In France, in 1789, should the peasants have just held signs at the Bastille and sung Kumbaya? Or Romania, 1989? How about Homestead in 1892? Yes, that particular battle was lost, but eventually the war was won, only to be lost again in the 1980's because the steelworkers wouldn't fight, instead choosing to submit like sheep, or if they did become violent, it was a shotguns blast to their own heads in the living rooms of their foreclosed western Pennsylvania homes.
Believe me, the corporate officers DO take notice, and understand that the protesters can always escalate. Sure, the corporate media will produce negative publicity, but here in Pittsburgh, 10 months after our own G20 meeting, most remember the police violence, not the handful of broken windows.
Where has there EVER been effective social and economic change that didn't involve at least rioting and social unrest, if not organized armed struggle?
At the very least, it is the actions of the radicals that make concessions to the more moderate forces possible. The powerful made concessions to Martin Luther King only because there were riots and the threat of far greater black unrest. Same with Gandhi.
I didn't say that riots were necessarily a bad option. I certainly did not rule out violence, if you read between the lines of my comment about the S. Ct. I have often argued on CD that all options should be on the table and the oligarchs should be made aware of that. But breaking windows and spreading feces is juvenile and pathetic (one must convince onlookers that one's arguments and philosophy are superior and powerful, and that approach is far away from there). That will draw few to a cause. If someone cannot think of anything creative or clever that will actually win public sympathy or negatively impact the oligarchs, then it may be best to keep one's powder dry for now, at least with regard to property destruction or violence.
I will concede that the feces part of the action was quite infantile, and was not at all helpful.
Better feces than Axe or Tag.
That's like saying war is great for the peace movement.
Who said anything about us being a peace movement? We are an anti-economic hegemony and anti-imperialist movement. You seem to be confusing "peace" with sheep-like submission.
And you played right into their hands. They used you.
You are Napoleon's Snowball, to use an Animal Farm analogy. You have been used to help those who implement the very things you hate. How does that make you feel?
I repeat, what worthwhile progress, through world history, was ever made without riots, or better yet, armed struggle, being an important part of it? Name one. I amenable to changing my views if you can give me some examples!
No, it wasn't India's independence is not an example. The trouble that the UK wanted to avoid came from rioters and armed insurgencies, not Gandhi in his cotton loincloth.
Sure, the French had to weather the Jacobins, then Napoleon, but look at France today. Would you rather they have remanined starving under an an absolute monarch?
Sure peaceful protests work if one fears who will take their place if one doesn't bargain with the peaceful ones. You are right, the British dealt with Ghandi both because he was gaining public sympathy and because they would rather deal with him than with those who would use more violent and/or destructive tactics.
But you are not the trouble that Harper wants to avoid. Have you read Shock Doctrine? You are providing the shock - probably with a bit of help from the agents provocateurs who don't share your selectivity concerning what businesses or properties to target.
Shock Doctrine is about a strategy that the authorities use. If the authorities use this strategy, they want and need the riots and the vandalism to put it in motion.
It is like with sports, every time one team comes up with a new strategy, the other team finds a way to counter it or even to exploit it. Black bloc as a strategy is a strategy that doesn't work like it used to.
You are presenting a completely distorted interpretation of the Shock doctrine.
Just got off the phone with my brother and his partner in the Parkdale neighborhood of Toronto. Everyone in Parkdale is pissed off at the cops and have gathered in the streets to tell them to to go away. Many observed the actions of the anarchists toward the corporate targets with at least some approval. My brother and his partner very much approve of the actions.
Some of the largest banks in town have been been well vandalized. That will send a message. But, all small businesses are untouched.
If you don't like black-bloc tactics, please provide some alternative strategies. I DO know, from experience what doesn't work - permitted, police-supervised and controlled, "peaceful marches". The elites continue to work behind their bubble, and the media completely ignores the protest. It is as if they never happen - all the hard work of the organizers down the drain.
Personally, I am not too upset if the bank containing my former student loan gets vandalized - I don't even have an account in a bank any more switching to a credit union. It is not even about the vandalism per see. I am allergic to perfume (which is hard to get off of clothes and impossible to get off of paper) and, if you want to be technical anyone who uses the stuff is committing an act of both violence and vandalism because that stuff surrounds them like a cloud and anyone near them gets coated. I would even prefer a person squirt mustard or spray paint on my clothes than wear perfume because I can still wear the clothes whether that ever comes off or not. Yet, because of the big corporations, I got to put up with getting sick and my stuff getting wrecked.
It is about a public who hears things getting smashed and starts to worry falsely that they are going to go after people. Or people seeing banks being smashed and wrongly figures that their house might be next.
So "everyone" in Parkdale is pissed off at the cops - but not as pissed off as they should be.
It is about Harper turning around and saying "see all these new laws and police tactics were necessary" or even worse "see all these new tactics didn't go far enough, see what happened, we are really going to have to step things up next time"
The Shock Doctrine is all about a tactic - about using chaos to justify brute force and then putting in other measures. These same corporations which got their windows busted will turn around and fund Harper's commercials or even provide a few of their own.
I don't know what tactics work. I get sick easy from perfumes etc and have gotten the impression from authorities that the sooner I die the better - it is just I don't want to. But it basically means that my health card is worthless and all that is really left for me is to put my affairs in order and enjoy whatever time I have left. I may be homeless in a few years, but I might not be around then so why worry about what may never happen.
Posted as a separate comment.
“They (the Romans) make a desert, and they call it peace”
- Tacitus
Better shit that perfume or air freshener. I have gotten really sick from the latter so often that I'm at the point were I would actually welcome the former.
Whether there were agents provocateurs or not, I get the feeling that the plan was to use the black bloc - the abandoned cop cars, the two man hole covers that were not nailed down etc. I get the feeling that this will be used to further restrict civil liberties.
The police seem to be arresting anyone who has any black clothing now - whether it be a shirt or a hoodie etc. They were parading the arrested past reporters today and they were french and eager to say things to the reporters as they went by. The reporters said that they were definitely not black bloc because the black bloc don't like to be photographed even with their faces hidden.
The police are saying that if protestors do not move the moment the police say that they can be accused of trying to hide the black bloc protesters.
Does it? How so?
Because these "protesters" would smash windows, loot stores, burn police cars and throw golf balls under the hooves of horses, but they would never ever ever throw shit at something?
Because only the police could be so diabolically clever?
Many of the alleged actions sound disappointing and would not likely advance the anti-corporatist agenda, but the use of feces is also offensive and juvenile and not in any way related to the arguments of the protest (against WTO and World Bank policies, the development of a police state, and generally the gaming of the system by elites to monopolize ownership and control of property and leave everyone else impoverished and powerless). So I was thinking that the actors involved either were puerile and impulsive or they were agents provocateurs implementing previously devised plans to maximize the alienation of the population from the protest and the protesters. I thought the latter possibility was more likely but maybe that was wishful thinking on my part (hoping for better from the anti-corporatist side).
Wasn't during a riot in the early 70's that a Philly police chief said (paraphrase):
"The police are not here to stop disorder, we are here to preserve disorder."
I think this is the state of riot control today. In 1968, it was found that the Chicago Democratic Convention riot was, indeed, a police caused riot.
As long as the ruling elite only have their own interests at heart, police will act against the mass of people with the aim of protecting the ruling elite masters.
Not much has changed.
"The police are not here to stop disorder, [they] are here to preserve disorder."
Chicago mayor Richard Daley said that.
BTW, it was estimated by the Army Security Agency itself that one out of six demonstrators in Chicago was an undercover agent.
Thems the G20, how dare anyone question that authority.
Damn is Canada becoming the USA North? This is indeed scary. If we only had Franklin D Roosevelt types at the heads of government on both sides of the Great Lakes, it might make a great difference. This is a case of the rigidity of hierarchy showing its shameful an stinking face. But who know if maybe some of these jack asses in the "black bloc" aren't indeed on the payroll of the power elites whose interests are served by scenes painting those protesting against these same power elites and their elitist "World Economic Forum" as violent extremists. This sure wouldn't be the first time power elites use the trusty old Trojan Horse strategy to defeat their opponents. Then their echo chamber mainstream media will come away with mainly pictures of the protesters against the power elites being dangerous extremists and threats to all, rather than the power elites being the threat to all that they actually are being the parasites and gansters that power elites are.
AD
Sorry to ruin your comment, but FDR was just as crooked as every other American President. I am sorry I don't have the link handy, but I recently read some great articles about him.
Yes, the US has finally found an export that continues to live on. Squelching free speech and the right to assemble.
As an acquaintance of some anarchists, I assure you that they are on no ones payroll. Please read my 10:13 and 11:52 comments.
See related article here.
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=19928
Wayout, it usually helps if you mention what the story is about:
[Quote] The Toronto G20 Riot Fraud: Undercover Police engaged in Purposeful Provocation At Tax Payers' Expense:
Toronto is right now in the midst of a massive government / media propaganda fraud. As events unfold, it is becoming increasingly clear that the 'Black Bloc' are undercover police operatives engaged in purposeful provocations to eclipse and invalidate legitimate G20 citizen protest by starting a riot. Government agents have been caught doing this before in Canada.[Unquote]
From a thread last week about the upcoming G20 I wrote the following:
---------------
These kind of self-exalted conferences and locking up of cities also serves to continually remind the public where they stand in the state of things, especially by the force used against protesters, or those they deem as protesters, the deliberate seeding of security forces protagonists amongst protestors, and the deliberate hostile tactics used against peaceful protesters, for instance such as tightly corralling for hours then charging into them for no reason other than to cause terror, injury and to act as provocation used to justify themselves.
---------------
I guess Steve Paikin is finding that out for himself judging by what he was involved in and saw, and told everyone via his tweets.
I keep asking why do cities continually host these things when they know how much disruption they cause and why host them in different places rather than a single location?
Is it to deliberately 'seed' unjust laws that are brought in to administer G20 meetings in cities?
Or is it as I wrote above, a deliberate tactic used by those in power to stamp their authority down hard upon people to show their strength and to deter further oppositions in any ways?
And whilst they're at it, seeding undisclosed agent provocateur's to deliberately cause mayhem which then gives them cause to act harshly and to hold that against protesters is something of an opportunity they're not going to let pass by to discredit protesters and groups now and in the future.
Good luck to Steve Paiken if he ever tries to get an investigative TV show off the ground on police actions during the G20 because now and soon after all the information will be kept tight as a drum with them citing 'security concerns' to refuse access, but then it's quickly disposed of, and afterwards it would be announced that it strangely 'can't be found' when further requests are made.
It's a tired and well-worn tactic by the authorities used the world over.
Good post OldBeforeHisTime,
The concept of the public "Commons" is what's really under attack in the west. The "Commons" were always for the commoners to gather and discuss public policy. But this century a grave violation of the social compact with our governments is spreading: The idea that all public policy is behind locked doors with no public representative allowed in attendance and nobody on the outside allowed to "trespass" on the now "Corporate leased streets and curtlage.
This G20 banking mafia must be laughing their asses off. They daily kill hundreds of innocents in the wars they fund. Arresting 150 middle class observers must be as remarkable to them as spilling a little sugar on the counter.
National Strikes that shut down the country a week before they arrive is the magic formula. Chaos at the bottom line is the only thing these bankers and politicians notice. Four burned cars is nothing to them but defaults on everybody's credit card payment and mortgages is going to get their attention.
TJ
The Secret "Police Powers" which were sprung on the Public only hours before the opening of the Conference were kept secret THAT long for a reason.
The Powers granted are unconstitutional and the Government knew if the expanded powers announced too early there would be time to challenge them in the courts.
They are perfectly aware the laws will be overturned once they get to the courts but are also fully aware that by time this happens the G20 conference is over.
They were also fully aware that in making the announcement of expanded police powers in such a manner, they would further anger the public making a "riot" more likely.
They are willing to pay the fines and issue apologies as part of the cost of doing business.
This is the model they have used in the past and will use in the future to enforce order.
"So, you have trouble imagining that some people may be angry enough to do this"
What crap. Resistance is supposed to accomplish something, for God's sake. If you just want to express your anger and throw shit have the guts to do it in your own name, not when wearing balaclavas.
These characters could be agents or just morons. Either way, whether "the man" is paying them or not, they're doing his work. They've just increased the strength of the "security" state in Canada and alienated all sorts of people we ought to be drawing into the struggle.
Violence done by capitalist nations against the People is millions of times more than a few trashed police cars....
And so violence begets violence which begets violence which begets violence.
If you want to stop violence in the world, you first have to stop it in yourself.
Very relevant comment; good for you!
What important movement for progress throughout history didn't have rioting as an important element?
"Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation…want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters…. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."
Frederick Douglass, 1857
Who said anything about depreciating agitation? The issue is the form of the agitation and its relationship to other people. This is adventuristic and elitist action that turns off most of the people we should be trying to win over. It's self indulgent and it makes people think of activists as violent when we're trying to draw attention to the violence of the states and corporations. Wrong method, wrong message.
Um, here's one.
"I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.:
Mahatma Gandhi
And please note Douglass' words in the quote you proffer. He advocates "agitation" and a "roar" and making "demands". I see no advocacy of violence or property destruction in these words.
What do you call the US Civil War - which Douglass fully supported?
ONCE AGAIN. WHERE, in the sweep of world history, has anything worthwhile been accomplished without at least rioting, and usually armed struggle? This is not a rhetorical question - please answer it.
Are you opposed to the pacifist's ploughshares-type actions? They are violent.
The anarchists attacked specific symbolic capitalist targets - sweatshop-dependent upscale apparel corporations, big-ag-supporting fast food corporations, and big banks. They carefully avoided any small businesses - except for a stripper-bar - for its exploitation of women. They also burned a BMW SUV.
If there were agents provocateurs present, would they also be carefully avoiding small businesses? There's the rub.
dup deleted
Exactly Sabocat,
This double standard that a broken window has more rights than a protester's broken head has got to stop. Mussing up inanimate property IS NOT violence. It's just an unfortunate accident, people. We don't vet who comes down the street. It could be anyone doing this; perhaps even McDucks and Bigbucks Coffee employees who are pissed at their poor treatment.
Stop it. Get on the same team here everybody, and quit condemning action that is different than you own.
Violence is a word used for damage to a physical person for crying out loud. Generic VANDALISM is the word used for smashing a window of a bank and is no justification for arresting 150 innocent bystanders. Vandalism is a small crime and must be prosecuted on an individual basis. Let's quit accepting police perversion and exaggeration of expected wear and tear of OUR CITIES. They are NOT corporate cities. If the bank with all their cameras and security guards can't identify who did it; then TOO BAD.
TJ
"Oh sir, we should have fine times, indeed, if, to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people! Your arms, wherewith you could defend yourselves, are gone; and you have no longer a aristrocratical, no longer a democratical spirit. Did you ever read of any revolution in a nation, brought about by the punishment of those in power, inflicted by those who had no power at all?" - PATRICK HENRY, speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convension - June 5, 1778
So if you are happy with and continue to advocate the tactics that have been historically applied, how come you are apparently so unhappy with how the world has turned out?
Because over the past 40 years, those that once resisted have been tuned into plastic-crap consuming sheep. Homestead, PA in 1892, versus Homestead in 1984 comes to mind.
enough with the agent provocateur bullshit!
there is a militant anarchist movement on this continent that views property destruction and violence as viable political tactics. kinda like the perps in Boston in 1773 (and not those middle class couch potatoes passing themselves off as the modern day heirs to that tradition).
most of y'all criticizing these people believe in government - and government does more with property destruction and violence to enforce its political goals than any anarchist could ever dream of doing.
so instead of whining about the angry kids burning cop cars why don't you focus on the real problems - governments, and their corporate masters, burning and looting the planet, and killing any and all who get in the way.
see www.infoshop.org for more on the anarchist scene in North America.
If anarchist party candidates ran for office (which is an oxymoron, I know), nevertheless, if true, they'd get my vote!
they would get your vote, then come burn your house and business
I know there's a militant so-called anarchist subsect that acts with as little respect for the wishes of the people as fascists do. I also know the cops in Canada, as elsewhere, love this movement. Bigger budgets and lots of new weapons.
"most of y'all criticizing these people believe in government". How the hell do you know what we believe in? You don't much care. You just know what you want to do and the devil take the consequences.
Thank you for trying to get some sense into CD's largely sedentary bourgeois readership. Boston in 1773 did come to my mind too.