Police actions questioned following G20 weekend
Watch: See all Videos in the Player <http://watch.ctv.ca/news/> Photos Riot police push against a crowd during a street demonstration on the closing day of the G20 Summit in Toronto, Sunday, June 27, 2010. (AP / Carolyn Kaster) View Larger Image <javascript:SLIDES.slides[SLIDES.current].link> <javascript:SLIDES.previous()> <javascript:SLIDES.next()> CTV.ca News Staff Date: Mon. Jun. 28 2010 1:35 PM ET As Toronto begins cleaning up after a weekend of G20-related violence, questions are being raised about the actions of police. On Saturday, the Integrated Security Unit was criticized for allowing the "Black Bloc" anarchists to run amok on Queen West and Yonge St, destroying property and torching police cars. But on Sunday, police cracked down hard on protesters, including what some have described as lawful protests. One video on YouTube shows police, dressed in riot gear, charging a group of protesters who were singing ‘O Canada' and were seemingly non-threatening. Jason MacDonald submitted a video to MyNews.CTV.ca, in which he alleges he was hit by a riot shield in the face, cutting his forehead. The video shows blood streaming down the left side of his face from a cut above his eye. Minutes later he is tackled to the ground and arrested. The video was taken at the standoff at the Queen and Spadina intersection, which has drawn intense criticism for coordinating off both protesters and anyone else caught in the crossfire. Mayor David Miller has defended the actions of police, saying they had an extraordinarily difficult task. "I think compared to similar events around the world, our police did a remarkably good job and people should be starting from that perspective," he told Canada AM Monday morning. Later, in a news conference the mayor said he regretted that some innocent people "got caught up" in the arrests and blamed the arrests on police having to deal with "Black Bloc" tactics. Miller said that there is civilian oversight of the police, and there is a proper channel for complaints. Toronto police spokesperson Tim Burrows told CTV News Channel that the police will review their actions and will be even harder on themselves than the public or media. "The biggest lesson is still to come . . . we don't want blind criticism or deaf praise, we need to learn from and be constructive about what happened," he said. "In the end the greatest criticism we will have, is from ourselves." Swift police action Police appeared to lower their tolerance to protests Sunday after watching four of their squad cars burn Saturday. At one point Sunday, police and protesters were engaged in a tense and bizarre four-hour standoff at a busy intersection in the city's core, when a large contingent of police boxed in a group of about 200 people in heavy rain. Police moved in and picked out certain protesters and arrested them. Then, just before 9:45 p.m. local time, police let the remaining crowd go free. Talking to reporters late Sunday night, Toronto Police Staff Superintendent Jeff McGuire was pressed to explain why police had barricaded people for so long in the rain. McGuire responded: "We're not perfect in everything we do, but our interest was in the safety of the citizens of Toronto." He added that police were trying to prevent the kind of violence caused by Black Bloc tactics the day before, and found weapons in the area. "I don't know the specific weapons. I've been advised that some weapons were found along the route as the officers were forming around this group," he said. Earlier Sunday, there was a tense standoff at a temporary detention centre where hundreds of people arrested during the protests were held. A riot squad used rubber bullets and blank rifle shots to drive back about 100 demonstrators at the seemingly peaceful sit-in outside the detention centre. Police then apprehended an alleged member of an anarchist protest group. Eventually, police made a deal with the crowd, telling them they would release some of those arrested if the crowd moved off a busy street. The deal appeared to work and the crowd stepped back. Police also raided a building on the University of Toronto campus Sunday and arrested at least 70 people -- not believed to be students. A spokesperson for the Integrated Security Unit said officers found a cache of "street-type weaponry" such as bricks and fuels. Journalists among arrested There are also questions being raised about the number of journalists who were arrested while covering the G20 protests. At least one journalist is reported to have been struck by police during his arrest. Jesse Rosenfeld, a Canadian activist freelance journalist, was on assignment for The Guardian when he was arrested Saturday night. Steve Paikin, host of the Agenda on TVO, witnessed the arrest and reported that Rosenfeld was punched in the stomach and then elbowed in the back when he was doubled over. Two Reuters photographers were arrested Sunday night while covering a protest near Queen West and Spadina, despite wearing prominent media badges. They were released without charges. Two National Post photographers, Brett Gundlock and Colin O'Connor, were arrested Saturday while attempting to photograph police clashing with protesters. They spent about 24 hours in custody and were both charged with obstruct peace officer and unlawful assembly. A CTV producer was also arrested and released without charge on the weekend. Toronto police chief Bill Blair told CTV News Channel that reporters would be arrested if they did not disperse with the protesters they were covering. "We asked the innocent to leave three times and they chose not, and if a tourist, or even a reporter, chooses to remain in that crowd . . . then they had to deal with the consequences of being detained," he said. No win situation Security expert Alan Bell says there's no way police could have won the public relations battle of securing this summit, since they were condemned for not doing enough Saturday, then slammed for coming down too hard on Sunday. "The big problem we have is that police are going to be damned if they do, damned if they don't," he told Canada AM. He says it seems the protesters were methodical in their actions, trying to create distractions in certain pockets of the downtown so that other demonstrators could move in on the inner security perimeter around the summit site. The job of the 10,000 law enforcement officers brought in from around the country was to attempt to thwart that, he says. "Trying to move so many police around different areas while maintaining the integrity of the security zone was very difficult. And I think they learned quite a lot from the Saturday interaction. Then on Sunday, they got it right. They went out there and prevented these things from happening," said Bell. "They got criticized for that as well, but I don't know what people expected them to do." Please Add Comments( 74 ) <http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/HTMLTemplate/%21ctvPop/News/Comments?slug=journalists-arrested-100628&date=20100628&hub=TopStoriesV2> http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20100628/journalists-arrested-100628/ [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
