Queen and Spadina: "We were being surrounded on all sides but didn't realize it. I think I saw the man with the big hair getting dragged away later" (Image: Aaron Leaf)
A couple hours into our detainment at Queen and Spadina on Sunday, soaked and shivering, her press accreditation around her neck, my companion asked one of the riot police for any scrap of information he could tell us. “Please tell us what’s happening. Is there any way at all we can leave?”
“You should have left when you had a chance,” he said.
Queen and Spadina, June 27, 2010 (Image: Aaron Leaf)
But we never had a chance: there was no loudspeaker announcement of what was to come and no indication of what the police wanted when they corralled us into the intersection. At most of the weekend’s G20 protests, the media and gawkers could stand on the edges, avoiding the confrontation. This time, we were all surrounded.
One moment, it was a few hundred relatively sedate people—Sunday afternoon Queen West people—some with protest signs and others with shopping bags, milling about the intersection being watched over by a row of Toronto’s finest. Then the troops arrived. About eight vans’ worth of riot police marched north on Spadina toward Queen. An armoured vehicle drove up with a gunman on top, barrel pointed at us.
The teenager beside me, wearing new sneakers and a carefully maintained afro, said to his friend, “Oh shit, is that riot heading for us?”
That was the confused sentiment of about half the people trying to peer past the police line: “Where’s the riot? Whoa, look how big those guns are. Are those horse trailers? I want to see a horse!”
Everyone had some sort of camera. As the riot police got into position, some dudes behind me yelled, “Yo, bro, move over. You’re ruining our shot.”
Then we heard marching coming down Queen from the east, and people started to panic:
“There’s nowhere to go.”
“North,” said a photographer behind me.
“No, they’ve set up there, too.”
“Yeah, right. Then how are we supposed to get out?” said the teens.
“Move, move, move,” the riot police started chanting as they slowly tightened around us, banging their batons on their shields. Suddenly they charged, pushing people up against the McDonald’s and cleaving the group in two. The other smaller group was getting squeezed like a hay bale.
“Where are we supposed to go?” people yelled. Police videographers circled us, taking video of our anxious faces. Then they started the arrests. A small phalanx of officers would burst through, grab someone, usually a young man, and drag him behind the line where, face to the ground, his hands were zip-strapped. Their friends screamed. This continued for hours.
The police close in on Spadina and Queen on June 27, 2010 (Image: Aaron Leaf)
It started raining. Thunder cracked. There were only a few umbrellas to go around. I leaned over my camera bag to keep it dry. The water in the street started rising; my shoes were quickly drenched, and trash was flowing by my feet. I noticed this because I was still huddled over my waterlogged bag, the water flowing into my mouth and my eyes. A York Region officer approached me and asked if I was OK. I said I was protecting my camera, and he left. Moments later, the police let out a man who needed an insulin shot.
The cops did another regular shift change. People applauded. “See you later,” someone yelled.
After about three hours or so, the rain let up, and the wind got colder. My cellphone started vibrating erratically from waterlogged circuits. A rumour went around that we would be tear-gassed and sound-cannoned. Others said cops had told them we were all just waiting to be arrested and strip searched. “Anything to get out of these clothes,” I thought. Another detainee asked if anyone wanted cookies. As he rooted through his backpack, a cop raised his rifle until the barrel was pointed right at the man’s head.
Best. Cookie. Ever.
People shook uncontrollably. I lost feeling in my hands. A guy who claimed to be downtown buying a soccer jersey told me, “Argentina is amazing, but Germany is gonna win it for sure!” Toward 10 p.m., chartered TTC buses started arriving. An officer started yelling at the crowd, “Wouldn’t you like to go on a bus and get out of the rain?” Some people cheered. “Don’t fucking cheer,” said the soccer fan quietly.
As people were being cuffed and put on the buses, an older officer came up to us. “Would you like to leave?” “Uh, yeah,” we told him. Then he yelled to the crowd, “Start walking and go directly to your destination,” and, just like that, the police line opened up, and we started walking stiffly north on Spadina. People started power walking, as if maybe the police would change their minds—some cried.
I looked for an alley to pee in.
That intersection was open to the north for 30 – 45 minutes after protesters took it over. There was plenty of chance to leave before police arrived and blocked it from the north. Don’t assume that police will give you warning notice to shoo you out of somewhere you weren’t supposed to be in the first place.
June 29, 2010 at 2:37 pm | by CultureVulture“…you weren’t supposed to be in the first place”?
REALLY?!!
So now I need the police state and/or the government to tell me where I should and shouldn’t be. I’m sure you will be the first to board the trains to the death camps when the nice policemen tell you to. The Right of Assembly is guaranteed in the Charter and I will NOT be told when and where I cannot assemble in public. This was a public street! Should I have stayed home and cowered in front of my computer? I think you probably had that covered.
June 29, 2010 at 2:54 pm | by mattWho said we were not supposed to be there? I live up the street and was creating no trouble. We did not take over anything, we were marching along peacefully and we were stopped at that intersection. They had also stopped us at University and then let us continue after about 10 minutes, we were waiting for the same thing.
We are allowed to peacefully assemble, it is a fundamental right in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. You obviously don’t know your rights. Sad you claim to be cultured.
June 29, 2010 at 3:09 pm | by laeytoI agree that the Media should have been spared. I do agree with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, you have the right to protest. Unfortunately, some group takes advantage of this charter to commit crime and no pay the time.
The cops were criticized for not doing enough on Saturday. People living and working downtown received warning to avoid those streets during the G20. (funny some people asked to have Friday off due to potential chaos, but shows up on site on Saturday and Sunday). If you choose to be there despite all the warnings pre and during the G20 in all media, then you have to accept the risk and not be a cry baby. If those people stayed home, maybe the cops could have done a better job.
June 29, 2010 at 3:25 pm | by foodie514What a lovely piece of writing.
June 29, 2010 at 3:33 pm | by MelinaIf youre going to choose to be in a place where there are protesters at an event like this where a large deal of destruction has been done you can not complain about being detained. You made the choice to be there. I chose to avoid all areas with protesters and I had a great weekend! I think the police did a great job protecting our city. I do not feel my rights have been violated one bit!
June 29, 2010 at 4:03 pm | by eastenderIt seems that your peers who chose violent protest are the ones to blame for the police having to act. I’m 100% for protesting and the right to do so but once cars were burned and windows smashed the police had to act.
People not police ruined it for you!
June 29, 2010 at 4:13 pm | by eastenderSo one should assume it’s perfectly acceptable for riot police to smack an unarmed, nonviolent man in the forehead with a heavy riot shield, causing a blood-dripping gash, after hearding people like cattle, simply because they were at an intersection, a place where the police designated they should not have been at a certain time? Why didn’t the police even make an attempt to stop the PROPERTY destruction of mostly, if not all, targetd corporate buildings such as Starbucks, Subway, the Banks, etc., and the destruction of police cars downtown on Saturday? At least an hour and a half passed, before the police “acted.” Could it be, because they needed to justify the huge expense of the security/police industrial complex? Could it be, that they needed to, at the least, allow the aforementioned property desctruction to happen?
The only riots that occured throughout Toronto G8/G20 were the police and ISU rioting against unarmed peaceful protesters & organizers, independent media, bystanders, and gawkers. The government is mass media’s pimp. So they relayed the destruction of a few windows and cop cars, over and over on the propaganda networks, and somehow that justified the very violent surpression, and the malicious tactics the police used on PEOPLE throughout Saturday noon through Sunday evening (not to mention the climate of intimidation that was generated leading up to and throughout the summit). The billion +$ was spent on supressing dissidence of the G8/G20 and the global agenda of these so-called leaders, and banksters, not on public security, not on protecting the rights of citizens. If you didn’t feel that your rights, or the rights of your fellow citizens and human beings were violated throughout the weekend, you are an ideal productive consuming citizen for the state, and either pathetically misinformed or misguided, or perhaps a bit of both; then again, apathy leads to complicity. The police serve and protect the state, and corporations, not people. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely; Support our police, Support our troops? How about, Support our Activists! Is one to believe that police, like soldiers, serve the function to protect the rights and freedoms of the citizenry, when those rights and freedoms were fought and won by organized poltical and social activism, by the people, over years of selfless sacrifice and hardships, by the people whom were not afraid in the face of brute force, because they faced that brute force in solidarity, even if that meant bodily arrest, injury or death, by the people whom were not afraid to question and even denounce the legitimacy of institutions, be it a government, a bank, or slavery. The people who stood up, marched and demonstrated, as they did this past weekend; that has been, and always will be, the type of movement which has brought about all civil liberties, all inalienable rights, the sort of movement that has defended the oppressed, the poor, and working class, and has ensured that justice, in one forum or another, is carried to fruition.
June 29, 2010 at 6:04 pm | by Jonney GoslinI would appreciate this article a little more if you hadn’t already posted a photo essay on “hot cops”
June 29, 2010 at 6:18 pm | by Greg J. SmithGreg, I can see where you’re coming from, but it seems to me that you’re painting all cops with the brush. Which is exactly what some cops did with protesters. Why can’t we see both sides of things? Why does everything have to be humourless? It doesn’t take away from the seriousness of one matter to have levity with another.
June 29, 2010 at 6:37 pm | by Oh pleaseIt is unforgivable the way the police acted here. The comments being made here that somehow these people deserved this treatment is almost as bad.
June 29, 2010 at 8:10 pm | by JonPerhaps the treatment for the majority of these ‘protesters’ was unreasonable, however after the actions of others during this summit, the reaction of the police should have been expected and understandable.
June 29, 2010 at 10:20 pm | by SKAlso, if these people can make such a fuss over the G20 summit, and the reaction of police to this standoff, why don’t they put these energies into something that would make a REAL change.
I’m not going to argue for the police OR the protesters, and I’m not even going to touch on the politics side. I wasn’t there; I don’t know the details, only what was on the news (don’t burn me for that, I don’t live anywhere near Toronto, thankfully). However, I will say that anyone that argues one side alone is blind. The protesters were in all likely hood peaceful and had full intentions of being so; of that I have no doubt. You also have to remember that the mob mentality is a crazy thing. This is exactly why the police have procedures in place (and probably doubly so because this was likely expected) to deal with this. You don’t send a few police officers in to a crowd to deal with a few looters or car burners. They’d get lynched. If you’re going to go in (and you have to when it’s gotten that bad) you go in hard and heavy. This is the only way to ensure the safety of the officers. The intent of their existence is the protect the general masses. They may have gotten a little crazy in some situations, but caution is the name of the game in these situations. Did they violate anyone’s rights? I don’t do politics, that’s for you to decide. Protesters have their place in society, so do the police. It is inevitable that they will clash, and the cops usually carry bigger sticks. Bottom line? Don’t think that the cops were out there just to beat you down. In my opinion.
June 30, 2010 at 1:04 am | by NikNik’s comment is one of the most reasonable and mature ones I’ve heard about the G20 protests.
June 30, 2010 at 9:21 am | by AlainJonney? Thanks for putting me to sleep with your anti-capitalist tirade. I will say this: you did not sound peaceful at all when you addressed the cops, but then how could anyone possibly manage to say “asshole” in a peaceful manner?
June 30, 2010 at 9:24 am | by Rob