Posted on 08/20/2007 2:39:57 PM PDT by fanfan
Crowds of protesters pushing and hurling items at police lines outside the site of the North American Leaders' Summit in Montebello have provoked a limited response of tear gas and pepper spray.
After showing considerable restraint in the face of non-stop taunts and insults, pushing and prodding and having anything some protesters can find thrown at them, some officers have fired tear gas canisters and pepper spray into the most volatile of the protesters.
Officers fired tear gas at a knot of protesters who had gathered to throw items. Other isolated protesters have been pepper sprayed, some after continually poking at police shields with sticks.
Police have confirmed at least three arrests as of about 3:30 p.m.
The escalation comes after the crowd separated into two groups -- one which is crowding the riot police lines and the other moving back to continue what it calls a "family friendly" protest.
As the threat of all-out violence continued to escalate, protesters were warned to move back from the Chateau Montebello gates -- where the two-day summit is being held -- or police would take further action. Some of the protesters are clad in the colours of anarchists -- black and red -- some are fully clad in black and some wear balaclavas or scarves over their faces to conceal their identities.
Others, carrying sticks, have been marching in the streets and moving up to the police lines, where phalanxes of officers were deployed before noon with batons, shields and tear gas. The cops completely cordoned off the area around the chateau.
The increasingly noisy protesters are demanding their concerns be heard, and their petitions accepted, by the leaders scheduled to begin meeting this afternoon.
Ranging from angry anarchists to family-friendly environmental activists, hundreds of protesters have converged on the posh Montebello resort.
A few hundred protesters, some wearing anarchist red-and-black flags, left downtown Montreal aboard a convoy of yellow school buses. They carried signs condemning U.S. President George W. Bush as a war criminal and calling for an end to environmental destruction.
In Ottawa, more than 100 labour activists and others set out for Montebello aboard four buses this morning for the “family-friendly” demonstration.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is meeting with Bush -- who arrived at Montebello just after 2 p.m. -- and Mexican President Felipe Calderon to discuss trade, security and other issues.
Protests began Sunday in Ottawa, but a relatively peaceful day ended with just three people in police custody. Ottawa police said a 21-year-old man was arrested for carrying a concealed knife and a 16-year-old boy was arrested for mischief.
More than 1,000 people took part in yesterday's rally. In anticipation of today's protest, in neighbouring Papineauville, police commandeered a high school as a staging point for riot officers.
The local McDonalds -- a favourite target of anarchists and anti-big business protesters -- boarded up its windows and placed staff at the entrance to monitor customers coming and going as a precaution.
After deploying the riot squads, police have also closed Hwy. 148 between Fassett and Papineauville.
Bush and Calderon are to arrive in Ottawa today, and that will result in other road closures -- the Airport Parkway for example -- as their motorcades are escorted to the summit by squads of cops.
In Ottawa the U.S. embassy is ringed with hundreds of metal barricades and police. Those measures were in addition to the concrete barriers around the monolithic structure.
But not a single protestor could be seen near the building this morning.
Sources have told The Canadian Press that the leaders will wrap up their summit Tuesday with a call for a new border disaster protocol to avoid a repeat of the crippling tie-ups that occurred after 9/11.
Mandeep Dhillon, a spokeswoman for No One is Illegal, a group of immigration activists, said the aim of protesters is to disrupt the summit.
“The ultimate thing would be for this conference to be halted,” she said in Montreal. “I can’t say who would be able to do this, but the walls that have been established in Montebello deserve to come down.”
With police outnumbering protesters, it’s unlikely anyone will get near the Chateau Montebello where the leaders are meeting. However, their activities will be relayed to the leaders by a video link.
Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians said people shouldn’t be fooled about who really sets the agenda at these summits: the 30 business leaders who sit on the North American Competitiveness Council.
“This is not about security for people, social security, security for the poor, environmental security or job security," she said. "This is about security for the big corporations for North America.”
One common complaint echoed by all is the secrecy surrounding the meeting, which is to discuss the North American Security and Prosperity Partnership.
A group of powerful business executives has been invited to make a closed-door presentation Tuesday at the summit on changes they believe the continent needs. No such invitation was extended to scientists, environmentalists, or other social activists.
“A group of powerful business executives has been invited to make a closed-door presentation Tuesday at the summit on changes they believe the continent needs.”
How about private property owners. Remember them?
Good. Give it to those leftist retards good. They deserve it, especially in retribution for tossing marbles under the hooves of police horses in previous leftist retart protests, resulting in the horses having to be put down because of broken legs.
These freaks should be rounded up and dropped off at sea.
I just hope there are nor Freepers there protesting. There is a wing of conservatives who think this is a plot to form the North American union and end U.S. sovereignty.
I have always thought the journalists should provide some kind of guidance on when “protesters” become genuine rioters. Maybe that isn’t acceptable language.
A group of powerful business executives has been invited to make a closed-door presentation Tuesday at the summit on changes they believe the continent needs. No such invitation was extended to scientists, environmentalists, or other social activists.
Did Al Capone ever invite anyone other than a gangster to a his meetings? Don't these dopes understand how gangsters operate?
Of course she doesn't earn a living working for any of them. She no doubt sits on her butt expecting the taxpayer to send her a welfare check every month without delay, or earns a nice salary from the "non-profit" tax free donations other suckers send to her useless marxist organization.
Of course she doesn't earn a living working for any of them. She no doubt sits on her butt expecting the taxpayer to send her a welfare check every month without delay
The dumb broad is too stupid to figure out that her Marxist friends at the UN are the ones who really set the agenda for these conferences.
Indeed. They read too much stuff at DU. Some of it sticks.
Tin foil hat syndrome does cross political boundaries somewhat.
Post Kelo, I don't think the primary rent payers have any rights whatsoever.
“May I suggest using your nightstick, officer?”
If people only knew,,
That's simply not true. UN NGO's which are full of these elite Marxist freaks are well represented at these meetings. People just don't realize how much influence and how many politicians are members of the new world order club, Republicans and Democrats alike.
On any day except Halloween, anyone wearing a mask in public in the summer is a criminal until proven otherwise. In my city, that is probable cause for questioning, if not arrest.
If I had my way, I’d use 00 buckshot on them. They are a truly deranged bunch who just haven’t a clue where they should be protesting.
Now if they would park outside the UN building, I’d say more power too them. unfortunately, these idiots SUPPORT the UN, which is the true evil behind one world government ambitions, and the destruction of the sovereignty of ours and every other nation.
“Let me explain to you how this works: you see, the corporations finance Team America, and then Team America goes out... and the corporations sit there in their... in their corporation buildings, and... and, and see, they’re all corporation-y... and they make money.”
LoL! I couldn’t put it any better. I think you understand the terrible hopelessness I feel.
anybody covering their face should get a baton upside the head... marked for later retrieval if you will.
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