What to Expect at G20: Lots and Lots of Cops

What to Expect at G20: Lots and Lots of Cops
Saturday 26 June 2010
by: Sandro Contenta | GlobalPost | Report

Toronto, Canada - If you want to see more police officers than you’ve probably ever seen in your life, come to Toronto this weekend.

Downtown, particularly in the area around the iconic CN Tower, they’re everywhere. They hang out like gangs on practically every street corner. You might think they’re just loafing about, calculating their overtime. But you’d be wrong. They’re looking for trouble.

Their job is to protect leaders attending unprecedented, back-to-back economic summits: On Friday and Saturday morning, the G8 meets in the cottage town of Huntsville, 140 miles north of Toronto; Saturday afternoon and Sunday, the expanded G8 — the G20 — wrestles with the world’s economic troubles in Toronto.

It was revealed Friday that Toronto’s chief of police, Bill Blair, requested and secretly received from the provincial government extraordinary new powers for the G20. They allow his officers to arrest anyone who comes within five yards of the security fence and refuses to identify themselves or agree to a police search.

“We have heard from a number of individuals who have frankly said they're going to come here and wreck the place,” Blair told reporters Friday. “We need to make sure we have the proper authority to deal with those threats.”



unhappycamper comment: Welcome to bu$hville, neighbors. We've been fighting this shit for ten years now.

Wonder how that Cheney indictment is coming along?

There wouldn't be a need for so many police. But it seems that some of the protestors were and are hell bent on destroying things. That invites cops.