Police embroiled in violent battles with G20 protesters

 

Arrest at G20 Demonstrations, September 24, 2009

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Police embroiled in violent battles with G20 protesters – Times Online.

Police embroiled in violent battles with G20 protesters – Times Online

Anti-G20 protesters rampaged through the city centre of Pittsburgh tonight, smashing up shops and throwing rocks at police, as officers used tear gas and baton-charges in an attempt to bring them under control.

In riots which continued through evening rush hour, about 300 protesters were reported to have remained from an initial crowd of 2,000 in Bloomfield, Pittsburgh’s Little Italy.

Frustrated in their attempts to reach the venue where world leaders are meeting the crowd, many of whom wore face-masks and armed themselves with rocks, broke windows at fast-food restaurants, a BMW dealership and a bank in the area, about a mile from the fenced-off convention centre.

Police in body armour and armed with plastic shields threw pepper gas canisters to disperse the protesters, charging in to make some arrests.

Some reports also suggested that rubber bullets had been used, but police tonight confirmed that they had fired pellet-filled “beanbags” to combat the rioters.

“In response to having sticks, bricks and rocks thrown at them in the Shady Side neighborhood of Pittsburgh, police responded with bean bag rounds and dispersed the crowd,” Bill Crowley, an FBI agent, told the AFP news agency.

So-called bean bags – or flexible baton rounds – are fired from an officer’s riot shotgun. Pittsburgh police spokeswoman Diane Richard said they were “softer” than rubber bullets. “The police had sticks, rocks and other instruments thrown toward them so in defence of that, that was their way of dispersing the crowd. They had trash cans thrown at them, all kinds of different things,” she said.

Anti-capitalist protests have marked major gatherings of world leaders on the economy for years, sometimes turning violent and forcing summit organisers to use fortress-like security.

Earlier, police dispersed the 2,000 people who had gathered during lunchtime for a march. “You must leave the immediate vicinity regardless of your purpose,” officers said, and warned that gas and other “non-lethal force” would be used.

The main clashes took place in the Lawrenceville neighborhood. Protesters threw bottles and police responded by sending up to 10 canisters of tear gas into the crowd. The sharp smell of the gas irritated the eyes and throats of protesters, some of them vomiting as they ran.

“We have seen police use rubber bullets, batons and gas,” said Noah Williams, a spokesman for the anti-capitalist Pittsburgh G20 Resistance Project.

Leaders of developed and developing economies are meeting in Pittsburgh for a gathering to discuss how to improve financial reforms to avoid another global economic crisis.

Police embroiled in violent battles with G20 protesters – Times Online.

 

Pittsburgh braces for more clashes at G-20 summit

By MICHAEL RUBINKAM and VICKI SMITH, Associated Press Writers Michael Rubinkam And Vicki Smith, Associated Press Writers – 37 mins ago

PITTSBURGH – Authorities braced for scattered protests at dozens of businesses and organizations Friday, one day after riot police turned back hundreds of demonstrators on the first day of the Group of 20 summit, arresting nearly 70 people.

Police, in an overwhelming show of force, declared a Thursday afternoon march illegal almost as soon as it began, firing rubber bullets and canisters of pepper spray and smoke after small bands of anarchists responded to calls to disperse by rolling huge metal trash bins, throwing rocks and breaking windows.

Mayor Luke Ravenstahl commended police for their “swift decisions to send a message to the anarchists that we will not tolerate unlawful behavior,” adding there was minimal property damage as a result.

According to Pittsburgh police, 24 people were arrested during the day and 42 more were arrested overnight in the city’s Oakland section, where protesters and students thronged near the University of Pittsburgh. Police said six people were treated for injuries and other medical problems, including heat exhaustion and reaction to pepper spray; two people were taken to hospitals, but details weren’t available.

Protesters complained about the city’s response, saying their rights were trampled and that violence would not have broken out if police had allowed the marchers their say.

Jesse Ericson of the Pittsburgh G-20 Resistance Project, an umbrella organization of protest groups, condemned the city for a “bumbling and violent police action.”

The G-20 Resistance Project has encouraged “affinity groups” to protest Friday morning at companies that it says represent greed, exploitation, warfare and other social ills, with potential targets including banks, Starbucks, McDonald’s, grocery stores and a Marine Corps recruiting center.

Ravenstahl said police will be ready.

“We’ll continue to make sure our neighborhoods are safe,” he said.

Thursday afternoon’s march turned chaotic at just about the time President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama arrived for a meeting with leaders of the world’s major economies.

The clashes began after hundreds of protesters, many decrying capitalism, tried to march from an outlying neighborhood toward the convention center where the summit is being held.

The protesters clogged streets, banged on drums and chanted “Ain’t no power like the power of the people, ’cause the power of the people don’t stop.”

The marchers included small groups of self-described anarchists, some wearing dark clothes, ski masks and bandanas and carrying black flags. Others wore helmets and safety goggles.

The marchers did not have a permit and, after a few blocks, police declared it an unlawful assembly. They played a recorded announcement over a loudspeaker ordering people to leave, as well as ear-piercing sirens, then police in riot gear moved in to break it up.

Protesters split into smaller groups. Some rolled large metal trash bins toward police, and a man in a black hooded sweat shirt threw rocks at a police car from Charlotte, N.C., breaking the front windshield. Protesters broke windows in a few businesses, including a bank branch, a Boston Market restaurant and a BMW dealership.

Officers fired rubber bullets, pepper spray and smoke at the protesters and set off a flash-bang grenade. Some of those exposed to the pepper spray coughed and complained that their eyes were watering and stinging.

“The demonstrators were being aggressive toward the officers who felt it was necessary to utilize that kind of force,” Pittsburgh Police Chief Nate Harper said late Thursday.

At one point, officers surged onto the sidewalks and grabbed several protesters who had been shouting at them.

“That was ridiculous,” said T.J. Amick, 22, of Pittsburgh. “People were being grabbed if they just got too close to the cops. It didn’t matter what they were doing, what they were saying. They were just asking what was going on, and they were being taken off the streets to God knows where.”

In the Oakland section, police fired smoke canisters, pepper spray and rubber bullets on a crowd after calling for people to disperse, calling it an illegal assembly. About 1,000 police were on hand.

Police had let the crowd, a mix of protesters and students numbering about 400, remain for several hours before issuing the dispersal order. Windows in about a dozen shops, banks and restaurants were broken.

The National Lawyers Guild, a liberal legal-aid group, said one of its observers, a second-year law student, was among those arrested during the march. That man was released and was cited for failure to disperse.

Most of the 24 people arrested during the daylight protests were charged with failure to disperse or obstructing traffic. But four face more serious charges of aggravated assault, and two of those are also charged with inciting a riot, according to a Pittsburgh police news release.

Such street demonstrations have become the norm at world economic gatherings, including a G-20 meeting in London in April. The protesters here appeared to number fewer than 1,000, a fraction of the 50,000 that took to the streets of Seattle a decade ago at a World Trade Organization event.

The G-20 ends late Friday after a day of meetings at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.

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Associated Press writers Daniel Lovering, Mark Scolforo and Ramit Plushnick-Masti contributed to this report.

Pittsburgh braces for more clashes at G-20 summit