Late last week, leaders of twenty powerful countries gathered in Toronto ON for the G20 Summit to discuss the global recession. These World Leaders brought with them a large group of delegates, advisors and security personnel. Surrounding them was even a larger group of journalists and photographers.  And bordering that group was yet another group even larger, a mass of police officers protecting the summit site.

In the meantime, out in the streets,  there was maybe the largest of all the groups at the G20: citizens who are concerned about a variety of issues including poverty, climate change, labour laws, first nations land claims, cleaner water, immigration laws, disability rights, energy consumption and gender equity.

I myself have never been part of such a group, but watching the previous Quebec City and Washington summits along with this most recent Toronto Summit, I learned a lot about the nature of summit protests, mainly through the internet and various blogs. The most compelling observation I made was that there are a lot of smart, informed citizens out there who care profoundly about the world and want to be heard. And second, mainstream media does a terrible job of covering this message.  For instance, if there are 1,000 people learning about the issues at various seminars, 10,000 people marching peacefully through city streets, and a 50 people breaking windows, throwing rocks and burning cop cars, the daily newspaper outlets will put the broken windows, throwing rocks and the burning cop cars story on the front page.  This is a complete and utter misrepresentation of the entire protest movement, and misinforms the general public and readers who therefore will make assumptions that all activists and protesters are violent and belligerent.

Truth be told, the majority of protesters who gathered in Toronto participated in two major activities:  1) learning about the issues and 2) collectively making their voice heard peacefully.  In any case, it's safe to say that whenever a large group is formed, there are those who will likely have a more aggressive approach to the situation.  

That goes for both protesters and the police themselves.  Amongst the activists, there were those who planned to disrupt the summit with what they trusted was a symbolic destruction of commercial property.  

And in amongst the police there were certainly a few power hungry officers who could quickly turn a peaceful crowd into a very angry mob as they use tear gas in an attempt to disburse the crowd, endangering even the peaceful participants.

Let's be fair, the police did have a very difficult job trying to control this complicated situation.  They had to balance the duties of protecting the summit, protecting private property and also protecting the rights of citizens.

No one expected the police to sit back and do nothing when the crowd of protesters grew, escalated and got very disorderly at times.  But there is a danger that if the police use too much force, it could act as a deterrent for further peaceful protest and lead to avoidable injuries.  The promiscuous use of crowd control measures such as tear gas and/or rubber bullets can be very dangerous.  No one should be afraid to attend a peaceful protest because of a threat of over-reaction from the police.  And even the few unruly activists who broke some windows are still citizens who should expect only the proper response from any police officer.

No one should ever be shot at or beaten for breaking a window.

Brian