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"Catch & Release"
by Nathan Adler
7/16/2010 12:11:00 PM
Jail experience harrowing
by Skylar Radojkovic, Owen Sound Sun Times
7/13/2010
Bad News at Bancroft Avenue
by Dylan C. Robertson
7/13/2010
Arrested And Jailed In Toronto – A G20 Protestor’s Firsthand Account
by Sarah Pruyn
7/7/2010
Of my illegal detention (with 899 others) and the G20 protests
by Ben Powless, Organizer, Defenders of the Land
7/5/2010
Independent Journalist, Daniel Adam MacIsaac
by Ali Mustafa
7/5/2010
Ashamed
by Tracey Cox
7/3/2010
"The story of my unjust arrest" - Lacy MacAuley
by Lacy MacAuley
7/1/2010 10:32:00 PM
Without provocation, they attacked our peaceful protest”
by Adrian Naylor
7/1/2010
One woman held by police 'didn't even know what the G20 was'
by Alison Hendersen
7/1/2010
“They were going to release us until this one cop came and saw that we had the legal number written on our arms. She then said that we were elegible for arrest.”
by Anonymous
7/1/2010
“several police officers lining the west side of the street had removed their names and badge numbers”
by Anonymous
7/1/2010
“they were detaining me until I told them where I was staying in Toronto”
by Anonymous
7/1/2010
“They demanded identification and searches of bags and persons, without cause, and under the threat of physical violence, detention and legal action”
by Anonymous
7/1/2010
“I was beat roughly 20 times with batons”
by Anonymous
7/1/2010
“blood poured out of his head, down his face and on to my friends jacket, dripping on my pants”
by Bethany Horne
7/1/2010
Queen & John Eyewitness Report
by Emily B.
7/1/2010
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by James
7/1/2010
“I cannot stress this enough: it was a completely peaceful protest. People were being arrested in a brutal, violent, and seemingly random way.”
by Johanna Lewis
7/1/2010
“I was there as a monitor for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. . . like many others, I was never given an opportunity to remove myself from the intersection”
by Julia Croome
7/1/2010
“It is important to note the horrid conditions in the jail. The cells, which were over-glorified dog cages, were often over-crowded.”
by Maximilian Pacheco
7/1/2010
“I have been having nightmares”
by Natasha Borris
7/1/2010
“At no time during the detention was anyone in my cage allowed to speak with a lawyer”
by Philip Boyle
7/1/2010
“police said they had the right to conduct these searches”
by Robert Bertuzzi
7/1/2010
what happened last night at queen and spadina g20
by Rodrigo Bravo
7/1/2010
Violence on Toronto streets for G20
by Ryan Bolton
7/1/2010
“Five officers grabbed me, hit me repeatedly with batons and fists, threw me to the concrete, crushed knees into my cheek bone, back and thighs, dragged me on the pavement and put handcuffs on me”.
by Seamus Wolfe
7/1/2010
“I couldn’t sleep last night. I took the day off work, I’m so upset”
by Sherry B. Good
7/1/2010
“I saw many injured detainees with arms in slings and faces bruised and swollen being led quickly with their ankles chained”
by Taiva Tegler
7/1/2010
“In a matter of seconds, without warning, we were trapped. Our questions were met with blank stares, our panic with more pushing, complaints with arrest”
by Terra Dafoe
7/1/2010
“we were staging a peaceful protest when riot police surrounded us on all sides and would not let us leave”
by Trevor Grant
7/1/2010
Of a million G20 stories in this taken city, this was mine
If anything, there was less black being worn on Queen than usual
by Tabatha Southey
7/1/2010
Personal Experience
by Greg Stones
7/1/2010
'Unlawful Assembly'
by Syl Grady
7/1/2010
untitled
by Karen Nickel
7/1/2010
untitled
by Anonymous
7/1/2010
Mourning Canadian democracy
by Roberta McQuade
7/1/2010
untitled
by Kiel Widmeyer
7/1/2010
In His Own Words (Interview Transcript)
by Jesse Rosenfeld
7/1/2010
untitled
by Neil Stanton
7/1/2010
Singer Marc Mysterio caught in Toronto riots during video shoot
by Marc Mysterio
7/1/2010
Thorold, Ontario Amputee Has His Artificial Leg Ripped Off By Police And Is Slammed In Makeshift Cell During G20 Summit – At Least One Ontario MPP Calls The Whole Episode “Shocking”
by John Pruyn
7/1/2010
How I Got Arrested and Abused at the G20 in Toronto, Canada
by Tommy Taylor
note: photos/videos are not included in this but all text is original. To read this story with images, please click on 'Source' above
7/1/2010
Man and family being picked up from work brutality attacked by police
by Anonymous
7/1/2010
and this time, it won't be me.
by A Canadian Serviceman
7/1/2010
Fear and mayhem in Toronto
by Lawrence McCurry
7/1/2010
My Experience
by Jesse Miller
7/1/2010
Inside Torontanamo
by Matt Shultz
7/1/2010
Beaten by police before being arrested
by Andrew Stakhov
7/1/2010
Don't breathe or I'll kill you
by Facebook User: Drew Ferguson
7/1/2010
“I was held for 21 hours for peacefully protesting.”
by Marc Gleeson
6/30/2010
Thugs take over Queen's Park
by Matthew Webb
6/29/2010 10:08:00 AM
How I Ended Up In A G20 Jail
by Michael Talbot
6/29/2010
Union Station Washroom
by Andrei Poliakov
6/28/2010 5:30:00 PM
I was just harassed by Toronto Police
by Mike Brock, Western Standard
6/28/2010
Sonia's Story
by Sonia Zawitkowski
6/27/2010
Luke's Story
by Luke Keeler
6/27/2010
Someone call 911!
by Eda Martinovic
6/27/2010
Selwyn arrested at G20 protest
by Selwyn Firth, Mayoral Candidate
6/27/2010
Civil Rights, Interrupted: A G20 Arrest
by Mark Donald
6/26/2010
My Story - Help ID This Criminal!
by Wyndham Bettencourt-McCarthy
6/26/2010
Pre-G20 Atrocities
by Sean Salvati
6/23/2010
Eye Witness Accounts
Sonia's Story
by: Sonia Zawitkowski
Hello,
My name is Sonia Zawitkowski, I'm 20 years old and I was one of the many detained and arrested at Queen and Spadina on Sunday, and I would like to throw my perspective in with everybody else's.We had begun participating with the rest of the protesters at King and Bay and ended up at Queen and Spadina. The police wouldn't allow us to march any further, so we sat in the intersection, some of us stood, we chanted, sang, chatted with one another, and kept a very peaceful manner among ourselves. The atmosphere was very jovial and calm. I would also like to stress that although the police wouldn't let us march any further, no one (that I had ever seen) was behaving disrespectful towards them. Many people in the crowd even understood the position they were in: "They're just doing their job," they would say.Eventually, the riot police began walking towards us, beating their batons and chanting "move." They began to box us in. We were given absolutely NO WARNING that this was going to happen. I know that the police chief and the mayor have been telling the media that we were given three chances to leave- this is an absolute lie. All of the people present at the demonstration were peaceful, young, and you could tell the last thing they would looking for was trouble. The riot police were trapping us, and they would yell at us to leave, so we would turn around and try to get away from them, and encounter another wall of police. There was absolutely no way out.At this point, I felt it was obvious that the police were trying to provoke us. They were squishing us into a tiny space,beating their batons, and intimidating us. My friend and I were nervous that under these conditions, at least one person was bound to lash out, giving the police a reason to attack us, and all hell would break loose. However, the crowd we were with remained completely non-violent.A person beside me had a back bag which he opened up to try and get a sweater out. The police immediately drew their weapons and aimed them at him. The person explained he was just trying to get his sweater out of his bag, and asked if this was okay. The police said yes, but then when he did as he was permitted to do a police officer came out of nowhere and grabbed him, arresting him.We saw to the right of us that a group of kids we had seen earlier had been violently arrested. People were crying, afraid, and begging to be allowed to go home. My friend and I were afraid at this point, and it looked as though people were being indiscriminately picked off, and so we decided to volunteer ourselves, thinking we would be taken out, questioned, and then allowed to leave. This was not the case.Even though my friend had both his hands in the air, the police grabbed him and slammed him on the pavement. They handcuffed him. I was screaming for them not to hurt him, and then they handcuffed me, although the police officer who arrested me was not physically rough with me in any way, I saw many people being pushed around and slammed to the ground.
I'd like to stress how people were being picked off completely indiscriminately. It seems like whoever was close to the front of the line was violently arrested, and after people witnessed this, many started volunteering themselves to be taken out of the circle, not completely understanding what they were signing themselves up for. I'm stressing this because the police chief and the mayor have repeatedly stated that the only people arrested were those suspected of being in the Black Bloc. This is a lie.
I was told I was being arrested for "Conspiracy to Commit Mischief." They took my shoes, and then it began to rain. I stood in the rain in a tank top and a light sweater, with no shoes, and I am a small girl, so I began to shiver. The police officer escorting me was perfectly respectful, but the other police officers I encountered were very unprofessional. They laughed at me because I was shivering, taunting me saying, "Are you having fun yet?", and when I asked me where they were taking me and what was going on, all many of them would say is, "You shouldn't have gotten arrested, should you have?"
I was separated from my friend, handcuffed in the front, and put in a Court Services Vehicle with 4 other girls. Our "cage" or "cell" or whatever you want to call it seemed to seat 5, so I figured that the car was now full and that we would be shipped to the detention centre soon. However, the police put 3 more girls in with us over the course of the next 30 minutes or so. When someone had to urinate, we would yell for help and police officers would either laugh at us, say "it's not my problem," or tell her to pee herself.
One of the girls I was with told me she going to be charge with possession of a weapon because she had been holding a sign on a stick with a triangular bottom. I say this because the police chief has been telling the media they found people with weapons. If a triangular stick that is not sharp at all counts as a weapon, then yes, I'm sure they found lots of "weapons" giving them the "justification" to arrest us all.
An officer eventually opened up the door and said, "Who put all these girls in here? You can't just pack them in like this" and led some of us to a larger cell on the other side of the vehicle. We thanked him and told him we had been waiting for at least an hour, and he said to the other officers, "We really need to get them out of here, they can't be sitting here for this long."
Unfortunately, we ended up waiting in the other cell for another 3 hours or so, and more and more people were packed into our cell. One of them was an old woman whose kidneys worked at 65% capacity and who had to urinate. The police officers told her to pee her pants because they didn't care. We were all handcuffed so we had to help her pull her pants down and keep her balanced, and you could tell she felt completely humiliated by this.
I periodically would ask when we were going to be taken somewhere, and they would always say, "soon," but soon never came. After 5 hours of being detained and 4 hours spent in the overcrowded vehicle, we were let go with no explanation. They gave me my shoes back, but I had no phone or cash and I live out of town, and was separated from my friend. I asked the police if there was any way they could help me find him, and they told me what they had been telling me all night, "not my problem."
I thought as the police, my safety and security was their problem, but after that night, I really don't have any faith in them left. I eventually located my friend, and I came out alright, but I'm very angry with the way the situation was handled and truly feel as though my rights as a Canadian citizen have been violated. I am not a criminal, and I did not deserve to be detained for hours in a tiny cage like an animal.
Thanks for your time