Nearly 200 Arrested as Police Unleash Tear Gas, Sound Cannons at G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh
(Continued)
PROTESTERS: Tell me what democracy looks like!
PROTESTERS: This is what democracy looks like!
PROTESTERS: Tell me what democracy looks like!
PROTESTERS: This is what democracy looks like!
PROTESTERS: Tell me what democracy looks like!
PROTESTERS: This is what democracy looks like!
PROTESTERS: Tell me what democracy looks like!
PROTESTERS: This is what democracy looks like!
STEVE MARTINEZ: With helicopter surveillance, the authorities were able to track the demonstrators’ movements and were able to block all exits to the park, forcing demonstrators to jump an embankment in order to begin their protest.
POLICE ANNOUNCEMENT: I hereby declare this to be an unlawful assembly. I order all those assembled to immediately disperse.
PROTESTERS: The people, united, will never be defeated! The people, united, will never be defeated! The people, united, will never be defeated! The people, united, will never be defeated!
STEVE MARTINEZ: We’ve been tear-gassed. We’ve just been gassed. Actually, no violence at this point, except on the part of the police. It’s like a total burning of the nose and the eyes, the mouth.
ALBERT PETRARCA: The demonstration was orderly, disciplined, peaceful, and we got to corner of 37th and Butler Street, and the police just decided to unload tear gas.
POLICE ANNOUNCEMENT: If you do not disperse, you may be arrested and/or subject to other police action. Other police action may include actual physical removal, the use of riot control agents and/or less lethal munitions, which could cause risk of injury to those who remain.
STEVE MARTINEZ: In an act of civil disobedience, protest organizer Albert Petrarca sat and blocked a law enforcement vehicle and was promptly arrested. Then the police turned on their new weapon of crowd dispersement, the sound cannon.
In all, more than twenty-five people were arrested, including at least one National Lawyer Guild legal observer. Overnight clashes between police and protesters intensified, resulting in numerous arrests and property damage to local businesses. The overwhelming presence of law enforcement officials prompted antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan to blog, quote, “This is what a police state looks like.”
On Friday, an uneasy calm returned to the streets of Pittsburgh as thousands gathered for the Peoples’ March, a cross-section of social justice activists, human rights groups, peace groups and representatives from organized labor.
JON DELANO: What’s your response to those who are demonstrating and those who oppose this summit?
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I fundamentally disagree with their view that the free market is the source of all ills. Ironically, if they had been paying attention to what was taking place inside the summit itself, what they would have heard was a strong recognition from the most diverse collection of leaders in history that it is important to make sure that the market is working for ordinary people.
STEVE MARTINEZ: And although President Obama chose to characterize the demonstrators as rabble-rousing anti-capitalists disinterested in the actual goings-on of the summit, most who attended the rallies on Thursday and Friday felt they were getting the G-20’s message loud and clear and had their own take on the gathering of world leaders. This is musician and activist David Rovics.
DAVID ROVICS: The G-20 is—generally represents very wealthy countries that don’t have the interests of the people at heart.
REVEREND BILLY: These twenty prime ministers and presidents, they’re not operating on earth time!
PROTESTER: What time do they operate on?
REVEREND BILLY: They’re operating according to a kind of corporate gradualism! Their metabolism comes from their military advisers, big energy! They will do things very slowly! They will try to accommodate their investors! As far as I’m concerned, they’re accommodating the devil! Let’s cast out those devils!
STEVE MARTINEZ: From Pittsburgh, Steve Martinez, Democracy Now!
