Thousands protest summit in Canada; vandals smash windows, torch police cars.
Black-clad demonstrators broke off from a crowd of peaceful protesters at the World Summit, torching police cruisers and smashing windows with baseball bats and hammers.
Police with shields and clubs earlier pushed back another small group of demonstrators who tried to head south toward the security fence surrounding the perimeter of the Group of Twenty global economic summit site. Some demonstrators hurled bottles at police.
“This isn’t our Toronto and my response is anger,” Toronto Mayor David Miller told CP24 television. “Every Torontonian should be outraged by this.”
The roving band of protesters in black balaclavas shattered shop windows for blocks, including at police headquarters, then shed some of their black clothes, revealing other garments, and continued to rampage through downtown Toronto.
Protesters torched at least two police cruisers in different parts of the city.
Police in riot gear and riding bikes formed a blockade, keeping protesters from approaching the security fence a few blocks south of the march route. Police closed a stretch of Toronto’s subway system along the protest route and the largest shopping mall downtown closed after the protest took a turn for the worse.
