Police arrest 32 people after Montreal protest turns ugly

Police arrest 32 people after Montreal protest turns ugly

Canwest News Service
Published: Sunday, March 16, 2008

MONTREAL — Montreal police arrested 32 people Saturday after an anti-police protest turned violent, leaving the city’s downtown with shattered windows, vandalized cars and a police cruiser singed by a molotov cocktail.

Montreal police Const. Laurent Gingras said demonstrators used bats, rocks, chunks of ice and their feet to smash the windows of a Subway, McDonald’s and Starbucks during a three hour rampage in Montreal’s downtown core.

Gingras would not reveal how many people attended the protest, but media reports put the number at about 200.  Gingras would also not specify how many police officers were on the scene. He said many officers were dressed in riot gear and none were hurt after clashing with demonstrators.

“(The police) were ready for clashes with protesters and experience told us we should have been ready for this,” he said. “Several police officers have been hurt in the last couple of years.”

The demonstrators used the wooden sticks from their signs as weapons against police and a molotov cocktail was hurled at a police cruiser, said Gingras.

Two subway stations were also defaced by graffiti as a result of the demonstration, which ended at about 6:30 p.m.  Several cars along the protest route also had their windows smashed and Gingras said some of the demonstrators stole items from the vandalized vehicles.

Those arrested face an array of charges including mischief, assault, assault on a police officer and theft, he said. Some were released from custody late last evening while others were held overnight, said Gingras.

The protest was organized by a group calling themselves the “collective against police brutality,” said Gingras. The group has staged protests on March 15 for at least the last five years.

Police arrested 15 people last year, said Gingras.