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TORONTANAMO: Recollections Of A Concerned Citizen Who Was Detained At The G20 Summit
by T. Michael Douglas
3/2/2011 3:39:00 AM
Becky's Story
by Becky Russell
7/21/2010
"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
Jail experience harrowing
by: Skylar Radojkovic, Owen Sound Sun Times
source
On June 25, I travelled from my parents' Grey County home in order to attend the G20 protests that were being planned the following day in Toronto.
I decided to participate because I disagree with much of the economic and environmental vision that the G20 leaders hold for the world. Despite the much publicized show of force that was being made on the streets of Toronto, I was confidant of my right to protest. Little did I know that by that next evening, I would be under arrest and in the back of a paddy wagon on my way to the Eastern Avenue detention centre.
That Friday night I stayed with friends in Toronto and at noon on Saturday I walked through the rain toward Queen's Park for the 1 p.m. demonstration. When I arrived there, following the sounds of cheering and drumming, there was a large and varied crowd of thousands gathered.
I took a place under a dripping tree, and enjoyed the music being played by a group of Samba musicians. Eventually we all flowed out into the streets, moving south and west
through the city. The march r about five hours, dispersing at some points and coming back together at others, several hundred of us converging at one point right beside the security fence, where we stood with tourists who where taking photos of the lines of police on the inside of the fence.
At about 6 p.m. I began to make my way home, crossing Queen St. W., about a block from Steve's music store, where I came across a crowd of people gathered in the street. They were standing around two burnt police cars, one of which was still smoldering.
These people seemed to be a mix of protesters with signs, and curious residents. Soon after, a large group of riot police appeared at one end of the street and began yelling for us to clear the street, before they charged into it at full speed. I moved off the street, across the sidewalk and onto the edge of a small parking lot, beside a taxi, whose driver was leaning out the door, snapping photos of the riot police.
By this point, noticing that the police were wearing gas masks, I slipped a bandanna over my mouth and nose, as I was worried that the police would soon be using tear gas. The police line again moved forward, onto the sidewalk, and then suddenly a riot policeman strode forward and seized me on the shoulder, yelling loudly that I was under arrest for breach of the peace, and for wearing a mask.
He dragged me behind police lines where four officers threw me face first to the ground and handcuffed my hands behind my back. They then hauled me up by my bound hands, forcing me to walk bent over. The police took me down a side street, behind several cruisers, and forced me roughly down on my face and knees in front of a brick wall.
Another man was brought over and shoved down beside me, exclaiming franticly in broken English that he was walking to work. A female police officer bended his arm up behind his back, until he was screaming, and bend it. When I met him later, in one of the cages, his arm was in a sling and had been fractured.
An officer read me my rights, including the right to legal consul. When they stood me up against the wall to search me, an officer leaned in beside my face and told me that I was going to prison, where I would be raped repeatedly. When I looked down at my feet, there was blood on the pavement from my badly scraped knee. Over the next 40 minutes, I was repeatedly and aggressively accused of having attacked the police and broken windows.
Finally, several of us were transported to a detention centre, where I was bound with metal handcuffs and placed in the first of the five cages that I would spend the next 20 hours in.
The cages were wire mesh, similar to those used for transporting chickens, over concrete floor, the larger ones containing a port-a-potty, and a metal bench.
The one where I spent the majority of my time was a smaller, more temporary cage, roughly six by eight feet, with neither bench nor washroom, which I shared with five other people.
There was not enough room for all of us to lie down, so we took turns, or attempted to rest sitting hunched over.
Many of the people I met throughout my imprisonment told me that they were picked up in mass arrests, during nonviolent protests, or were simply jogging or shopping. I witnessed many bloodied and cut faces, people with broken ribs, and cut and bruised wrists from too-tight handcuffs.
The building was quite cold, most of us sticking our arms inside our T-shirts in an effort to stay warm, and several people developed coughs and flu-like symptoms as time went on. I was repeatedly denied water until four in the morning, roughly eight hours after being arrested. During the night I was brought before a detective who told me again that I was charged with breaking the peace, and I was read a statement that included the fact that I had the right to see a lawyer.
At one point, he decided that I may have been hiding something on my body and directed two officers to take me away for a level three search.
In a separate room, I was strip-searched and called various unprintable names by these officers. When they brought me back, saying that they had found nothing, the detective yelled at me that I was wasting his time. He shoved me face first into a corner of the room and pushed me repeatedly into the wall.
During my period of imprisonment, I often heard people asking officers for their phone call, to which officers continually replied that they would be given one shortly. By Sunday morning, my family was extremely worried about me, as nobody had any idea where I was.
At about 3 p.m. Sunday afternoon, myself and several others were taken from our cages and put through the process that ended in our release from the detention centre. My final impressions included the fact that police were in complete control of the situation on the streets, and in the detention centre, and that the aggressive and intimidating tactics that they choose to use were done so deliberately.
I also later heard the Toronto chief of police state that no protesters ever reached the security fence, the same fence that I remember gripping with both hands and staring through.