[
News
|
In Focus
|
News Archive
]
G8 Summit Draws Huge Crowd of 10 Protesters
Thursday, June 27, 2002 - Golden, British Columbia
Chaos ran wild in the streets today as a crowd of 10 or more protested along the streets of Golden, British Columbia.
Once the mob grew out of control, police moved in with rubber bullets, tanks, tear gas, pepper spray, tazers and a brigade of 400 police. 9 of the protesters were arrested in the chaos.
The 10th, it turned out later, was actually caught in the crossfire while on his lunch break.
Since Golden, a small town along the British Columbia-Alberta border is within 500 kilometers of the G8 summit, police have been on high alert.
"We don't need no rabble-rousers here in Golden," local police chief Gordon "the Golden" Pope said in an interview.
Witnesses stated that the crowd converged near City Hall about 12:30pm.
Witness Jacob Singleton recounted events as follows: "They were all standing around City Hall, and suddenly one of them says, 'Dammit, I didn't get my raise today.' Then another one says, 'ya, damn capitalism anyway.' Then another one laughed and said 'ya, capitalism sucks.' Next thing you knew the police moved in and pepper sprayed the bunch. It was all over in about 5 minutes."
This close call with protests getting out of control was one of many reported across the country.
