Picture of the Day: Happy Campers, Headless Horsemen: the G20 Rolls into London

An interesting account of the protests surrounding the G20 summit this week:  Happy Campers, Headless Horsemen: the G20 Rolls into London

a short excerpt:

“We saw numerous people being bloodied and taken away via ambulance, and still more with minor injuries. This is backed up by testimony in the media, which gives a flavor of how brutal the police were. As one passerby on Bishopsgate put it, “It was a completely pointless show of violence. I was just walking along here when they decided to form these lines to contain the protesters. I came down just to see what was happening and I was swept up in it and was hit in the face. The people at the front were shouting ‘peace not violence’ and ‘this is not a riot’ but they were brandishing the batons anyway.””

Montebello, Quebec. A distraught protester shouts out as riot police aggressively move in. Violent police tactics have become the norm in many large scale demonstrations, posing a greater risk to the public than the protesters themselves.

Another account from the Guardian:  “G20: The Strong Arm of the Law”

“As witnesses to the way they mishandled today’s protests in the City of London, we hold the police responsible for the violence.”

“There’s little doubt that today’s and tomorrow’s news coverage will prominently feature the G20 protests and the violence that broke out. We think a broader perspective is needed, because when the mainstream media is so ready to take the police‘s side, it is too easy to brand the protesters as the only troublemakers.”

Montebello, Quebec. Riot Police clash with peaceful protesters.