G-20 protesters and police clash; pepper spray, smoke are fired

PITTSBURGH - Police fired canisters of pepper spray and smoke and rubber bullets at marchers protesting the G-20 summit yesterday after anarchists responded to calls to disperse by rolling trash bins, throwing rocks, and breaking windows.

Seventeen to 19 protesters were arrested, and Mayor Luke Ravenstahl said swift police decisions resulted in minimal property damage. Officials said there were no reports of injuries.

The afternoon march, which began at a city park, turned chaotic just about the time President Obama and Michelle Obama arrived in Pittsburgh.

The clashes began after several hundred protesters, many advocating against capitalism, tried to march from an outlying neighborhood toward the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, where the summit is being held.

The protesters clogged streets, banged on drums, and chanted, "Ain't no power like the power of the people, 'cause the power of the people don't stop."

The marchers included small groups of self-described anarchists, some wearing dark clothes and bandannas and carrying black flags. Others wore helmets and safety goggles.

One banner read, "No borders, no banks," and another, "No hope in capitalism." A few minutes into the march, protesters unfurled a large banner reading "NO BAILOUT NO CAPITALISM" with an encircled "A," a recognized sign of anarchists.

The marchers had no permit, and, after a few blocks, police declared the gathering an unlawful assembly. They played a loudspeaker announcement telling people to leave or face arrest, and then police in riot gear moved in to break it up. Authorities also used a crowd-control device that emits a deafening siren-like noise, making it uncomfortable for protesters to remain in the streets.

Protesters split into smaller groups. Some rolled large metal trash bins toward police, and a man in a black hooded sweatshirt threw rocks at a police car, breaking the front windshield. Protesters broke windows in a few businesses, including a bank branch, a Boston Market restaurant, and a BMW dealership, police said.

Officers fired canisters of pepper spray and smoke at the protesters, set off a flash-bang grenade, and fired rubber bullets. Some of those exposed to the pepper spray coughed and complained that their eyes were watering and stinging.

About an hour after the clashes began, the police and protesters were at a standoff. Police sealed off main thoroughfares to downtown.

Protesters contended that the march had been peaceful and that police were trampling on their right to assemble. "We were barely even protesting," said T.J. Amick, 22, of Pittsburgh. ". . . We haven't broken any laws."

The National Lawyers Guild, a liberal legal-aid group, said that one of its observers, a second-year law student, was among those arrested. Its representatives were stationed among the protesters, wearing green hats.

"I don't think he was provoking anyone at all," guild member Joel Kupferman said.

Street demonstrations have become the norm at world economic gatherings. The protesters here appeared to number fewer than 1,000, a fraction of the 50,000 who took to the streets of Seattle a decade ago at a World Trade Organization event.

Later yesterday, hundreds of protesters massed near the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Garden where the summit was beginning.