Introduction

It's the year 2010 and I'm standing in Allan Gardens, in the rapidly gentrifying east end of downtown Toronto, the evening before the meeting of the heads of state of the twenty richest countries (G20), later known as the "Austerity Summit." Hundreds of people from different student groups, community organizations, unions and diverse communities arrive in the park. There are women from domestic violence shelters, social workers and union members, student activists, parents and children, people from homeless shelters, punks, bike messengers, members of the South Asian Women's Rights Organization, Iranian refugees, migrant workers and various anarchist, socialist and social democrats. Entitled "Justice for Our Communities," the event is intended to bring local organizations and communities together, and to link the G20 summit to locally rooted demands for immigrant justice, environmental justice, affordable childcare, and an end to gender violence, police brutality and the marginalization of the poor, amongst other things. To say the least, the politics of the coalition coordinating the event are inclusive and complicated and we are marching without police permission.

I attended many of the planning meetings, but at this particular moment, I am helping with communications — relaying information about the police movements from a team of bicycle scouts circling the area to the activists attempting to lead the march into the streets of Toronto. The specific route around the downtown area is flexible, but the intention of the march is to stop at sites that represent the way that the austerity policies of the G20 impact our local communities — these include Toronto police headquarters, the Immigration and Refugee Board, a social assistance office and others. After visiting these sites, we will try to get as close as possible to the 3-meter-high fence surrounding the summit meetings. We aren't crazy. We do that given the state of lockdown in the city, the police will block our path. So we intend to be flexible. We want this to be a peaceful event, one that parents and caregivers can bring their children. If the police start to act aggressively, and arrests seem imminent, our plan is to march back to Allan Gardens, where we will occupy the park overnight.

As people try to enter the park to begin the march, police search their bags. Protesters are only allowed in if they obey the police, and dispose of their bandannas, goggles and the sticks on which their signs were stapled. The heavily policed boundary is only one manifestation of the most expensive policing operation in Canadian history. The security for the combined G8 and G20 summits has topped $1 billion, and the results of this spending are on full display throughout the downtown core. Nonetheless, despite, and perhaps because of the police presence, the numbers swell and eventually, led by people with disabilities, many in wheelchairs — we head into the street. Then, the police commander tells the activist designated as a "police negotiator" that they have chosen this moment to bring the body of a soldier killed in Afghanistan directly across our path. We wait until the procession passes and move on. Our first stop is Toronto police headquarters. The crowd is packed tightly as people tried to hear what the speakers are saying. Suddenly a scuffle breaks out and police pull a Deaf man, Emomotimi Azorbo, from the crowd. When other activists try to intervene, the police beat them on the heads and arms with batons and push them with shields. Azorbo and another activist are arrested. Tensions increase. The police put their riot helmets on. Tensions increase more. Even the most placid demonstrator is becoming angry. I try to understand the big picture using my telephone and a small radio, and ask other marshals what we should be doing. No one knows. Our job of keeping people safe and reaching our destination seems somehow less important than taking a stand against the absurd police intimidation. Finally, we try to move the crowd along the street. Our negotiator tells us that the Toronto police commander says we'll be able to march down University Avenue, a massive roadway — towards the security fence. Then, all of a sudden, police form a line and block our path, helmets on and shields up. We are unable to keep marching. Obviously there is "a diversity of tactics" in the uniformed ranks. The Toronto commander we are speaking with yells into his radio and kicks a bottle of water in frustration. The crowd wants to keep moving and surges into the streets by the hospital, the only route available. A game of cat-and-mouse unfolds as protesters try to continue south, and the police continue to block us. Finally it becomes clear that we are outflanked. Frustrated, we return to the park to spend the night, undisturbed by the police.

In the morning, we receive news that in the early morning hours, police have arrested 17 key activists, waking some from their beds, and pulling others from vehicles. All are charged with conspiracy and kept in custody. Nonetheless, the large march planned for that day continues, with a section of the crowd breaking away to try to get to the fence surrounding the summit. When they are unable to do so, some protesters and passersby break the windows of shops and smash and burn three police cars. Over the following 24 hours, the police retake the city, surrounding and arresting over 1,100 people, making it the largest mass arrest in Canadian history (Mahoney and Hui 2010).

The over-the-top policing of the G20 launched frenzied media coverage, public hand-wringing, finger-pointing, inquiries, lawsuits and promises of "never again." Since that time, of course, Montreal police have arrested over 3,500 people in the 2012–13 wave of student-led protests against tuition increases, while police across the US and Canada have arrested hundreds of Occupy activists, and significant numbers of Idle No More indigenous sovereignty, anti-pipeline, immigrant justice and anti-police-brutality protesters. At these incidents, sometimes police surrounded protesters in "kettles" or "enclosures" and arrested them. Sometimes police Tasered, pepper sprayed, launched projectiles, and tear-gassed people. Sometimes police simply intimidated people out of protesting.

Clearly, the policing of protest in democratic, capitalist countries is now both more militarized and more dependent on intelligence gathering and pre-emptive control than in the past. This is a trend that has been observed in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and in North America, but this book highlights the emergence of this protest policing strategy in cities in the United States and Canada from 1995 until the present. It argues that this protest-policing strategy must...