CALGARY (CP) - G-8 protesters expecting to rattle chain-link fences in downtown Calgary next month may instead come up against lines of police on bicycles.
"They can throw up a bit of a barricade where they need to, but it doesn't appear as a confrontational thing," said Insp. Al Redford, supervisor of G-8 security for the Calgary police. "The only protective gear that our mountain bike team officers wear is a standard bicycle helmet." The thinking is that a mobile barrier of officers on linked bicycles with overlapping wheels is preferable to a fixed fence that might be torn down. If protesters march through the downtown streets, the barrier can be adjusted as needed.
"Officers on bicycles can block off intersections and move much more quickly than we could with traffic cars or even for that matter, motorcycles," said Redford.
But he conceded that old-fashioned barricades are still a possibility.
"As to this hour, this date, there are no plans for fences, but depending on incoming information and assessment of risk or threat, that could change."
Redford's officers, along with several hundred colleagues from 25 police departments across Canada, will be protecting Calgary during the June 26-27 meeting of leaders from the Group of Eight highly industrialized countries.
Even though the G-8 leaders are meeting in Kananaskis, a mountain resort 100 kilometres west of the city, activists plan protests in Calgary and police have repeatedly said they are preparing for the worst.
All the outside police officers will be working within Calgary's city limits, as the RCMP and military are responsible for all areas outside of the city, including the Kananaskis meeting site.
Most of the officers who will be helping Calgary police are from specialty units in Ontario, where they've had experience in controlling large crowds and protests, said Redford.
Those police departments include the Ontario Provincial Police, York Regional Police, Durham Regional Police, Ottawa Police Service and Hamilton-Wentworth Police.
"We don't have full-time public order units within the Calgary Police Service, so we have to draw members from the field," Redford said.
"The OPP, for example, has extremely professional public order units used to handling large events, which they have frequently down in Ontario."
But many activists don't think some Ontario police departments properly handled the G-20 protest marches in Ottawa last November.
They accused members of the OPP and the Ottawa police in particular of provoking confrontation by unleashing dogs and shooting rubber bullets into the crowd during what started out as peaceful protests. They also accused police of arresting protesters for little or no reason and then denying access to lawyers.
Of the 50 protesters arrested in Ottawa, only three faced criminal charges, including assaulting police. In all, 650 police were deployed for the weekend meetings of the Group of 20, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
Out-of-town officers assigned to G-8 security in Calgary started their training Monday at a former military base at Penhold in central Alberta.
Many of Calgary's 1,400 police officers have already gone through the one-day sessions, which started in September.
They practise in riot gear, advancing on pretend protesters from behind bulletproof shields. They also practise formations similar to military drills - how to stay in line, move in unison, and quickly retreat in large numbers.
And they learn how to form a human wedge that thrusts into a crowd to grab a protester - a drill activists refer to as "snatch squads."
Redford said the officers practise walking in step because they likely won't be able to hear commands among thousands of chanting G-8 protesters.
"It's quite simple, but it's something you have to train for because when things get hot, you have to fall back on your training," he said.
"An officer who leaves the line when he or she shouldn't do that could become a liability to the rest of the team as opposed to an asset."
FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. NoNonsense English offers this material non-commercially for research and educational purposes. I believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, i.e. the media service or newspaper which first published the article online and which is indicated at the top of the article unless otherwise specified.