City cops are training to deal with everything from 1960's-style sit-ins to dirty nukes ahead of this summer's G-8 summit in Kananaskis.
"We are preparing for everything," police training co-ordinator Sgt. Howard Burns told reporters yesterday.
"We hope the G-8 will amount to peaceful protest and it will be a matter of police monitoring the situation . . . (but) we are preparing for any situation that could happen."
All 1,400 members of the city police force are being put through a one-day "protest-awareness" course before the summit.
Topics include terrorism and the threat of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear devices.
Al-Qaida terrorists have targeted summits since 1996 and at Genoa last July, they had planned to fly an explosives-laden civilian aircraft where the leaders were meeting.
Cops are also being instructed on their legal powers to arrest and detain protesters -- whether they're simply staging a coffee shop sit-in or starting a riot.
Police don't want to be caught flat-footed at the summit.
They are eager to avoid the publicity nightmare of Vancouver's APEC meeting in 1997 or the violence of the Quebec City riots during last year's Summit of the Americas.
That's why the course is also including the basics of protester tactics, police search and seizure, arrest powers, use of force, and security zones.
Calgary police Insp. Al Redford said the training gives officers more knowledge for providing security during the summit.
"It's to get them thinking about those powers of arrest, those authorities and those responsibilities," Redford said.
"Certainly in the context of a major event like this, it's prudent to give them this refresher to build their confidence level."
Police are also being told how to hook troublemakers and let them go within a 24-hour period.
Crown prosecutor Emanuel Vomberg, one of three provincial Crown prosecutors working full time on the upcoming G-8, said he is giving police officers useful tools from Canada's Criminal Code to deal with protests.
He's even telling them what to do if a protester identifies himself as Jesus Christ or George Bush -- as many did during the Quebec City protests.
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