Backlash

Cops Arrest 500 Rioters at G-20 Summit

As vandals tear through Toronto.

Just blocks away from the building where President Obama and a host of other world leaders are conducting high-level economic talks, scores of angry demonstrators are taking to the streets of Toronto with protests. The city’s police have reported 500 arrests, as youths dressed in black smash windows and even torch police cruisers. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s spokesman issued a harsh statement today, saying that the protesters are “a bunch of thugs that pretend to have a difference of opinion with policies and instead choose violence.” The protesters have no apparent overriding message, though many previous global summits of this type have drawn similar riots.