Blast from the Past: G20 news (Pittsburgh, Bloomfield: closing, live, costs)

[BrianTH]

Remember the concerns about the cost of holding the G20 in Pittsburgh? It turns out the bill was under budget at $12.23 million, and fully reimbursed by the feds and state:

Pittsburgh officials: G-20 summit costs $12.23 million - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

I'm bringing this up because apparently the security budget for the recent combined G8/G20 in Toronto was over $900 million, and may actually have cost something like $2 BILLION. That is with a "B".

WARMINGTON: Local security cut out of G20 pie | Joe Warmington | Columnists | News | Toronto Sun

Yikes. Well, at least for all that money they must have avoided all the rioting and controversial police tactics, right? Not so much:

The fallout from Toronto’s G20 protests - Canada - Macleans.ca

http://macleans.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/100628_thug_wide.jpg?w=660&h=277 (broken link)

Yep, that's a burning police car.

[neurodistortion]

Damn, those pics compared to the damage that we had, I guess we really lucked out.

[BrianTH]

They haven't done a total property damage bill for Toronto, but I can guarantee it is more than the $50,000 for Pittsburgh.

Not that the Pittsburgh G20 was mistake-free. But when you look at these events both before and now after Pittsburgh, ours does stand out for being both relatively low-cost and also relatively sedate.

[ditchdigger]

Oh, good. Maybe we can have it here again. Every year. Like the Furries...

[groar]

maybe we could kill two birds with one stone and have the furries smash some windows and burn some cop cars.

[BrianTH]

Taking that proposal semi-seriously--I actually think it would be hard to find a decent-sized city with a venue as easily "defended" as the Convention Center, thanks to the local topography. But with time the idiot anarchists might come up with something.

Edit: Oh, and I suspect it is a bad idea to mix fursuits and Molotov cocktails.

[Aqua Teen Carl]

Here's I sum up the G20 Summit here:

- 11 police to 1 protester ratio
- People being arrested and/or kidnapped in unmarked cars by military personnel
- Tanks on bridges in the Southside, black helicopters in the sky
- Using LRADs on people for an "unlawful assembly" which shouldn't exist in American society
- Pepper spraying, beating, and arresting Pitt students for no reason at all days after the "VIP's" left town
- Closing down EVERYTHING and putting storm troopers on every corner
- Monitoring every Pittsburgh citizen in ways we probably don't even know about

But hey, channel 11 can loop the same 5 second clip of some young kid with a bandanna pushing a dumpster so that the whole city can point the finger at anarchists and have no issue with a crushing police state.

[TechieTransplant]

Originally Posted by Aqua Teen Carl

Here's I sum up the G20 Summit here:

- 11 police to 1 protester ratio
- People being arrested and/or kidnapped in unmarked cars by military personnel
- Tanks on bridges in the Southside, black helicopters in the sky
- Using LRADs on people for an "unlawful assembly" which shouldn't exist in American society
- Pepper spraying, beating, and arresting Pitt students for no reason at all days after the "VIP's" left town
- Closing down EVERYTHING and putting storm troopers on every corner
- Monitoring every Pittsburgh citizen in ways we probably don't even know about

But hey, channel 11 can loop the same 5 second clip of some young kid with a bandanna pushing a dumpster so that the whole city can point the finger at anarchists and have no issue with a crushing police state.

I agree with everything you said. I was in Oakland on the last evening of the G-20 and witnessed a lot of the nonsense, nearly getting arrested myself. When I arrived, it was just a group of people of all ages standing around watching the military like presence of police. All that and one "protester" yelling nonsense over a megaphone, along with an old hippie playing "chicken dance" on a boom box. No one was rioting, no one was bothering anyone.

[BrianTH]

I think some of the early police actions were warranted. The scheduled protests and marches went fine. Then you had the unscheduled protest march in Lawrenceville with all the idiot anarchists mixed in. We know they were looking for an altercation, and they were using the crowd for cover. You really have no choice in such a situation but to disperse the crowd--and most of the innocent people did in fact disperse when ordered.

A lot of the later stuff in Oakland was definitely excessive. I think they got into a mode where they kept repeating the earlier tactics, whether or not the situation actually warranted it. I also think it was a huge problem that there were all these out-of-town cops who didn't really know the area, the population, and so on.

So I agree we could have had just as successful and secure an event, and no more damage to property and such, with a lot less police action in Oakland.

[Aqua Teen Carl]

Originally Posted by scottrpriester

I agree with everything you said. I was in Oakland on the last evening of the G-20 and witnessed a lot of the nonsense, nearly getting arrested myself. When I arrived, it was just a group of people of all ages standing around watching the military like presence of police. All that and one "protester" yelling nonsense over a megaphone, along with an old hippie playing "chicken dance" on a boom box. No one was rioting, no one was bothering anyone.

Yeah, a friend of mine lives in Bloomfield and happened to be in Oakland when the craziness went down. He ended up with a face full of tear gas and got trapped in a building between police. All this for Pitt students hanging out.

Also during the event, people were twittering locations to stay safe away from police presence and charges were brought against those who twittered. Thankfully the charges were dropped, but for whatever reason they did shake someone up for TWITTERING.

There's a ton of videos floating around showing injustices happening all around the area during the summit. There were also documents that were leaked that showed our local utility companies having a presence in the summit itself. Why on Earth would Duquense Light need to be at the G20 summit? Monitoring people perhaps?