A lose-lose situation for the Tdot..

Jumping on the bandwagon of putting in my two cents about the G20, I thought I would look at it from a manners point of view. As everyone who hadn't been living in complete isolation that fateful weekend (although, there was that one Irish tourist who feigned ignorance about the entire situation downtown and was arrested just "wandering by", not gawking), there was a plethora of bad behaviour present in the heart of Toronto. While the majority of protests were peaceful, there were obviously some bad eggs that ruined it for everyone. *Cough cough* Black Block *cough cough* Idiots just wanting to break stuff *cough cough*.

I just don't understand how people can trash a city, claiming it is in the name of politics, without actually having a cause. Unfortunately, that minority casts a huge social disgrace cloud over everyone exercising their right to protest. Is it fair? No. But that's what happens.

Looking at this from a PR point of view, I feel like the government and police were stuck between a rock and a hard place from the moment they decided to host the G20 in Toronto. Let's face it. It's not a popular event and was destined to be chaotic. There were bound to be people acting like barbarians (they even told the public ahead of time it would happen). Now, with all of this hype and criticism prominent over Facebook, Twitter and blogs, how could the police not treat the downtown core like a war zone? If they hadn't spent millions of dollars on security, people would have criticized them for doing nothing while vandals destroyed downtown. Since they did spend millions of dollars and were an obvious and intimidating presence, but violence and vandalism still occurred and there is a question of police brutality, they face criticism and inquiries over that weekend. And it is largely due to news spread through social media.

Given the nature of the event, the number of people protesting and the fact that tweets spread like wildfire, the police and the G20 were always going to lose. They knew that people were going to misbehave and in my opinion, did everything they could do to try and stop it while protecting the city and the security zone. Did they step over a few boundaries? I'm sure they did. Is it possible a few officers acted in a way they shouldn't have? I'm almost positive it is. But to say that the entire police force mistreated the situation is ridiculous. I believe in people's right to protest, don't get me wrong. But you can't let barbarians take over the city. You can't let social disgraces win.

To those who disagree, let me ask you then, what should the police have done differently to make sure another violent protest did not occur? Could they have handled their PR better?

On a more light-hearted note, here is a YouTube video of a man who clearly forgot his social graces at home. In a ridiculously funny way.