anti-g8 demo gets surrounded and shut down before it even leaves Place Dominion. 250 "arrests", most get tickets for illegal assembly.

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in Place Dominion at Peel and René Levesque 4pm today to march to where G8 ministers were dining. For two hours, anti-capitalists shared free food, spoke out against the G8, danced and peacefully converged.

But at 6pm, right when the march was scheduled to leave the place Dominion, police emerged from the underground parking lot, and surrounding alleyways, and quickly surrounded the the 400-odd demonstrators.

Police cordoned the demonstrators into a tight circle at the northwest corner of the square, on Peel St. between Ste. Catherine and René-Levesque. Some of the demonstrators managed to slip through restaurants on Peel, aided by fast food workers who provided safe passage through the back door.

The crowd that managed to escape regrouped on Ste. Catherine between Peel and Metcalfe, in front of large crowds of Friday shoppers.

A lit dumpster was rolled towards the police line, barricades were erected, the twenty-five cyclists from critical mass showed up, and two kickass breakdancers were teaching Ste. Catherine pavement a lesson that it would never forget.

A lonely police van parked in front of HMV soon became the target for energetic deconstruction. A duffel bag filled with riot gear was expropriated from the rear seat of the vehicle and distributed to demonstrators.

« Violence is the same facism that we’re fighting against » yelled one demonstrator. But a few hours later an enthusiastic dancer paraded his shiny white riot helmet, to a roaring appreciative crowd of onlookers.

It seemed that the Friday-night Ste. Catherine set were as pleased by the demonstrators’ show of resistance as they were befuddled by the police presence and brutality.

But scenes like this are not unfamiliar to Montreal. On March 15th, International day against police brutality, anti-police brutality demonstrators were ringed in a similiar cordon and were kept waiting for hours in the cold rain to be processed. 371 arrests were made.

As Der Kosmonaut predicted after the March 15th action, "Protesters in future actions should expect more pincer tactics employed by the police. "

The 250 or so demonstrators that were horded up tonight were processed one by one, some of them interrogated, and loaded up on 7 buses and brought to nearby metro stops. Some were ticketed for illegal assembly ($138 fine), others were released with no ticket, but others may have been held and charged with other offences.