G-20 turning Pittsburgh into 'Tiananmen Square': Reports of police violence amid huge security measures

More reports flow from the G-infinity coverage of protests at the G-20 Summit via the interactive news wire they've set up on the Independent Media Center (IMC) open newswire network, at indypgh.org, and it appears that the massive police-security presence is becoming violent toward demonstrators.

Police have barricaded up downtown Pittsburgh with chain link fences that actually have razor wire wound along the tops, like one may expect to see circling a prison, and street barricades, as well as concrete traffic barriers that line the route through which people will be commuting to the global capital event.

According to the New York Times article by Ian Urbina, published Sept. 24, 2009, "Protesters Are Met by Tear Gas at G-20 Conference," protesters were attacked simply for not having a permit for marching, or that is at least the impression the frame of the article leaves the reader with. More importantly, when one reads between the lines one finds, protesters were attacked with batons, tear gas canisters, concussion grenades and some sort of weird sonic weapon that makes beeping noises designed to cause irritation to a persons ear, which inherently begs the question of whether or not these weapons cause irreparable damage. The ear is a fragile organ after all.

Another rather absurdly obvious designer-biased report, this one at Mail Online, "G20 summit begins with chaos as protesters clash with Pittsburgh police" by their Mail Foreign Service, September 24, 2009, which irresponsibly frames the protesters as somehow deserving of physical violence by police, though the protesters are unarmed, also reports that police also used rubber bullets and shotgun-fired bean-bag rounds.

Reports from within the crowd of demonstrators indicate police attacked the demonstrators, igniting a riot.

On Baum Blvd. near the "Boston Market across the street [from] Ritters Diner," where windows were allegedly smashed, an incident of police brutality was caught on video tape and is viewable online at indypgh.org, and a cell-phone report called in to G-infinity radio from the scene in the streets describes some of the obscure sonic weapons being used against unarmed civilians, and that police attacked people merely for remaining "in the area." That is a far cry from police attacking unarmed civilians in response to being attacked with bottles and a trash dumpster, as alleged by the Mail Online piece.

Everywhere in the media the police are being described, albeit with a favorable bias in many reports, as being a huge, militarized force that is by all accounts excessive.

Keep up with these events and more, live from the streets, around the G-20 this week on indypgh.org.