BRENDAN LEUFKENS

My day started at a small pub downtown Toronto at McCaul and Dundas. I was eating lunch with my sister, her boyfriend and our friend Crystal. It was around 4:15 when I saw on CP24 that people were gathering at King and Bay for a peaceful protest. I grabbed my camera and rushed to the scene, leaving everyone else still at the pub. When I arrived at King and Bay I noticed people gathering and walking north on Bay street towards Queen. I followed the protest which was routed west on Queen street towards Spadina. The police then blocked off Queen street just before University ave, not letting any protesters cross, only to let the protests proceed west on Queen minutes later.
I then followed the protest to Spadina, where normal police officers where replaced with the RCMP and OPP riot squads. All of a sudden they deployed in a matter of minutes, blocking off the intersection and trapping about 300 people in the middle. Most of these people where curious onlookers, media, shoppers and photographers, less then half where protesters. Even when the protest was going on, the only chants being shouted where "PEACEFUL PROTEST". No violence or weapons were used by this crowd, who was now surrounded by riot police with gas masks and the sound cannon. After being trapped for 2 hours and not informed why we were not allowed to leave, it started to rain. Many people did not have jackets or umbrellas, or clothing for the rain. I myself only had a T shirt on, with a pair of jeans...lucky I had a backpack to protect my camera, other photographers were not so lucky.
After it rained for about 2 hours on the trapped people, the police started to pull the media out, which scared me. Arrests were made throughout this whole ordeal, with the police getting rid of the protesters ( which were non violent ). The word finally came from the police that all 300 of us were arrested for "breaching the peace". People were then lined up to get arrested, just to get out of the cold rain which had plagued us for hours. At around 9:45 I was taken into custody by the Toronto Police, handcuffed, processed and thrown in the back of a paddy wagon. After being in the paddy wagon for 45 minutes, the door opened and the police let me go in peace. I was not involved with any protests, but as many of you can relate, the photographer inside of me had to cover the action.