Massive police mobilization prepared for G20 summit in Pittsburgh

[Hannah Bell]

The Pittsburgh Police Department and the US Secret Service are preparing to turn Pittsburgh into a militarized zone in preparation for the upcoming G20 summit to be held in the city on September 24 and 25.

Authorities are planning to occupy one of the city’s most famous landmarks, Point State Park, prior to and during the summit, which is expected to draw large numbers of protesters. More than 4,000 police officers from over 100 police departments throughout the region and nationally will descend upon Pittsburgh to provide protection for the 320 delegates from 19 countries and the European Union who will take part in the summit.

The G20 meeting has been designated a National Special Security Event by the US Department of Homeland Security, which places security coordination under the control of the Secret Service. Established in 1997 as an “executive order” under Bill Clinton, only about two-dozen other events have been given this level of security...

Plans are under way to construct a fence surrounding the David Lawrence Convention Center...preventing people from getting within a three-block radius of the location. People who live and work within the security perimeter will need special clearance...

In addition, surveillance will be massively increased and sharpshooters positioned on rooftops of downtown buildings....

Officials are asking businesses that have offices and stores in the downtown area to close during the conference.

Subway service into the downtown area will be cancelled and buses will only drop passengers off on the edges of downtown...

The Pittsburgh Public School Board also voted to shut down all 66 of the city’s public schools early on Wednesday, September 23 and keep them closed for the next two days.

The total cost for security for the two-day event is expected to exceed $19 million.

The fact that major portions of the city will be off limits or shut down and the two million residents of the greater Pittsburgh region barred from many public areas demonstrates the gulf that separates the political leaders of world capitalism from ordinary people...Meetings of leaders of the major powers are now routinely accompanied by huge military-police operations...

Several pacifist and anti-globalization groups, which planned protests at the conference, have been denied permits...So far only one group, led by the pacifist Thomas Merton Center, has been given tentative approval to hold a march...


http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/aug2009/pitt-a25.shtml