Locke st. violence

Some people have taken to social media asking why police, who weren’t far behind, didn’t do more to stop the spree. But police say they handled the events on Saturday night in the safest way possible.

“If there was persons being injured, officers would have rushed in. We wouldn’t have been able to hold them back. In a situation where you have a large unruly group, yes they’re causing mischief, but if we don’t have a measured response going in there, we’re probably going to make it worse.” Paul Hamilton, Hamilton police.

The first call came into police at 9:30 Saturday night, it was for mischief at Durand park, which is about 15 min walk from Locke st. The first officer didn’t arrive on scene until quarter to ten. The officers seen a large group forming, dressed all in black, with masks and some with rocks. They retreated back to their vehicle because the group was becoming hostile toward them. A cruiser was hit but no one was injured. While the two officers at Durand park called for backup, the mob dispersed. By about 10:00 pm the group reorganized at Queen and Aberdeen and started walking towards Locke street. At 10:20, Hamilton police started following the mob down Locke street and then the group dispersed at Pine street.

Police are looking at the possible connections with an anarchist book fair held at Westdale high school over the weekend.

“We’d be foolish to think there’s an anarchist book fair, obviously going to attract people from out of town, it’s a lot safer for someone from out of town to commit this and take off.”

Police say the mob used tactics we saw during the G-20 riots, like wearing several layers of different coloured clothing, which was found discarded in people’s driveways all over the area. Now police say they have a massive job of sorting through all the surveillance footage to identify the culprits.