Riot police.

Since the students' strike started some weeks ago, the sound of helicopters in the downtown sky has become a familiar feature. The students, however, have not so far been violent. A major annoyance, yes, defiant, they blocked buildings and have slowed traffic. But mostly they've hurt themselves.

Today's helicopter though, forbode something much worst. The yearly March 15th march against Police Brutality turns violent every year. I'd forgotten about it since it is usually much more East of downtown and it is my first year working there. As we heard the loud helicopter sound at the end of the day, and saw the first police car block the next street, everyone left immediately being car owners. I, being a pedestrian and my bus stop lying directly in the oncoming crowd's path, stayed in my office. My wonderfully hilarious colleague Sonia, whose head you saw at the beginning of the month stayed too. Sandwiched between McGill University and the main street Sainte-Catherine, we are always in the middle of the action. All of a sudden I saw on all surrounding streets a flow of people hurrying in the same direction, as if a flood was coming. Then they came, looking ominous, basically created a wall, just below my office: The riot police. There were other groups of them as they did not know where the thugs were heading. Further up were other policemen on horses and I felt a twang in my heart for them (the horses). One of the horse got injured on a leg later. The thugs overtuned a police car on the main street, set fire to it, broke shop windows to steal ipads and laptops and basically clashed with police. Thug brutality. Strangely, from my perch, I thought the police was particularly well behaved considering.

Fragment of my ever exciting life.