TORONTO - A multitude of groups gathered at Queen's Park early Saturday afternoon, from Greenpeace, who said they mustered close to 200 members, to a collection of Tibetans protesting the Toronto visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao.

When the anti-G20 Peoples First march set off, the mood was festive, even family-friendly. The main concern for thousands in attendance seemed to be how to stay dry in the rain, rather than how to stay safe.

Toronto resident Kathryn Charm, who brought her seven-year-old son Joe along, said she came to protest issues such as global poverty and environmental degradation.

"In the short-term, I'm also enormously pissed off about the expenditure of $1 billion that could have been used for so many other things," she added. "That was what really sent me here today."

The demonstrators got their first view of statuesque police in black riot gear as they passed by the heavily guarded U.S. Consulate. By the time the crowd turned west down Queen Street, the atmosphere grew more tense. Riot police were lined up down side streets and protesters began chanting "no G20 on stolen native land."

Moments later, a group broke off from the main march and charged south through a line of police, towards the security fence and the summit. A brief stampede stopped just short of a second row of police, these ones in riot gear.

Black-clad protesters appeared at the front and tried to smash through the police line. But after a brief skirmish they were forced to retreat to the approved demonstration route on Queen Street and continued west.

Several people were injured in the altercation, according to a paramedic who declined to give his name because he was treating demonstrators without the consent of his employer.

While most of the protesters turned north at the next main intersection and returned to Queen's Park, several hundred people attempted again to break through police lines to the south, the direction in which the summit was being held.

Jamie Getgood was resting steps from the second standoff with riot police, wearing black and carrying a gas mask. The 21-year-old University of Toronto student said he came to the demonstration because he wanted to see what the government was spending $1 billion on.

"I don't plan on looting or rioting or anything like that. It's just if I'm tear-gassed," he said, explaining that his clothes were made of synthetic fibre that could help keep his skin from becoming irritated if police deployed tear gas.

Around the corner, police on bicycles had formed a circle edged by a cruiser with several broken windows, after the protesters in black backtracked quickly east down Queen Street, smashing windows as they went. (They had used the crowd and the police confrontations as a diversion to help launch their rampage elsewhere.)

"Get in position, they're coming!" one of the officers yelled. Riot police soon arrived on the scene to keep people back from the damaged vehicle.

By early evening, riot police marched on Queen's Park. The designated protest site had been declared a riot zone, barring ambulances from entering as armoured police on foot and on horseback charged through the crowd.

Sunday

The streets were eerily quiet Sunday morning. More businesses had boarded up their windows in the city's Queen Street West shopping district. Many had posted signs saying that they were closed for the day. And there were very few pedestrians on the streets.

Police were trying to conduct "investigative searches" on as many suspected protesters as possible, roaming the downtown in vehicles or on bikes, or standing in groups on street corners in the hope of confiscating anything a person could use to cause further damage.

A small group of demonstrators and reporters were waiting outside the temporary detention centre where those taken in mass arrests were being held. An hour earlier, police had used tear gas to disperse a group that had gathered to hold a vigil outside the centre.

Bridie Wyrock, a 20-year-old student from Cleveland, Ohio in a tie-dye t-shirt, had just been released and was waiting for a friend she was staying with to come through the gates.

Wyrock had been arrested Saturday evening at a demonstration in the city's financial district and was held for 19 hours, she said. During her detention, someone came around with cheese and butter sandwiches once, and she was given water three times.

"It was like a hamster cage," she said.

Wyrock was placed under arrest, charged with breach of the peace, mischief and obstruction of traffic, she said. But police dropped the charges before she was released.

Later Sunday afternoon, a man who gave his name as Dionysos Savopoulos was travelling on foot to the Toronto Community Mobilization Network's "convergence space," a hub for protesters during the anti-G20 demonstrations on the city's west end.

He was wearing a black sleeveless T-shirt with a red bandana around his neck, and a pink bracelet around his wrist indicating he had been detained by police.

Savopoulos said he was taken into custody with dozens of others at a protest in front of a Novotel hotel on Saturday night. His cell contained bystanders as well as protesters, he said. He was held in handcuffs for 17 hours and given three butter and cheese sandwiches and a cup of water.

"I don't like the fear that's been invested into the security," he said. "I feel very intimidated."

"There were people with the agenda to cause destruction but they were a very small minority," he recalled, before being detained by police again minutes later.

Neighbourhood reaction

Across the street, police on bicycles had penned in a number of people who had gathered near the protesters' headquarters to watch what was going on.

One of them was Riali Johannesson, a criminal defence lawyer with blonde hair and wearing a baby blue dress, who had agreed to represent a woman taken in the Novotel police sweep.

"I've been speaking with the officers at the processing centre pretty much non-stop since around 11 o'clock last night, and they're not able to give me any information as to where she is," Johannesson said.

Another of her clients was arrested on Thursday while taking photographs downtown and was charged with assault.

"It sounds to me as though the charges won't stand up in a criminal court" in that case, she said. "We'll certainly be pursuing civil action."

Further down the street, people began chanting at the 50 or so police on the street: "Leave our neighbourhood."

Officers were subjected to a steady stream of colourful insults from less well-mannered demonstrators from the time they blocked the march from moving to the G20 security fence on Saturday afternoon.

But after the mass arrests began, the most common word hollered at police on Sunday was "shame."