The Film Studios on Eastern is playing host to a different kind of drama these days now that it has been set up as a holding centre/police staging area for the G20 Summit.
Only the working title for this mass production isn’t Eastern Promises (not to be confused with the movie of the same title). Maybe Eastern Misgivings or Jitters on Eastern would be more appropriate titles, given the atmosphere of anxiety that has descended upon the area.
Where are the Hell’s Angels when you need them? The famous bike club used to occupy a bunker down the street. Locals could use some backup from the intimidating law enforcement presence that’s taken up residence in the neighbourhood.
A bunker mentality has set in. Check the two-metre high fence plopped on the sidewalk in front of the studios’ existing fence on the south side of Eastern.
Not sure why it was necessary to erect the second fence, other than to keep passersby on the other side of the street.
Or maybe the cops expect protesters to storm the gates to free friends who may be held inside?
You can never be too safe seems to be the police mantra for this Summit. See signs warning of surveillance cameras combing the area.
On a hot Thursday afternoon, the black vans filled with police are flying back and forth. Police arrive and leave by the busload.
The 20 or so officers gathered at Gate 3, the eastern most side of the holding centre, must be crazy from the heat, eyeing anything outside the perimeter that moves, especially anyone fiddling with a camera.
“They’re not going to like that,” says one woman passing by as I raise my Canon (camera version, not water or sound type) to snap the scene.
I have permission from the police media liaison officer to take pictures outside the compound (thought I’d ask even though it’s public property).
Still, a few of the officers behind the chain link are nervous about it. All of a sudden two undercovers in an unmarked car pull a U turn in front of me. I can keep taking photos, they say, only not so close to the fence. Hmm.
A call comes over the police radio for the entrance to Gate 2 to be closed “immediately.” Cops rush into action.
It’s unclear why because officers in unmarked vehicles are just arriving at the facility. A drill perhaps.
All around preparations are taking place, it seems, for some perceived threat.
Just like the exercise a few minutes later when more vans filled with cops, four in all, arrive with haste to take up their stations at Gate 1, blocking the entrance in rows two vans deep. But the coast is clear. Surreal.
Meanwhile, around back at the compound’s Lake Shore entrance, a police cruiser with a suspect in the back seat waits to be let it. By Sunday night, buses full may be arriving. Today, though, is a day to go through the motions.[rssbreak]
