At the request of the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police, the City of Chicago has purchased over $190,000 in state-of-the-art helmet shields in anticipation of protests related to the combined summit schedules of G-8 and NATO. The only other time the summits have met simultaneously was in London in 1977.
Police are concerned with officers being hit with bags of urine, feces, other toxic substances, Molotov cocktails, and return throws of tear gas canisters, etc.
The Chicago Fraternal Order of Police is blaming the City of Chicago for problems related to last minute planning. The FOP serves a community of over 17,000 police officers. On the street, at least some police are concerned about having fire-resistant uniforms and adequate numbers of gas masks and helmets with face masks. Some believe European police handling riots are better-equipped.
The G-8 Summit is scheduled for May 19-20, 2012.
The NATO Summit is scheduled for May 15-22, 2012.
The G-20 Summit is scheduled for June 2012 in Los Cabos, Mexico.
In 1999 thousands of activists converged in Seattle, Washington to protest the WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999.
Protester offers some insight into what motivates the upcoming protests planned for the G-8 and NATO summits — “Banksters and Warmongers.”
Gay Liberation Network and protest organizer Andy Thayer: “We’re going to have an assemblage of the biggest ‘banksters’ and warmongers on the planet right here in Chicago in May this year … Thayer also criticizes the United States for not having free higher education, no free health care, an no guaranteed housing.”
Thayer in Arlington Heights in August 2010 criticized Arlington Heights as “not the exactly the most liberally-minded town” projecting his opinion of the Village of Arlington Heights based upon a seminar that was held at Christian Liberty Academy.