G-20 Summit: More Police Than Protestors on London Streets

LONDON, April 2, 2009 — -- British police have formed a ring of steel around London's Docklands as G-20 leaders gather there for a summit to tackle the global economic crisis.

A few hundred protesters at most were gathered around the security cordon, which police set up hundreds of yards from the Excel conference center.

"The police won't let us get us close to the Excel center. We are about half a mile away. We are quite annoyed about that, we object to it," Lindsey German of Stop the War Coalition told ABC News.

Today's protests are much smaller than the demonstrations that drew thousands into the streets Wednesday.

"It is a much more typical crowd today with small groups trying to bring attention to their causes. The barricades and security are enormous," ABC News' Miguel Marquez reports from the scene.

Dominic Casciani, blogging for BBC News, said he'd "seen more people turn out to oppose a Tesco supermarket's planning application. This multi-cause demonstration consists of a bloke dressed as a gorilla, various left-wing groups, a polite Ethiopian group and a smattering of NGOs."

Casciani doubted if these protesters' appeals will reach the ears of the G-20 leaders.

"Let's put it this way: if that famous smoker Barack Obama gets a ciggie break, and if it's up on the roof of Excel, and if he just happens to be looking through some binoculars possibly borrowed from his Secret Service detail, he might just might see a flag half a mile away (subject to the mist)."

Meanwhile across town in London's main financial district a smattering of mostly young protesters gathered to play a giant game of Monopoly. "The question is of course who has got the monopoly? It is fairly obvious the G-20 are the global financial elite," protester Clare Smith, 27 told the Press Association. "Meanwhile the poor are getting poorer."

The police presence was also strong here. Police arrested a couple of people for climbing on statues and potentially damaging public property.

In total 107 arrests have been made in the last two days, the vast majority of which were Wednesday, when some protests turned violent. The most troublesome scene occured when protesters stormed a Royal Bank of Scotland building, smashing in windows and attempting to occupy it. After the building was cleared, riot police on horseback arrived to make sure protesters didn't invade the bank a second time.

Police Tracking Any Potential Troublemakers

Police squads known as Forward Intelligence Teams were out yesterday tracking potential troublemakers. "There has been a return of familiar faces from the protest scene, faces we haven't seen for years. I am not going to name any, but there are individuals and groups we haven't seen for a while," Police commander Simon O'Brien told reporters.

The police issued a statement to ABC News today on their investigation process. "Forward Intelligence Teams have cameras and they are evidence gatherers. They have taken a pragmatic approach because they are aware that they need to get the best evidence available."

"We also have heli-teli footage. We will view the footage and choose when to start knocking on doors and say 'hello.'"

They said "hello" to some of these protesters at around noon London time today. "Officers went to two addresses that police believe are being used as 'squats' by some of those people involved in the violent disorder yesterday," Scotland Yard said in a statement, adding that people there "will be detained on suspicion of violent disorder but released immediately if they are not of interest to police. Officers are at the addresses acting on information about people wanted."