:

Thomas I. Likness

Eagle News Service

(Eagle News) — Three organizers of the Freedom Convoy of truckers in the Canadian capital of Ottawa protesting COVID-19 restrictions are among more than the 100 people who have been arrested by police.

Two of the organizers, Tamara Lich and Chris Barber, were taken into custody Thursday night. Pat King was arrested Friday morning.

Hundreds of police are in the protest area on Parliament Hill.

Throughout the day, police managed to convince some truckers to leave. They ended up towing 21 vehicles.

As police slowly advanced through the crowd, arrests continued when demonstrators refused to leave after repeated warnings.

As the day wore on many protesters got bolder, some of them attacking police.

“Protesters are assaulting officers, have attempted to remove officer’s weapons. All means of de-escalation have been used to move forward in our goal of returning Ottawa to it’s normalcy,” The Ottawa Police Service said late Thursday on Twitter.

Police on horses were used to control the crowd.

“As this was happening a bicycle was thrown at the feet of one of the horses in an attempt to injure it. One person was arrested for intentionally harming a police service animal,” police tweeted.

Interim Police Chief Steve Bell told a news conference police activity will continue throughout the night.

“We will run this operation 24 hours a day until the residents and community have their entire city back,” he said.

Bell adds there are still children in the demonstration area.

He says so far, the Children’s Aid Society of Ottawa has not been called in to remove them.

“But we implore parents who have kids in there to get kids out of there. They do not need to be in the middle of this. It’s not a safe place for them,” Bell said.
(Eagle News Service)