In a massive crackdown, police in Canada began arresting demonstrators and towing away vehicles Friday in the besieged capital of Ottawa.
As the operation progressed, a stream of trucks soon began leaving the city Centre, raising hopes for an end to the three-week protest against COVID-19 restrictions.
The crackdown on the self-styled Freedom Convoy began in the morning, when hundreds of police, some in riot gear and some carrying automatic weapons, descended into the protest zone.
They led demonstrators away in handcuffs through the snowy streets as holdout truckers blared their horns.
Tow truck operators — wearing neon-green ski masks, with their companies’ decals taped over on their trucks to conceal their identities — arrived under police escort.
They started removing the hundreds of big rigs, campers and other vehicles parked shoulder to shoulder near Parliament.
Police smashed through the door of at least one RV camper before hauling it away.
Scuffles broke out in places, and police repeatedly went nose-to-nose with the protesters and pushed the crowd back amid cries of “Freedom!” and the singing of the national anthem, “O Canada.”
Many protesters stood their ground as the crackdown unfolded.
“Freedom was never free,” said trucker Kevin Homaund, of Montreal. “So what if they put the handcuffs on us and they put us in jail?”
But a steady procession of trucks began leaving Parliament Hill in the afternoon as lines of officers pushed through the streets.
“There are indications we are now starting to see progress,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said.
Hours into the show of force, authorities said 21 people had been arrested and roughly two dozen vehicles had been towed, including all of those blocking one of city’s major streets.
There was no immediate word of any injuries in one of the biggest police enforcement actions in Canada’s history, with officers drawn from around the country.
The capital and its paralyzed streets represented the movement’s last stronghold after weeks of demonstrations and blockades that shut down border crossings into the U.S. and created one of the most serious tests yet for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
They also shook Canada’s reputation for civility, with some foes of the unrest blaming America’s influence.
Authorities had hesitated to move against the protests, in part because of the fear of violence. The demonstrations have drawn right-wing extremists and veterans, some of them armed.
