Prime Minister Justin Trudeau leaves a small business after stopping to meet the people inside, in Surrey, B.C., on Tuesday, November 14, 2023. Vancouver police say 100 officers were sent to a restaurant where Trudeau was dining Tuesday night after it was surrounded by protesters. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
Vancouver police say 100 officers were sent to a restaurant where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was dining last night, after it was surrounded by protesters chanting for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.
Police say one man was arrested for assaulting an officer, and another for obstruction, while social media videos showed protesters waving Palestinian flags, shouting slogans and jeering Trudeau outside the restaurant in Vancouver’s Chinatown.
Sgt. Steve Addison says the officers were sent to control the crowd so Trudeau could leave the restaurant just before 10 p.m.
Addison says a 27-year-old man from Coquitlam, B.C., was arrested after an officer was punched in the face and her eyes gouged while she was trying to disperse the crowd.
He says the officer was taken to hospital.
Videos posted earlier in the evening show Trudeau being heckled by protesters inside Vij’s, a restaurant in a different part of the city.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 15, 2023.
