As we're getting close to my mother's place, we are confronted by a police roadblock on the corner of Saint-Amable Street.  I take a photo.

 

Dressed in full combat gear, the policemen stand in a row, forming a wall.  I get closer and ask them if we can pass through to go home.  I point to my mother's apartment building which can be seen a short distance away.  No reaction.   I repeat my question in English.  No reaction.  Following my courteous insistence, I get a negative head sign from one of the policemen.  They have obviously received orders not to communicate with civilians.

 

There are relatively few people around us: a few perfectly quiet demonstrators and some local neighbours.  Nobody's throwing rocks, no one's shouting or provoking in any way.  No threat seems to be imminent.  A few Turnbull Street residents are out on their porches, watching.

 

My friend and I aren't sure what to do.  If we go back, we could get gased again.  We might be caught between several roadblocks.  My mother's building is right there - visible but inaccessible behind the police wall.   Unfortunately, this building is located near a key Perimeter Wall checkpoint (at the intersection of Turnbull and Claire-Fontaine streets), through which long convoys of buses and other vehicles (a water cannon, for instance) access the forbidden zone, a fact we've been able to notice from my mother's windows.   Could the whole area be blocked by the police?

 

We're not the only ones wishing to go through the roadblock and feeling perplexed by the policemen's blank attitude.  Several people are coming up against the same problem.  A woman near us - she looks like a local resident wanting to go home - expresses her opinion in a clear and candid voice: since the police are not allowing us through, we might as well wait right here, near the policemen, until things calm down.  At the corner of René-Lévesque, the situation doesn't seem to be improving: tear gas bombs keep flying.

 

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