Toronto police Chief Mark Saunders has called on anyone with video evidence of a riot at Yonge-Dundas Square during Nuit Blanche to turn it over to police.

“We saw behaviour that was dangerous,” Saunders told a press conference at police headquarters on Wednesday. “We saw behaviour that was reckless. Behaviour that could have caused extremely serious injuries.”

Saunders said it was lucky that no member of the public was badly injured in the melee.

He said he is concerned that some people seemed to regard the violence against police as some sort of performance event.

“It must be socially unacceptable,” Saunders said.

One police officer suffered a broken bone and two police helmets were cracked in the violence.

Police confiscated a metal baton, a knife and an imitation gun, he said.

Some of the people at the core of the violence appeared to be under the influence of drugs and alcohol, he said.

The crowd, which outnumbered police, hurled debris and insults at officers and advanced on officers.

One video shows an officer hit in the head with what appears to be a bottle.

He said he couldn’t say if the violence was a result of the art festival Nuit Blanche, which began at dusk Saturday and continued through dawn Sunday.

The chief deflected questions about potential violence related to the Blue Jays playoff run, which begins on Thursday.

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“We have hosted many large scale events,” Saunders said. “We have hosted World Series. It’s a sporting event. It’s not a security event.”

Also Saturday night and early Sunday morning, police were called to fights at Queen and Dundas subway stations, including one in which a person was pushed onto the tracks.

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