Riot police with batons, bullet-proof vests and some with machine guns clashed with masked protesters dressed in black in Vancouver Saturday, the first full day of the Vancouver Winter Games.

Vancouver Police say a group of more than 200 masked protesters have amassed in the downtown core, kicking and vandalizing cars and businesses. Lions Gate Bridge has been shut down in both directions.

Organizer Harsha Walia says there were several hundred protesters gathered in the downtown and witnesses say the windows of the HBC Olympic superstore were smashed.

Alissa Westergard-Thorpe, of the Olympic Resistance Network, disavowed her group from the vandalism and violence, saying that the protest was "a day of autonomous actions, independent groups, with a diversity of tactics around the Olympics.''