London Student protests - Wed 8th Dec+ Thurs 9th

[DotCommunist]

having an offensive haircut in public?

attempted relevancy.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

You're out of your depth here, d-b. It is plain to see that you have no idea what you're talking about. I'd suggest leaving the thread, tbh.

 

[revlon]

Factually that is uncontroversial. Your point is?

this

No. Containment has been a standard part of public order policing since forever. It was absolutely routine at the time of major football related disorder in the 80s.

Just because you have now invented a "cool" new name for it doesn't mean it's anything new.

no, 'kettling' a very specific logistical operation. Containment is containment, a cordon is a cordon, kettling requires the application of a pre-planned strategy of containment involving police cordons, resulting in a mass of peole being held unlawfully and against their will in an ever tighter pen for a long period of time before being released individually to be photographed and have their details taken.

All this was explained in the judical review of the mayday 2001 kettle by the various gold and silver commanders.

Desk jockeys may be able to deal with drunken assaults and minor staurday night skirmishes but don't pretend you know the workings of your superiors.

 

[detective-boy]

mayday 2001 kettle!!!

No. The tactic was used by the police before any large scale violence ... but no violence (using it's normal meaning in context - if you mean the use of (trivial) degrees of force such as pushing and shoving then I would say, yes the police used that ... but I am sure that there had also been some such pushing and shoving on the day before the containment was used (i.e. by whichever definition you are using the police did not use violence first but if you are using the two definitions to mean they used force before serious violence took place then, yes, you are right ... as the Court acknowledged they are entitled to do (so long as they can justify it).

 

[sherpa]

d-b speaks like someone with no first-hand experience at all of what he is talking about, tbh. He doesn't understand the police 'tactics' that he is defending.

He's a theorist.

 

[detective-boy]

EDO Brighton May 2009 & October 2010.

Link to a factual account of those as I do not know of them in any detail.

 

[detective-boy]

The clearest one I can think of would come from a while ago and the Criminal Justice Act march at which I was right at the front. This was a very 'hippy' march. We were basically ensconced in the street dancing to a rather good sound system. I went to have a piss in a side street to find hundreds of riot police tooling up there. A few minutes later, the police had clearly decided that it was time for us to move, and charged us on horseback. There were kids there. It's very very lucky that they did not kill anyone. Agents provocateurs suddenly appeared behind us ordering us to 'hold our ground'. This was the time before they'd perfected the kettle – I have no doubt that these masked men were coppers. It was a calculated assault on a group of entirely peaceful protesters.

And there was no chance of any proper violence happening anywhere else on the protest?

If the only issue was that you were causing obstruction then I would agree that the use of a mounted police charge (as opposed to a steady, methodical approach accompnaied by foot duty officers) would be a use of violence prior to any violence being used.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

No. The tactic was used by the police before any large scale violence ... but no violence (using it's normal meaning in context - if you mean the use of (trivial) degrees of force such as pushing and shoving then I would say, yes the police used that ... but I am sure that there had also been some such pushing and shoving on the day before the containment was used (i.e. by whichever definition you are using the police did not use violence first but if you are using the two definitions to mean they used force before serious violence took place then, yes, you are right ... as the Court acknowledged they are entitled to do (so long as they can justify it).

If you're serious about understanding this, I suggest you should go on a demonstration and be kettled. It may open your eyes to certain things.

 

[detective-boy]

However, given your clearly stated predisposition re. the infalability of the police, you won't be able to accept any of them as genuine examples; unfourtunately for you, in doing so you'll undermine your own objective...so keep up the good work.

If you actually provide some evidence of what actually happened (i.e. some reports, details of some court case or something) then we can look at it. It is fuckwitted to simply expect me to accept your statement of a time and place any more than it is for you to accept my personal experience.

 

[detective-boy]

no, they are an integral part of the process - maintaining the police cordons and subduing the crowd. It's a planned strategy from the start.

No, it isn't.

When we get gold and silver's notes and briefings of the day (and we will) it will become all too apparent.

No, you won't - there will be nothing there which supports your claims. Because it simply does not happen.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

And there was no chance of any proper violence happening anywhere else on the protest?

You miss the point that the protest had already been going on for hours. Yet the riot police only tooled up there – a few minutes before kicking off the aggro. The violence was instigated by the police in a planned fashion. As I said before, it was very fortunate that nobody was killed.

 

[detective-boy]

You have a short memory.

Nothing to do with memory. But equally nothing to do with containment ...

 

[littlebabyjesus]

If you actually provide some evidence of what actually happened (i.e. some reports, details of some court case or something) then we can look at it. It is fuckwitted to simply expect me to accept your statement of a time and place any more than it is for you to accept my personal experience.

Sometimes you have to accept it. By their very nature, such things are not reported and certainly never get anywhere near a court. People are giving you honest accounts of their experiences here. You ought to start taking them seriously.

 

[sherpa]

No. The tactic was used by the police before any large scale violence ... but no violence (using it's normal meaning in context - if you mean the use of (trivial) degrees of force such as pushing and shoving then I would say, yes the police used that ... but I am sure that there had also been some such pushing and shoving on the day before the containment was used (i.e. by whichever definition you are using the police did not use violence first but if you are using the two definitions to mean they used force before serious violence took place then, yes, you are right ... as the Court acknowledged they are entitled to do (so long as they can justify it).

Shame it was 'plain English' day on Friday eh?

I was at the Mayday demonstration in 2001, and the police used aggressive, oppressive and violent tactics to try and contain and control. They were a fucking disgrace then, and they're a fucking disgrace now.

 

[detective-boy]

Battle of the beanfield at stonehenge was totally unprovoked violence entirely caused by police.

I would agree that that was an example of excessive, premature violence by police not justified by any significant prior use of violence (though as I recall the police did report some level of violent resistance to their stopping the convoy).

Orgreave was a situation where pushing and shoving was escalated into full on battle by the use of round shield riot police and horse charges.

Orgreave I would disagree - the violence started with the protestors attacking / resisting / trying to break police lines and steadily escalated from there.

 

[detective-boy]

Not true. Crowds need to be broken up so that the police can surround them. This can only be done through charges.

Sometimes, not always by any means.

And the breaking up of a crowd can be, and often is, done using tactics other than a mounted police charge in any event.

 

[gunneradt]

I would agree that that was an example of excessive, premature violence by police not justified by any significant prior use of violence (though as I recall the police did report some level of violent resistance to their stopping the convoy).


Orgreave I would disagree - the violence started with the protestors attacking / resisting / trying to break police lines and steadily escalated from there.

I'd use water to disperse the crowd - most could do with a wash anyway I suspect. Being so poor they probably cant afford soap.

 

[dylans]

If you actually provide some evidence of what actually happened (i.e. some reports, details of some court case or something) then we can look at it. It is fuckwitted to simply expect me to accept your statement of a time and place any more than it is for you to accept my personal experience.

I have just given you to examples, stonehenge and Orgreave where police violence is well recorded and accepted by the courts (in both cases when substantial compensation payouts were given) . You have chosen to ignore them.

An ITN reporter at stonehenge reported it thus

What I have seen in the last thirty minutes here in this field has been some of the most brutal police treatment of people that I've witnessed in my entire career as a journalist. The number of people who have been hit by policemen, who have been clubbed whilst holding babies in their arms in coaches around this field, is yet to be counted. There must surely be an inquiry after what has happened today.

 

[editor]

Orgreave I would disagree - the violence started with the protestors attacking / resisting / trying to break police lines and steadily escalated from there.

I'd say it started when the police - some on horseback - tried to physically force people into places where they didn't want to go.

I'm not sure if defending yourself against a horse being pushed in your face is what I'd call "resisting" myself.

 

[editor]

I'd use water to dispers the crowd - most could do with a wash anyway I suspect. Being so poor they probably cant afford soap.

Have you any idea how stupid that pathetically ignorant comment makes you sound?

The vast majority of the crowd were anything but a load of old unwashed crusties, you clueless cretin.

 

[detective-boy]

What are the arguments against water cannons from the perspective of Police and protesters?

From the police: practical (they take ages to fill and minutes to empty); tactical (they are not particularly maneouvrable, and useless in confined streets); PR (they look way more aggressive than they are, hence they are perceived as an escalation especially as they have never been used before); arbitrary (they are more likely to impact individuals not involved than most other tactics)

 

[detective-boy]

But you claim that they never instigate violence; are you now saying that sometimes they do?

If you actually read my fucking posts you'd know exactly what I'm saying.

 

[editor]

This is the kind of thing that the cops are capable of:

Police officers 'tried to stop hospital staff treating injured protester'
Mother of injured student Alfie Meadows said that her son's life could have been put at risk by the journey to another hospital

Police have been accused of attempting to prevent seriously injured protesters being treated at the same hospital as officers hurt during last week's tuition fees demonstration, igniting claims that one student's life could have been put at risk.

The mother of 20-year-old Alfie Meadows, who required brain surgery after allegedly being hit by a police truncheon, claimed that when her son was taken to Chelsea and Westminster hospital officers objected to him being treated there.

Susan Matthews, 55, said that only the intervention of an ambulance worker allowed her son to receive urgent medical treatment for the stroke he suffered after receiving his injury. "If he hadn't, Alfie would have been transferred and he could have died," she said.

After allegedly being hit by police, the philosophy student fell unconscious and later sustained bleeding on the brain.

His mother added: "The ambulance man took us to Chelsea and Westminster hospital. That [hospital] had been given over to police injuries and there was a standoff in the corridor. Alfie was obviously a protester and the police didn't want him there, but the ambulance man insisted that he stayed."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/dec/12/police-injured-protester-hospital

Respect to the ambulance man.

*apols if it's already been posted

 

[detective-boy]

In fact, I shall stop engaging – it's highjacking the thread, and d-b's arguments are laughable.

Which, roughly translated, means "Actually he has a point but I can't bring myself to acknowledge it ... "

 

[detective-boy]

well you'd think that wouldn't you, but that smellie twat and the bastards who killed ian tomlinson were highly experienced public order cops - it seems to be a phenomena within the tsg that they turn up hyped up and looking for a ruck - strangely the most highly trained public order specialists in the met

The flip side of that is the fact that those intent on having a fight, and enjoying it (and thus most resistant to the training) are attracted to such units. I would suggest that they are an example of overly aggressive individuals failing to be properly supervised, etc. rather than under-trained individuals losing control.

 

[sherpa]

Link to a factual account of those as I do not know of them in any detail.

Whose facts? The facts put forward by Sussex police, or the facts put forward by people who were demonstrating?

The police persist with willful obfuscation when it comes to demonstrations, and demonstrators, showing themselves, as individuals, and as an organisation, to be bereft of integrity, time after time. And they get away with it, time after time.

 

[dylans]

I would agree that that was an example of excessive, premature violence by police not justified by any significant prior use of violence (though as I recall the police did report some level of violent resistance to their stopping the convoy).


Orgreave I would disagree - the violence started with the protestors attacking / resisting / trying to break police lines and steadily escalated from there.

Then you disagree with the courts who dismissed all charges against the miners (some of whom were charged with riot) and handed out substantial compensation payouts. ALL independent research into Orgreave lay the blame for the violence on the unprovoked attacks of the police.

As for stonehenge, to describe the police violence as excessive is an epic understatement. It was nothing short of a police riot. I remember it well. Crazed out of control cops beating the living daylights out of women holding babies in their arms. breaking the windows every every single vehicle despite people screaming "there are babies in here" two or more police beating people lying handcuffed on the ground. Dragging women through broken windows by their hair. It was a disgrace.

And no prizes for guessing how many police were prosecuted

 

[sherpa]

Which, roughly translated, means "Actually he has a point but I can't bring myself to acknowledge it ... "

In your head maybe. By christ you're arrogant.

 

[smokedout]

From the police: practical (they take ages to fill and minutes to empty); tactical (they are not particularly maneouvrable, and useless in confined streets); PR (they look way more aggressive than they are, hence they are perceived as an escalation especially as they have never been used before); arbitrary (they are more likely to impact individuals not involved than most other tactics)

and if combined with kettling potentially fatal in this weather

 

[detective-boy]

Smash EDO Brighton October 2010.

If that was the name of the demo it does rather give away the intention to commit unlawful violence ...