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Reclaim Brixton movement - meetings and April 25th protest planned

I think those choons were coming from the bicycle soundsystem which was smashed to pieces by the riot polis. The owner was very upset. :(
 
It was certainly dragged off to the police station. I think that was what finished the party and the Police knew it.
 
Great to see so many urbz out and about today. I enjoyed holding hands with other customers at the Arches. Lots of passers by where interested in why and stayed to listen. I hope it makes Network rail take notice.

Lovely atmosphere in Windrush square, It was really intersesting talking to many people there. I had to go home before anything kicked off.


Twattor said:
I just get a bit sad about people smashing things up for the sake of it. Some of us go to a bit of trouble to build things and are disheartened by cunts that just lik

Hardly a lump of Berlin Wall
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I have mixed feeling about destruction. I don't like to see vandalism. I favoured passive resistence and non violent action in my youth.

Unfortunately the media usually ignore peaceful protests. Many social changes began with a riot. The suffragettes smashed a lot of windows. I'm not surprised that some glass got broken, but glad the protesters only hit specific targets though.
 
What would be good is if the Brixton buzz wrote a small individual article about all the different groups who turned up and what their cause is. I do think this would offer inspiration to those looking to get involved in causes local to them. I'd like to add my voice to those dealing with private renting issues (more fucking noise needs to be made about this!!)
 
David Clapson said:
The police station incident is on youtube. Rather shocking viewing.
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Sorry I'm failing to see what's so shocking in there? Just the usual police behaviour in these types of situations, didn't see anything out of the ordinary? We all know the police don't exist to protect the ordinary people anymore. They exist to protect money and property (and themselves)
 
and what have the police got to with rising rents and landlords being cunts?

"protect property, init."
 
story said:
As I was walking towards Windrush Square I came upon a march (about 200 people, but I'm not good at counting crowds) travelling down Atlantic Road with placards and loudspeakers etc. so I joined them. Rumour was that they were marching on the police station. Buses and cars were surrounded by the milling crowd. Some of the car people looked annoyed but the bus driver opened his window to high-five everyone who passed by, and the passengers were on their feet and clapping and cheering as we passed.

We stopped outside Stella's hairdresser, where they were holding a banner saying Stella: hair to stay! and there was a cheerful and rowdy few minutes of chanting "Stella! Stella!" and then we were off again, round the corner at M&S. Traffic had to stop for us, including a police van with sirens on. The march offered loud and heartfelt anti-copper chants as it passed the cops. Cops were silent and grim. The march arrived at the police station and broken into two factions. One stopped in the street, holding up traffic, and gave chants and small speeches, mostly about racist cops and police oppression. There were lots of "Hands up! Don't shoot!" 's going on. The other section, about 50 or so, went up the steps of the police station. I stood on the wall to watch. The chant now was "Who killed Mark Duggan? You killed Mark Duggan!" Other names were Ricky Bishop, Sean Rigg, Wayne Douglas, Harry Stanley, etc..... So many, too many....

All the windows on the front of the station were quickly shut fast, as if a storm was approaching. I couldn't see what was happening inside the lobby, but I saw some scuffling at the door, and people started beating on the glass doors. It looked to me as if the police were trying to shut the doors. The shouting changed to cries of protest and I saw that the shutters were being brought down, it looked as if people were being caught in the doors and under the shutter.

Suddenly the protestors surged back away from the doors and a crowd of cops came barrelling out, led by a big burly cop spraying pepper spray at close quarters. One woman was caught right in the face. I later saw her being tended to by friends, washing her face with milk. About four cops baton charged the crowd and beat several protestors with truncheons, pushing them backwards down the stairs while holding their upper arms. I saw one man fall. I'd be surprised if he doesn't sustain some pretty bad bruises. There was also plenty of heavy shoving by the police. They took their stand at the foot of the stairs.

The protest retreated to the perimeter wall and set up anti-cop chanting. Soon after, the riot cops turned up and joined the police cordon. They looked to me as if they'd just had a mainline hit of testosterone, all bulging neck veins wooden-foot walking. They joind the Brixton cops to make a tight cordon all around the outside of the police station.

One young protester, maybe still in her teens, with a skateboard, stood on the wall and berated the cops with eloquence and wit.

Another young woman chided the police about deaths of asylum seekers in custody.

Another came forward and asked the police "Who do you serve?" and the crowd picked this up very fast. It triggered several rounds of loud and angry chanting at the police that included "Whose streets? Our streets? Who pays you? We pay you! Whose community? Our community!" and plenty more.

A woman took the megaphone and asked for calm; she also said that the police are supposed to defend and protect the community, but were here standing against the community, that there were only white faces in the police line, and that it was no wonder that people feel angry at the police when they demonstrate such disrespect for black lives.

A man standing next to me asked if I thought it could go off. I said no, I didn't think so. However, earlier I did feel as if it could. The baton charge and the shoving of people who were already retreating seemed pretty OTT to me, especially as they were pushing people who were already dealing with a face full of pepper spray backwards down the stairs. If someone had been hurt or injured, it could have gone off. If the riot dogs had turned up about three minutes earlier and waded in to the crowd, it could have gone off.

I stayed a little longer and then left to join the party in Windrush Square. As I walked up Brixton Road loads of legal observers passed me going towards the police station. There had been one or two there, handing out bust cards and taking notes.

Was anyone else there at the station?
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yes
 
Greebo said:
Brixton Buzz has covered several of those groups, this year and before.
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Yes - like Cressingham and the arches - but other groups came down. like Central Hill people and Knights Walk. A separate article on the people facing huge disruption to their lives and the likeliness to be forced away from their community would be useful.
 
boohoo said:
Yes - like Cressingham and the arches - but other groups came down. like Central Hill people and Knights Walk. A separate article on the people facing huge disruption to their lives and the likeliness to be forced away from their community would be useful.
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AFAIK they've been covered too, but you've probably not seen as much because their threat of regeneration etc began a lot more recently. Keeping the article readably short while including enough detail to do each of several groups any justice at all would be a problem.
 
Greebo said:
AFAIK they've been covered too, but you've probably not seen as much because their threat of regeneration etc began a lot more recently. Keeping the article readably short while including enough detail to do each of several groups any justice at all would be a problem.
Click to expand...

But as separate estates or just as part of the same issue facing Cressingham? Central Hill and Knights Walk don't have local blogs that have big followings so separate stories would be good.
 
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