G20 Protesters Accounts vs Journalists Accounts

On the other hand, if the non-violent, ordinary people who want to exercise their right to demonstrate (which ISN'T an illegal act) stop going for fear of being caught up in violence, then the small number of career protesters who want to turn everything into a pitched battle with the police have won.

It's a shame that the media coverage always focusses on the few violent events rather than the majority of people who have put themselves out to be there to try to make a point in a peaceful way.

I had hoped the police tactics would have been slightly more sophisticated this year after the two previous failures of their coralling methods, but sadly no.

They know that containing that many people in such a small area without access to water, toilet facilities or basic medical assistance is only going to exacerbate the situation, and then look all pretendy shocked when it does kick off.

From what I've seen / read, the journos are pretty divided on the subject - not least they guy who got bludgeoned by the cops depite having a camera in one hand and a press pass in the other. I bet he posed a real threat.

Sad days for all concerned.

As an actual observer of the events outside of my building next door to the Bank of England, the police were outstanding. You really had to be here to realise how nasty the mood was turning and at no time did I see the police antagonising anyone, but plenty of protesters were antagonising them.

As for depriving them of toilet facilities, they were actually using the fronts of offices as their toilet facilities so the more that were kept away the better.

Think you may have missed the point there.

And I hope you aren't suggesting that people should be "kept away", denying them their legal right to protest.

I meant kept away from using the doorway of my office as a toilet.

I have no problems with people holding a protest. However, a protest that is intent on stopping people earning a living and doing a decent days work was the aim here. Even the peaceful protesters must have realised there was a huge chance that things would turn nasty. Either that or they are extremely naive.

I don't think anybody was being naive. The trouble was caused by a very small minority of protesters, with a disproportionate police presence. We just don't do riots in Britain.

When you look at Greece 2008 - widespread looting and arson, or France 2005 - thousands of cars set on fire, hundreds arrested, the few smashed windows and odd daubs of grafitti the city suffered pale into insignificance.

Couldn't have put it better.

A protest should be someone stating their views/opinion - a verbal thing not a physical thing - not people knowingly and deliberately preventing other people from going about their legal business.

I'd put the rights of Fred&Ginger to go to work without being caused fear, alarm or distress, above the rights of someone who is stopping her from doing that.

Freedom of speech = good. Freedom to disrupt = not good.

Of course. There's no arguing with that, which is why it is right that the police should make every effort to identify and detain those causing "fear alarm and distress". However, treating the other 99% of peaceful protesters as potential criminals is excessive, and goes against your own views on free speech.

Even th epolice advisors acknowledge that they're as much a part of the problem . . .

Peter Power, a former Scotland Yard security specialist who works for a consultancy, said: "The disruption is not just the event itself. It is almost certain that most of the disruption will be caused by the prevention."

Fimble, people have rights of public assembly. Simply saying that you protest is always going to be less effective than doing so in public with others who support the same cause, both in terms of making a point to the government and raising public awareness of the issues. The idea that that right should be done away with to avoid inconveniencing people going to work is a bit scary really.

Noone is defending violence and aggression.

I also know plenty of City workers who were all for the protests (both in terms of supporting people's right to protest peacefully and agreeing with the arguments), depsite the fact they were personally inconvenienced.

What would you have the police do PP? it strikes me that theyre damned if they do and damned if they don't.

edited to add that i have absolutely no sympathy at all for the "pregnant women had no toilet facilities etc" argument. Everyone knew from past events what was likely to happen in terms of the corralling, why the fuck would you put yourself in that situation if you were pregnant?

One of my big gripes is why, if the protesters are there for a 'peaceful legal demonstration' do they wear balaclavas/hoods and scarves etc? They instantly add to the sinister atmosphere.

Why?

From the BT thread on the same vein yesterday - The workers in the city have been amongst the most affected by this crisis so far. The problem actually begun because so many 'working class'* people have overstretched themselves and then defaulted in huge numbers, do those people deserve verbal attacks?

To say it's the banks fault for lending them money could be a fair argument, there has been some terrible lending and verification of information provided, except those protesting would argue freedom of choice to live their lives as they wish without restriction.

*To avoid causing people to splutter I use this term as it has been 'claimed' by the protesters on Saturday.

Also, it was estimated that there were 5000 protesters, 400 supposedly stormed the RBS branch, 8% of protesters involved in an illegal and violent act isn't that small a minority....

Well, given that they knew long in advance exactly where people were likely to congregate, I'd have made sure that there were adequate portable toilet facilities, drinking water, Red cross / St John's ambulance volunteers on hand. I'd also have allowed people to disperse more rapidly, using CCTV and mobile police camera units to identify trouble hot-spots and act in a more targetted fashion.

They were a tiny minority and probably weren't there for the peaceful protest. By dressing the way they did, police were able to identify and more closely monitor them for any trouble. I'm having real trouble viewing people who wished to protest about valid global issues as "sinister".

I totally agree that a few eejits ruined for the majority of peaceful protestors. More4 news showed clearly that any violence was soon pounced upon by other protestors who did not want any sort of violence associated with their cause.

As I said to my husband, I bet if you put the small minority of troublemakers in a room and asked them what exactly they were protesting against, I bet 99% of them couldn't tell you. They're the ones that are just anti-establishment and will jump on the closest bandwagon to have a ruck with the police.

That said, the police procedure of ring fencing protestors isn't a new one. It's tried and tested and far more peaceful than the baton-happy 80's. So whether the protestors were peaceful or not, they should have expected to be penned in like that, from experience. So any one taking children or who were pregnant were irresponsible to put them in that inevitable postion. Maybe that's not right in an ideal world but any numpty could have seen that police tactic coming.

They can't do right for doing wrong, can they? The police I mean.

No one deserves to be verbally abused for doing their job, nor should they be made to feel scared about going to work. My brother had to be evacuated yesterday because his building was under 'imminent threat', he works for RBS but is in IT. They had to be escorted out of their building and were jeered at, called some choice names and generally intimidated, that's not peaceful protest, why should he have to put up with that? Didn't 400 people storm and wreck and RBS branch, whilst hundreds of others cheered them on?

People should absolutely be able to have a peaceful protest, but yesterday was never going to be that, so what were the police to do?

As for pregnant women attending and taking children and babies along, I can only assume they're a bit stupid. The world and his wife knew that yesterday's protests were going to be anything but peaceful.

I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure there isn't room in that branch of RBS for 400 people. ?

P&P sorry but I'm really surprised by you saying that. If they were to provide porta loos you can bet your last pound that those intent on violence would have turned them over quicker than a man pee in a door way. Also, if they were to bring in St John ambulance etc then they would have been exposing people unnecessarily to the violence.

By allowing people to disperse quicker they could well have just spread the problem and it would have made it more difficult for the police to reach the trouble spots.

How would you have policed the situation then?

If you have a group of people and you know there is a criminal within that group, how can you justify letting them all go? Surely detaining/containing them while you review the evidence/ footage is necessary so that if you need to make arrests, you can?

Portaloos and St John's Ambulance? Yes, I bet St John's workers were queing up to volunteer for that job ?

I'm not sure if you're deliberately playing devil's avacado P&aP, or whether you are being really naive?

Sorry - crossed posts.

But how would you have dealt with those trouble makers who would be troublemakers regardless of portaloos and volunteer medics?

from what i understand about crowd control (which isnt much admittedly) is that the most appropriate way to deal with potential flashpoints is to contain the people in one area, and then disperse them from different points so groups end up going in different directions to diffuse the potential threat.

Provide portable toilets? wtf? if you go on a protest which you are 95% sure is going to have an element of anarchy to it, surely you are prepared for the fact that you may be contained in one area, or you just dont go. if it was a protest MARCH then the people should on the move, which isnt what happened. the tv showed a large crowd outside rbs, with a number trying to break in (successfully). if it was me in charge i d have put water canons on the bastards without hesitation, they were causing criminal damage and rioting. we as a country are far too wet about these things i think, the approach is too softly softly. i m sure you ll disagree on that one though ?

i m sure cctv was used extensively, else how would the police be coordinated?

i agree with you though about red cross etc.

Did they not have ambulances etc on hand? I'm really surprised by that. Whenever I've been on big protests there have been ambulances parked nearby in side streets ready to be called in (often next to a bus full of police). I don't think it should be St John's ambulances though.

I think the police did a reasonable job. I'm not sure there is a perfect way to police protests tbh- it's all a question of weighing risks and whatever decisions are taken will always seem either heavy-handed or too lax with hindsight. My experience of the police at protests is that the vast majority are charming and just keen to ensure that things stay peaceful (just like the vast majority of protesters)

when i worked in the city i used that branch of rbs, and there is easily room for hundreds of people in it.

I'm not sure whether that's serious or not, but just in case.

"A hell of a lot more easily than I can justify taking action against all of them"

They did, sadly they also got attacked last night when trying to help a demonstrator who collapsed and later died.

I think it's nigh on impossible to keep everyone happy in these circumstances. The right to protest is vital but yesterdays protests were used for so many groups with different agendas the majority of people didn't even know what they were marching about. Situations where you have a lot of people expressing a general unhappiness mixed with pockets of career protesters and those who are happy to incite violence plus the wonderful phenomena that is herd mentality is a very dangerous mix. I wasn't in the city yesterday but know a lot of people who were and by all accounts the mood got extremely ugly and came very close to igniting, I think the police did a very good job in difficult circumstances to allow the protests to continue and not degenerate too far.

Of course its serious. Look at a smaller example - if you were a police officer and a group of say 5 people were behind you. An object strikes you. You turn around and there is this group. Do you make them all stay there while waiting for the CCTV operator to let you know which one (if any) threw the object? Or do you say, -well I don't know which of you threw this so you can all leave.

IMO the 'problem' lies in several generations of poorly conceived public-order legislation which denies the right to effective peaceful protest. It puts Plod in an untenable situation and encourages those who feel strongly enough about a cause to consider violence either as a means of making a point or as a reaction to what they see as 'unfair' treatment by the police, who are only upholding the law. Laws which many CC's advised successive Goverments were counter productive and near unworkable.

Further to my slightly tongue in cheek mention of water canons, does anyone see a problem with using water canons to disperse rioters?

Absolutely none, in general. The problem with them, and gas in British law is the non-discriminatory way in which they operate. Which, ironically has several mainland constabularies having access to baton rounds for riot situations (although they've yet to be used outside NI) which are borderline lethal weapons.