Last week’s publication of the Metropolitan Police report into the summer riots identified community antipathy towards the police as a cause as well police failure to be able to confront large numbers of people who were willing to fight back rather than pushed around in the style that has been perfected at years of aggressive policing of football fans and political demonstrators.
The fact that it comes as a surprise to the police that they can’t control large numbers of people who are willing to fight them is a surprise in itself. After all, the tactic of kettling is dependent upon the passivity of the majority of the crowd while the police aggressively push against them. It uses massive force to deal with small disturbance’s and to intimidate other people so much that they are not willing to join in. it’s obvious failures have been highlighted on numerous occasions. In 2008 Glasgow Rangers fans showed Manchester police that if the majority of a crowd fights, rather than accepts being intimidated and attacked then the police are fucked and get a kicking. There is a reason why kettling is not used as a viable tactic in the occupied north of Ireland where communitys regularly fight back against the police.
Police say they are learning from experience and as an attempt to reinstall credibility boast about new more aggressive tactics in the future. The talk about water cannon and plastic bullets is on the one hand the attempt of a bully to reassert his status. On the other hand it is a necessary new tactic marking police attempting to keep up with a possible new level of confrontation that shows their weakness and what happens when the community does not consent to their style of policing.
However, one of the aspects that are finally being talked about is the role of the police and their treatment of communitys in causing disorder. It has widely been glossed over by politicians eager to scapegoat gang culture and police talking about how only criminal minority took part in the rioting. All this is partly to gloss over the class nature of the uprising and the fact that mass looting simply follows the logic of a society which defines people as individuals by consumer goods.
The Guardian and London School of Economics report ‘Reading the Riots’ is based upon interviews with 270 rioters. With this it clearly supports the political nature of the factors that caused the riots. Part of this is the attitude of the police.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/dec/05/riots-revenge-against-police
The police are regularly described as being like a gang. The biggest gang around, attacking and preying off the community. People who have been arrested for nothing, harassed for simply walking down the street and in some cases fitted up finally had a chance to take on the police.
The style of policing has a number of names. Zero Tolerance is one of the most popular and wins favour with politicians keen to satisfy the middle class minority and community ‘leaders’ who vote and help keep them in power. The latest name is ‘Total Policing’ spewed out by would be hard man Hogan-Howe. It basically means the same and works with the same ethos as kettling. While kettling’s effects are very visible and obvious. After all if you spend four hours in a kettle instead of being able to go to a football match, you know whats happened.
But the zero tolerance policing of communitys has meant by design, not by accident that the police act as an intimidatory bunch of thugs or a gang. They give an air of violence that makes people who are not violent afraid to attack, while physically attacking anyone who is not compliant. Thugs in groups drive round in the van looking for victims to attack. The TSG are a good example. They then intimidate and assert dominance using and abusing power, such as bail conditions, home raids, court appearances etc. to effect the lives of those they are attacking. The aim is not stop crime or fight anti-social behaviour, but to assert dominance and to rule by fear.
When people fought the police and identified them as the largest gang around, this was the reason why. It was about reclaiming and making the police pay for the climate of fear they attempt to assert on communitys. This climate of fear, this policy of control by a government who have no interest in the well-being of anyone not rich was a cause of the summer riots and the riots should be seen, despite their many flaws, as a rebellion against this control.
Sussex Calling! 