Why no water cannons, tear gas or rubber bullets?

[Lasvegas]

I can't understand given how much many of us pay in tax why the police don't have the manpower or equipment to deal with riots. Their strategy is not working. Surely using water cannons etc would protect life and property. it is not right to sit back and let people be traumatized and loose their home, place of work and possessions.

[thisisyesterday]

theresa may has announced that

"The way we police in Britain is not with water cannon. The way we police in Britain is on the streets and with the communities"

yeh.
i am generally really supportive of the police and think they do an amazing job. but the more i read the more i hear of MASSIVE police presence in central London, and very little where any of the action was.

In places they did a fantastic job last night, but the sceptic in me wonders why more weren't on the streets as soon as this all kicked off.

[thisisyesterday]

i agree with you though btw. a water cannon isn't going to kill anyone (i presume?) and any innocent bystanders who get caught up just simply should not be there... they could warn people that they're turning the cannons on surely to give innocent people a chance to get out of the way as well...

[mrswoodentop]

They don't have any water cannon,the only police force in the UK that has any is Northern Ireland

[Meglet]

Fucking hell. I'm a bleeding heart liberal guardian reader and I'd have got the water cannons out a long time ago.

Can't they do curfews or won't that work in a major city?

[thisisyesterday]

ditto meglet.

we were talking about curfews last night on facebook and i agree that would really, really help.

[Lasvegas]

Theresa may makes me ashamed to be a Tory. All very well her to talk about community policing she has round the clock body guards.

[thisisyesterday]

i think it would work. it would basically be... if you are on the streets you are fair game for police action. end of story.

if people then choose to be out there (innocent or otherwise) then tough fucking luck.

[springboksaplenty]

I am sick of this - water cannon the lot of them. Gawpers shouldn't be there and should piss off home and the little scroats who are just looting will be taught a lesson.

< Grumble Grumble Grumble>

[thisisyesterday]

the day cannot come soon enough IMO, when mumsnet runs the fucking country.
we'd sure as heck do a better job of it.

interesting that the turkish shopkeepers in Dalton managed to scare off looters (so they must have a certain amount of respect when faced with real-life local shopkeepers?), sikhs in one part of London came out to protect their temple...
respect to them for coming out and protecting their homes/businesses/temples

[EdithWeston]

The police were telling the public to clear the streets last night.

It didn't stop a "naicely spoken" woman interviewed by SKY on the corner of Northcote Road after midnight admitting that they'd just left their to come out to see what was going on. Idiocy knows no bounds.

So I'm actually in favour of the Home Secretary's limits at present. There's no way you can effectively warn a whole crowd once it's formed (too noisy, too chaotic) and examples like the above show that people just don't heed police pleas for bystanders to leave (both via the media, and by megaphone on the street).

But it's interesting to see how the often disparaging (or just plain hostile) tone of MN towards the Armed Forces has changed so rapidly.

[noddyholder]

I think they probably feel that once they go down that road they will have to make it the standard policy for unrest and the uk has avoided that so far. Because the unrest is so rapid and widespread the public understandably think that radical action will disperse it all fast and then the police can start taking charge but it doesn.t work like that if nlyit was that simple. Having said that the apologists for this behaviour are generally those who have never had to live amongst it. It reminds me of when my brother was a heroin addict they all used to ptsl at the right on middle class do gooders who believed their sob stories about their backgrounds and would happily hand over £ for food etc when my db and his mates were straight to the nearest dealer. It is ok to say they are marginalised blah blah when you are not in the thick of it but these people are not stupid. They know the extreme liberals will find a wealth of excuses and boy will they use them.