AIBU to think rubber/plastic bullets are not appropriate...

[woollyideas]

...to use against student demonstrators and that they should not 'be available' for police to use at today's planned protests against higher education fee increases?

YABU. The police have merely asked for permission to use them if the situation demands it.

If the protests go peacefully then there will be no need to will there?

Remember even in the riots earlier this year, police did not use the baton rounds even though they had permission to and despite political hints that they should.

Given the recent riots, are we seriously suggesting the police shouldn't plan for every eventuality? Are we suggesting that the police should police this demo given the violence shown in the last demonstration with one arm tied behind their back?

niceguy But the police go about their daily crime-fighting activities without being armed, for the most part. Are we saying unarmed students are more dangerous to them than the armed criminals they deal with on a daily basis?

Again, the police have plenty of tools to deal with violent protesters, they don't need rubber bullets too.

Nowt like policing by consent is there. We've all seen the images of the police togged up in riot gear kettling 18 year olds, it's despicable in a supposedly mature democracy that peaceful protest should be treated this way. I'm sure shooting young people to stop them breaking shop windows and clogging up a couple of tube stations is a measured response.

A small minority of the population commit criminal acts everyday. Does that give the police the right to treat all of us like criminals because statistically, some of us will be?

You can almost guarantee that someone will get seriously hurt if they use the bullets and after a public outcry and a two year investigation some copper will be given a warning. And in the meantime 1000s will be scared off from peaceful protest in case it happens to them. Grrrr.

@Dreaming.

What are your qualifications on police riot tactics and how many demonstrations which may descend into violence have you had to plan? Have you ever been responsible for a group of officers whom you would have to send into a violent situation armed with nothing more than a stick and a large piece of plastic? Are those the "plenty of tools" you think the police should be limited to?

They've asked for baton rounds to be used "...if necessary" and the emphasis is on the "if necessary".

It's much ado about nothing. We have armed police at airports who shoot people "...if necessary". We have police armed with tasers who use them "...if necessary".

It's called contingency planning. You plan for the worst, you hope for the best. It doesn't necessarily mean you will use them!

niceguy2, the police have written to many prominant members of anti cuts groups and student union leaders telling them that rubber bullets will be carried today. It's a highly provocative thing to do. It states before the (legitimate and legal) protest starts that the police already have the intention of using extreme force on them. It's not "if necessary" It's "will be used"

Really? Having been on a fair few demos in my time, I trust the demonstraters rather than the police.

You might call it "provocative", others may call that "fair warning".

My point is this. If you don't trust the police to be professional then you have a more fundamental problem. If you DO trust the police to be professional and act as such then give them the tools they feel they need.

Will mistakes be made? Of course. Police officers are human afterall. But the bottom line is if you don't start hurling bins/fire extinguishers around, throwing stuff at police, spray painting the cenotaph and indulging in a spot of looting then the police have no reason (or choice) to use force.

I cant believe how many people seem to be anti-police.

Maybe I'm very naive but I do honestly believe that the police are generally good; they dont want to go out and kick a student or whatever, they'd far rather be doing whatever they'd be doing normally. But I do think that if they are likely to be in a potentially dangerous situation they should have the defences available to them.

The police arent responsible for govt shafting students over fees but they are still expected to try and keep the streets safe for everyone, not just those who want to trash the place/damage the cenotaph/throw blocks off roofs.

YABU. My DS was at the recent riots in a working capacity so I heard first hand what occurred. Recon they should have the water cannons and all.

I don't think it's anti-police, boschy. It's a healthy and critical position to take over an organisation that has a role in curtailing civil liberties. Some protesters (not students) gave the police some job to do re criminal damages. That is no proportionate respnse to effectively threaten to shoot people.

Thing is, the last student demos did turn violent and destructive, very much so. They haven't said they will use them; they might.

eg1
eg2

In an ideal world, the protests would be peaceful, there wouldn't be disruptive elements who kick off (actually, in a properly ideal there wouldn't be a need for protests such as this, but c'est la vie) but what has happened over the last year in terms of protests is that they do turn violent and the police are repeatedly criticised for not doing enough. Whether or not rubber bullets are the best method, I don't know.

I know Boschy.

Really just what do people expect the police to do? Wave a magic wand? Perhaps stop any riots with a harsh but well timed comedy put down?

Let's see. You are stood with your fellow officers. You have nothing but a stick and a plastic shield. You see someone in the distance lighting a petrol bomb and it looks like he's going to throw it at you. What do those saying they shouldn't have plastic bullets think they should do?

1. Wait until the bomb hits them and pray their protective clothing (which looks provocative) is fireproof.
2. Run at them, with batons out, shields up and beat them up in the hope you get there before he can light the bomb. Otherwise everyone ends up on fire.
3. Cross your fingers (hard with the big gloves on) and hope the petrol bomb explodes before they throw it, thereby injuring the thrower and quite possibly a few innocent bystanders (wait...the police are responsible for their safety too).
4. Disable them with a plastic bullet in the torso.

I know what I'd choose. Our police are often faced with no good choices and are forced to make the least worst decision and only have a split second to make that choice.

It's easy for the armchair critics to say "yeah but..." but I suspect if they were a police officer who has to put down the riot, you'd want more than your trusty warrant card.

But even "fair warning" implies that the police are perfectly happy to use violence. I work where the protests start. From 10am we have had helicopters overhead and you can't move for police. Every other march has had about 10 police vans parked up near my office window. I couldn't count them all this morning. It was hard enough to even get into work this morning. I was asked by 4 different officers in the short walk from the tube to my office why I was on the street. FFS! Can nobody go to work anymore? I've been told of busses of students coming down for the march from other parts of the country who have been stopped by the police, searched, and held for over an hour. Not for any legitimate reason, but long enough to stop them getting here on time to join in the march.

What impression of the police's intentions does this give? Of allowing a legal protest to take place peacefully? Or of assuming that every person on the streets between Tottenham Court Road and Moorgate is suspicious and about to throw a brick through a window?

During the last student protest many of my colleagues inadvertantly got kettled on Westminster Bridge. They were held, nose to noe in freezing conditions for over 5 hours. There was no access to water, toilets, or even enough space for them to sit down. One likened it to being put in cattle carts ont he way to Auchwitz. And what was their crime? To use their legal and legitimate right to protest. They were not violent (most were too old to be capable of that), nor had they broken any laws. All they had done was follow a legal protest route. Once they got to the end of the agrees march route the Police refused to allow them to leave, forced them onto the bridge and, as a policeman said to me later, held them there to "teach them a lesson".

niceguy My expertise is in counterinsurgency rather than policing so while I don't claim to be an expert on anti-riot tactics I'm not exactly talking out of my arse either

The police have more than a stick and their riot shields. They have horses and vehicles; they could bring in water cannons and tear gas if they wished (which are still dangerous, but less likely to be lethal). They could also engage in more proactive deployments and get better intel to head off violence before it starts. They could mobilise TA units or bring in police from other cities, as they have done in the past. They have a number of options. They don't need to bring lethal weapons to a peaceful protest, when it is likely only a small number of protesters will attempt violent acts and rubber bullets are unlikely to be appropriate for use in those situations.

And again, what is this 'you' that you refer to, when you say 'if you don't hurl bins etc the police won't use force'. Only a small number of people break the rules, and yet the police respond against everyone. I do indeed take issue with London Met tactics because I don't think they are very clever, compared with other major city police forces.

I'm not sure about the bullets.

I just feel our right to protest against politicians and their actions is being slowly eroded. You cannot vote them out until a set period of time has passed. You cannot protest outside Parliament without prior permission. The government can get into power on small proportion of votes relative the population. They can then make decisions after making "promises" during election campaigns.

It's all screwed quite frankly.

"they could bring in water cannons"

They can't though. Isn't that something that came out during the riots in August, that there are no water cannons physically, in the whole of the mainland UK? They'd either need to be brought in from Northern Ireland or France.

niceguy - aas much as I like your other posts, that last one was dripping with drama-queen naivity. ( and a bit of humour with the cross fingers bit.). Shooting bullets from the distances a petrol-bomb hurler would be standing makes 'hitting the torso' a fantasy. Hitting the body at all would be a major success, but is as likely to hit someone stood beside/behind or anywhere near.

Shooting people with Plastic/rubber bullets are not to answer to acts of criminal damage or trespass. There is a question of proportionality.

water cannons are useless and easy to avoid. They just look good on tv hitting a handful of people

Though I do feel whoever's colleagues who compared being kettled for 5 hours to being transported to Auschwitz (which sometimes took weeks, people starved/froze to death, were beaten, humiliated and brutalised, for those who survived not knowing whether they would be worked to death of murdered) should probably get a grip, FFS.

Ok Dreaming, so you are advocating trampling them or running them over instead yes?

Like I keep saying, my point is that just because they have them, doesn't mean they will use them. Hopefully a point you can agree with. Just because a soldier/copper has a gun, doesn't mean he will use them. They use them "if necessary". I'd much rather the police had the tools they wanted than afterwards, lose control and say "Well we did say we wanted x but you said no."

There is a question of proportionality.

Exactly. And that's all I'm advocating. That the police get our support to police the demonstration and the tools they need to respond in proportion to any disturbances. I'm not saying shoot a student throwing a bin but history shows the last demos got very violent so I fail to see the surprise in the police planning for violence.

If I remember rightly, didn't the Prince & Camilla get attacked in their car? Didn't their police guards have guns? Did they respond by shooting a couple of students. No. So why automatically assume that just because police have plastic bullets that they will get used?

Had to go to Leicester Sq today...just got back.
I have never seen so many Police tooled up to the eyeballs in all my life.
Riot gar,batons. I have to say they looked really quite intimidating...one of them twirling his cosh like a Wild West gunslinger!
The demonstrators I saw were completely peaceful and organised.
Rubber bullets kill.
Water cannon is indiscriminate...thus ineffective (it can take out everyone in it's path,babies in buggies,little old ladies,etc)

We can all come up with examples.

sounds ok to me.

Oh gosh, how funny. The police have estimated (according to the PA) that there are 2,500 protesters on the march. There are 4000 police. A swift look at any of the video feeds would show that the idea that there are 2 police to every protester is patently ridiculous.

Does anyone believe the police estimates any more?

Proportionate doesn't include shooting people for Crim Dam. or public order.

At least in saneworlds it doesn't.