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?

Abs, the actual quote was "After 5 hours in sub zero temperatures, unable to sit down, move or drink, and not knowing when it would end, I understood how the Jews being transported to Auchwitz felt"

The thing is, we can't win now. The government has got us. If the demo is peaceful, it will be due to the tactics, the government will say the threat of violence by the police ensured safety.
If anybody becomes violent, the government will state that their policy was right.

Of course I'm not advocating trampling them. And I'm not crazy about the water cannons either. But they are alternative means of dispersing people, and less likely to get people killed. To say the police have nothing but their batons is laughable.

They still need to get a grip. At least they knew they would live.

If I was a police officer I would want to be tooled up to the eyeballs quite frankly - just in case. doesnt mean I would want to hurt anyone but if I had to I would. this is probably why I am not police officer material, but I do think we ask an awful lot of what are basically ordinary people doing a very difficult job, whose every move will be scrutinised (rightly IMO) to endure severe provocation and attack and then criticise them whichever way they turn.

And fwiw, I dont think telling protest organisers that police have plastic bullets is provocative, it seems to be fairly sensible to me - forewarned is forearmed and all that.

Clearly I'm not any sort of expert, but it does baffle me that we treat our police in the way we do - damned if they do, damned if they dont.

Dawndonna, we had a senior cop come to talk to my WI branch soon after the riots. I asked him about the Jody McIntrye incident. He stood there and said he had heard nothing about it and the police would not do that without extreme provocation and he must have (if it happened at all) been provoking the police. Cue slug finding the YouTube clip and showing it to him.

Poor man didn't know what hit him. I think he thought he was coming to talk to a nice group of middle class, middle aged Daily Mail reading Tory voters. What he got hit with was a very politically engaged, educated, articulate and angry group of women.

This was the same cop who made the comment about teaching the kettled protesters a lesson. The culture of the police is very much aggressive towards the protesters.

I agree DawnDonna. At the last big protest the police made noises about dispersing the crowd. What they did, in fact, was the complete opposite. They blocked off all exits and did not allow the protesters to leave peacefully. People were kettled for the sin of walking down the street at the worng time.

Was it any wonder there was anger and, in many cases, panic?

Slug
My mother is 76. She got caught up and kettled in the last riots. She was held for two hours in the freezing cold without access to drinks of any description or lavatories.
She actually supported the rioters, having been a former headteacher, but the treatment of her as well as younger people was terrifying.
She'd just decided to treat herself to a London trip on the wrong day.

Sky News just said 10,000 protesters and 4,000 police. so odds slightly different than mentioned upthread.

I didn't get to yesterday's protest. I do agree that we don't have democracy when the people are not allowed to speak. I do agree that spreading the word about the possible use of rubber bullets was bully boy tactics. Wherever did that come from? In what possible circumstances should young people protesting about withdrawal of educational opportunities, be shot at?

The worst criminal damage at any of the student protests, was at the Millbank one last year. I'd guess the rubber bullets thing was because yesterday was the anniversary of that (was it?).
The smashing of the windows at Conservative HQ last year, happened because the police had been caught on the back foot; there was virtually nobody around. If more police had been posted there, the damage would not have happened; or very little.

And another thing - the repeated use of the word 'violence' in reference to the students: Violence by students was negligible. Criminal damage did happen. Violence means strenuous physical contact, human on human. At one of last year's protests, forty four students were injured; Alfie Meadows was nearly killed by a policeman who had no access to rubber bullets.

The parliamentary committee looking at last year's protests came to the conclusion that police tactics and behaviour were disproportionate. That was an all-party committee's judgement.

So, upping the ante with talk of plastic bullets this year when the parliamentary committee's conclusion last year was that police went way over the top, shows Cameron's lack of respect for his parliamentary colleagues' judgement.

It shows a mixture of arrogance - and fear.

Fantastic post dotnet.

Well said, Dotnet!

I think people have forgotten that police officers are also parents and a lot of them have been students. Many, if not most, of them will have sympathy with the student protesters and will absolutely not want to hurt the general public. They are, after all, in a job where their priority is the safety of the public.

Many people on here have mentioned times when police officers have hurt/killed members of the public, which are incidents I do not condone. I would like to point out, however, that the vast majority of police officers are good, hard working individuals who would not want to cause harm to anyone.

I do agree with the people on here who have said that just because the rubber bullets are available, does not mean that they will be used. I think that they should be available as quite often these peaceful protests are hijacked by idiots who just want a bit of a fight. These people are the ones we should direct our anger at, as they have led us to this position; a peaceful protest ends up being heavily policed, and peaceful protesters feel intimidated and worried about attending due to the heavy police presence. I do still have a great deal of trust and faith in the police and feel that they just can't win unfortunately.

It's not the individual police officers that I have a problem with. I've found many of them are sympathetic. I even had some joking with me on the Anti Cuts march that they would be there too if they were allowed.

It's the management level of the policing that I have a problem with. Sending letters to student activitsts to warn them of rubber bullets beforehand is unnecessarily provocative. So is kettling, so is pulling disabled men from wheelchairs and dragging them across the ground, so is hiding badge numbers so they can't be reported. So is, as happened to me once, having "fucking cunting student bitch" hissed at me by a copper in full riot gear with his badge number hidden. "That's fucking cunting teacher bitch to you officer" was my reply

Despite sometimes extereme provocation, I'm not allowed to swear at my clients, or in the past, students. The leadership of the Met should not be allowing this sort of behaviour to flourish in the ranks. Nor should they be turning a blind eye to badge hiding. And pre-emtively threating with violence is simply a step backwards to the old days of truncheons and fitting up the usual suspects.