Police 'need riot tactic rules' watchdog says

Police 'need riot tactic rules' watchdog says

www.bbc.co.uk

Police should be given clear rules about when they can use water cannon and plastic bullets against rioters, a watchdog has said.

But officers could lawfully have shot arsonists in some cases during the summer rioting in England, the Inspectorate of Constabulary said.

Water cannon and plastic bullets could have been used in a "number of real scenarios", its report suggested.

MPs have said such tactics would have been "indiscriminate and dangerous".

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
www.dailymail.co.uk
www.guardian.co.uk

Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
riot in tottenham uk ! 2police cars, 1 bus and 1 shop set alight!!
London Riots: Is It Twitter that Caused Them

A great many of my fellow Britons would have liked to have seen some action taken against the violent, thuggish, and dangerous arsonistic behavior of some of the rioters during the summer.

The rioting swept the length of the nation, and caused untold damage to some old buildings in London, as well as seeing many businesses burned out, and people out of a job, or worse, having thier homes burned out from under them.

Now one of the bodies which keeps an eye on police strategy here in the UK, wants police forces to be given clear guidelines on when it is, and when it is not appropriate to use
tools like water cannon, plastic bullets, and live rounds, in the event of wide scale civil unrest.

However, I am concerned that these changes to the law for anti riot tactics may find themselves easy to apply in the event of a protest. What are the thoughts of the membership on this issue? Is it more important that our right to protest without fear of reprisal is defended, or that our livelihoods and property are protected by use of bullets?

www.bbc.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

First it will be force against arsonists and then it will be a threat to anyone who protests against anything. This is a slippery slope people.

Originally posted by PhoenixOD
First it will be force against arsonists and then it will be a threat to anyone who protests against anything. This is a slippery slope people.

That's how I read it, suddenly after all these years we'll see live rounds being used against rioters, then protesters, then just about anyone who doesn't agree with the state.

As if this approach has ever stopped protests or riots in Britain Peterloo springs to mind where they brought in the infantry, cavalry and artillery.. thankfully in that instance they chose not to use the artillery.

All this will do is fuel the violence

reply to post by TrueBrit

Just because it is now lawful to shoot british citizens does not make it lawful under natural law or gods law. What happens if some bystander gets shot for no reason? What then, will the police say sorry, it was just an accident?!

Indeed, suppose someone hides out of the wind to light a cigarette, does that make them a target?! Capital punishment is illegal in the UK, and we know that the rioters were the police, indeed they were seen arriving in coaches with two way radios for god sake!

Totally illegal IMO. Under commom law in the UK, if the police have the right to shoot british citizens then british citizens have the right to kill the police if thier life is under threat.

If my life is going to be threatend as a protestor then I will defend my life, i will also defend any other protestors life if I have the opportunity, period.

reply to post by TheMindWar


I agree with you TheMindWar. I do not wish to see these proposed rules codified. However, what would you propose to replace them with? I would be unwilling to see live rounds used against persons who are not going out with the ABSOLUTE intent to kill. As concerned as I am, about anti riot laws being bought into force when protestors are out and about however, I also recognise a need to do SOMETHING to prevent firestarting during riots.

What do you think about that angle of things?

The police managed to kill an innocent man in the G20 protests in London without bullets so how can we trust them with more dangerous methods of force?

Rubber bullets, water cannons, tear gas, batons, shields, laser and sound weapons. These poor police, have it so tough against unarmed peaceful protesters. And those riots would never have happened if the police hadn't killed someone. Just imagine what'll happen when it becomes routine (well, even more so than it is now to kill or hurt anyone they please)

This infuriates me.

When we have genuine protest in London, the Met crack down with batons, fencing, mass arrests and kettling. When there are rioters running around and looting, they're nowhere to be seen.

IMO, this was a set up, the riots were allowed to continue to hype up public sentiment and give permission to use force on any and all protests in the future.

The report suggests that live ammo will not be out of the question, and that water cannon and rubber bullets will be used in the future. What many don't know is that the Met have been seeking to buy water cannon before this report was even released. They know that permission is gonna come for it, because that's the plan.

In my opinion, It's no coincidence that these riots were allowed to reach the level they did, and that they caused so much damage. They will now be used by our government as an excuse to prepare for the massive fallout from the collapse of the € when people will be looting to get supplies rather than a new iPhone.

Mark my words, Theresa May will follow this through, the Met and forces across the country will become militarized, and this will all be done at the behest of the idiot people who are too naive to understand the motives for this. Then, when the € does collapse and we see social chaos and massive protests the likes of which we haven't seen in the UK, they'll break out those weapons and we'll have the equivalent of Tahrir Square in Trafalgar Square.

Those calling for changes in policing are right to do so, but calling for the militarization of our policing across the country are supporting something far more dangerous.

UK riots report: Arsonists targeting cities could be shot on sight
Arsonists could be shot with live ammunition if there was serious risk to life, an official review on police tactics recommends, as a firearms instructor revealed children and teenagers may face being shot with plastic bullets if they got involved in a repeat of the summer riots.

www.metro.co.uk...
www.channel4.com...

The jigsaw pieces are falling into place , we had riots of far greater severity in 1981 and 1985 in the UK , water cannon and rubber bullets were not used , one policeman was decapitated at Broadwater Farm.
TPTB will play on the fact of police number cuts and that the stormtroopers should have everything in the arsenal at there disposal , they know what is coming in the future , regarding the economic downturn/ NWO etc.

If you were about to light fire to a fire-bomb and and throw it, but first got hit in the backside with a plastic bullet, you probably would reconsider it... Don't you think?

Originally posted by Acidtastic
And those riots would never have happened if the police hadn't killed someone.

On this, you are wrong.

The riots were NOT in response to a man being killed by the police. The riots were a result of kids using the opportunity to steal things that they wanted, and couldn't be bothered to work to gain.

One man killed in London did not cause kids up and down the country to go on the rampage. If you asked all those kids who was shot in London less than 5% of them would have known the guys name.

The people involved in the riots have a mentality that they deserve things, that they need a new phone or a new TV, and that they shouldn't have to work at all.

I said it then, and I'll say it now, they are the scum of our society, they prey on other citizens and demand things from the state. They are raised by ignorant, lazy parents who would rather spend their time sleeping around and getting wasted every weekend than raise their children to be moral and decent people.
That may be a generalization in the eyes of many, but plenty of us know the difference between right and wrong, and millions of people looked on those events in disgust. There was zero political point to be found, and none of those involved were acting based on anything other than pure greed.

However, that does not justify our government introducing dangerous and authoritarian measures on all of society.

Originally posted by Fractured.Facade
If you were about to light fire to a fire-bomb and and throw it, but first got hit in the backside with a plastic bullet, you probably would reconsider it... Don't you think?

How long will it be before those same police firing LIVE ammunition state that the protesters are "risking life" by even being there in the street?
How do you determine who a potential arsonist it?
If a petrol bomb comes from a crowd of people, do they then have permission to shoot them all?
If a police infiltrator goes into a crowd and uses arson as a tactic to escalate things, that would then justify a crackdown on the entire protest, including the use of deadly ammunition?

We need to be able to deal with rioters in a reasonable fashion, something that would have been entirely possible if the police had actually done their jobs on the very first night. They didn't, and that allowed the rioters to continue their rampage emboldened by the outnumbered response.

That's the simple fact of the matter, and I personally believe that this was a deliberate tactic by the police to secure their increased funding, and by the government to then justify this militarization of our police.

The idiot people are allowing a sledgehammer to crack a nut. It's the same process used in every other country on Earth - scare the people enough and they will voluntarily submit to all kinds of draconian measures in the name of "security".

We have not seen riots like the ones this year at any point in living memory, and yet we're willing to take such drastic actions to deal with something that is presumably unlikely to happen again? How does that make sense to even the most deluded person?

reply to post by PhoenixOD


An excellent point. So why is it that the police can achieve that horrific scenario barehanded, and yet this watchdog thinks its ok to give such dangerous individuals firearms, plastic bullets, and water cannon ?

reply to post by TrueBrit


Maybe because the Olympics are coming up and the UK police are under pressure to make sure that everything runs ultra smoothly by our government and the participating countries from around the world.

Originally posted by PhoenixOD
First it will be force against arsonists and then it will be a threat to anyone who protests against anything. This is a slippery slope people.

I am not so sure you can draw such a conclusion and there is no evidence to support this belief.

The issues are that the police do not have a coherent approach and because civil disturbance and criminality as experienced a few months ago are (thankfully) very rare in the UK most policy is made on the fly and the police authorities do not feel empowered to make decisions and / or the guidance is not available.

Personally, I would have no problems with the police reacting robustly against arsonists and other criminal tossers who through their very actions are endangering others life and property. By “robust” I mean stopping the actions, not resorting to shooting people – so don’t interpret as such.

Regards

reply to post by paraphi


Say they do allow rubber bullets or live rounds in bad riots. The next thing you will hear is that police are turning up armed at protests in case things turn bad but by then no one will be able to complain.

Then how long would it be before people at who were not going to burn places down but got very rowdy get threatened with the armed officers?

Before you know it we could find ourselves only being allowed to protest if armed police are present because of what might happen if they are not there.

Any large business who doesn't want to be protested about would only have to 'tip' the police off about suspected trouble and they would be there in force.

Then people will be to intimidated to protest in the first place. What a great way to stifle free speech!

History has shown us that elements of control are always brought in for our protection first and then at later date when we get used to them being around they start to get used for more domestic means of control.

Didn’t they bring in tazars as a non lethal alternative to live rounds, in other words only to be used when life was in threat yet we hear stories repeatedly where tazars are used when no threat to life was present. Even if the reasons being pushed now were just and right how long would it be before rounds are flying for any old half-cocked reason.

I feel the prison bars of this New World Order wrapping round me more each day, I feel we are nearing the time where the individual will have no rights at all (put up or be shut up), we are now a collective and all individuals are dispensable. They came for the criminals and I did not stand up as it didn’t affect me, they came for my neighbour and I did not stand up etc etc etc

Originally posted by PhoenixOD
First it will be force against arsonists and then it will be a threat to anyone who protests against anything. This is a slippery slope people.

Thats why the riots were allowed, if not organised to occur, to then justify the introduction of ever more force.
Cause....reaction....solution.
gravitor

Force isn't going to solve anything.

Are they actually bothering to look to the root causes of these riots to try and ensure they won't happen again or are they just going to use over the top force?

I don't know about any other members from the UK but would you really like to see our country hit headlines around the world for opening fire on rioters (or potentially protesters) with live ammunition? Do we really want to sink to the levels of Syria, China or North Korea etc?

It's quite hypocritical for our government to slam the Arab governments who were attempting to supress the spring uprisings with force. Granted those people were protesting for the rights and freedoms which we gratefully enjoy here.......or do we?

As Martin Luther King Jr. said, "A riot is the language of the unheard."