Being kettled was a shocking experience

[CHIMO]

Last night I experienced, first hand, what it is like to be "kettled". Having been a researcher on criminal justice for the past 10 years this had particular poignancy. It was impossible not to feel the full force of dilemmas of balancing civil rights, protection of the public, the police's response to disorder and the role of the media in these events.

I went to the student fees protest in the late afternoon, a middle-aged protester with memories of student marches past, but when I got there at 3pm, three sides of Parliament Square were blocked off. I witnessed police on horseback twice charge into a crowd and young people coming out bloodied and shocked. I could only sympathise with the woman next to me whose 14-year-old was still inside the police lines. I followed a small, calm crowd round to Whitehall, where things seemed less fraught, but the next thing I knew police horses and officers were lined up behind me and pushing whoever happened to be in front of them, including someone who had just come from the National Gallery with his souvenir bag, down towards the square.

From that point, despite repeated pleas and tears (I am no courageous protester, I discovered), the police refused to let me go – for seven hours. I could not help but be shocked at my situation and at this police strategy. It was also clear from a number of conversations with officers that many of the frontline did not approve of this strategy either. Several told me they sympathised and blamed their senior officers. This is no survey but they could clearly see that most of us on that side of the square, now in an orderly queue stretching from Westminster Abbey to parliament and waiting to leave, were not causing disorder.

Kettling or containment is justified by the police as a response to dealing with disorder while minimising use of force. Certainly I am glad this protest was not a Tiananmen Square. British police do not shoot at crowds. And we need to recognise that and value that. There were clearly a number of people at the protest who were intent on causing trouble. There were also some seasoned protesters, some wanting to cause trouble, some trying to help people understand what was going on, some trying to organise ways of getting out. How can the police tell the difference?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/10/kettled-shocking-experience

[provis99]

1. kesselschlacht - kettle battle, from the original German.

interesting to see the British police adopting Nazi tactics.

[yurbud]

6. sad, what they will do to defend the rich

[yurbud]

7. and if the students succeed and break gov't will, our gov't will say they are al Qaeda or in league

with Hugo Chavez.

[Hello_Kitty]

2. Isn't this pretty much what they did to the people in the Superdome post-Katrina?

[JohnyCanuck]

3. Canada too

Police made mistakes in G20 tactics, chief admits for first time

Police made mistakes in G20 tactics, chief admits for first time The corralling of 250 people at Queen and Spadina Streets for hours in torrential rain at the end of Toronto’s G20 summit remains a flashpoint in a weekend that saw the largest mass arrests in Canadian history.

In the face of an onslaught of complaints, lawsuits and inquiries, Toronto police Chief Bill Blair on Thursday acknowledged for the first time that he made mistakes that night.

“We probably could have and should have reacted quicker,” Chief Blair told The Globe and Mail. “When I became aware of , I said, ‘That’s it, release them all immediately and unconditionally,’ and that was done. But it probably could have happened sooner.”

The admission is a new tack for Toronto police. In a news conference soon after the release of the corral, Staff Superintendent Jeff McGuire said of the detainees, “To those people, I cannot apologize to them, and I won’t.” He called the situation “unfortunate,” but said officers had the right to detain the group.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/police-made-mistakes-in-g20-tactics-chief-admits-for-first-time/article1694815/

Wake up: Arbitrary rule is all around us
By James Laxer

We live in a dangerous, disordered time. The flashing signs are there to warn us that, both at home and abroad, those who are at the helm of the socio-political order do not preside over outcomes that make even a modicum of sense. Arbitrariness is the order of the day.

We see this alarming reality in decisions being made close to us as well as in other parts of the world. Here are six stories, some more important than others, that convey the capricious disorder of the times in which we live.

1. In Ontario, the Special Investigations Unit that reviews complaints against police has released a report that concludes that in two specific cases during the G20 summit in Toronto last June, excessive force was used. But just when it appears that the system might work and deliver some semblance of justice, that hope is instantly dashed.

SIU director Ian Scott has concluded that the offending officers cannot be identified and, therefore, cannot be charged. In the case of one man who was arrested, and sustained a fracture below his right eye, the SIU determined that the police used excessive force. But the badge number on the man's arrest sheet did not correspond to the assigned badge number of any Toronto police officer. Even Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair has acknowledged that up to 90 officers were not wearing their name-tags during the summit weekend. He says he will discipline the officers who chose to make themselves unidentifiable, but they are not being charged with an offence.

The only conclusion we can reasonably draw is that a large number of officers were out of control during the policing of the summit. Because the police won't come forward to testify against their fellow officers, the cover up works. Officers who assault people on the street, even when the assaults are videoed, get away with it because follow officers won't say a word against them. When the police act more like a gang of thugs than like professionals who uphold a set of standards, they become untrustworthy, a force that neither serves nor protects.

http://www.rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/james-laxer/2010/11/wake-arbitrary-rule-all-around-us

[JohnyCanuck]

4. Corrupt language corrupts minds: police are civilians, under the control of civilians

We crossed the Rubicon on this troubling usage about two decades ago -- an appropriate enough metaphor, as it happens, as it refers to the moment when Julius Caesar's army crossed the traditional border into the constitutionally protected environs of Rome where no one was supposed to be able to command a military force on pain of death.

The traditional view of Caesar's action is that, when he got away with it, it spelled the end of the Roman Republic.

This happened in North America -- first in the United States, of course -- when civilian police departments began to think of themselves as militarized occupation forces, there not to enforce the law but to exert the will of the powerful. Soon after, many police began to make a distinction in their jargon between themselves and "civilians."

This was quickly picked up by police reporters -- that most toadying class of journalist -- and now it has "officially" entered the language. At least, it is official enough to satisfy the editors of the Canadian Press, and worse, of the Oxford Canadian Dictionary. Thus, states the latter: "civilian … a person not in the armed forces or the <em>police force</em>. …" (Emphasis added.)

This is a corruption, and a corrupting corruption, since the simple fact is that municipal police are civilians, charged only with enforcing the law, subject themselves to the rule of law, and properly described as public servants.

http://www.rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/djclimenhaga/2010/12/corrupt-language-corrupts-minds-police-are-civilians-under-contr

[grasswire]

5. the comments section is VERY interesting

Some of those posting were in the middle of the episode.