Letters from Inside The Kettle

[Joanne98]

I was on the edge of a group of protesters in Parliament Square, standing peacefully. We weren’t even moving. Suddenly, police on foot in full body armour (and wearing balaclavas) charged us with batons raised. I was pushed backwards into the people behind me in the initial charge but the crowd pushed back to stop everyone falling over. I saw several around me hit by batons and fall, screaming. I was then hit over the head by a baton, hard enough to knock me sideways, then hit again, I think by the same officer. My ears rang, everything went quiet and I couldn’t hold my balance. My knees gave way and I fell over. An officer stepped forward and deliberately stamped his foot into my chest, winding me. Another officer rested his boot on my head. A huge man, a protester, who had stood next to me picked me up and held my bleeding head in front of the police (this I heard from him as I was semi or unconscious). They did not hit him but did not move aside. He repeatedly screamed for a medic but the police pretended not to hear him although it was clear to look at me that I needed one. He held me in both arms and pushed at the police line with his shoulder. They pushed back once, but then let him through – but hit a man who tried to follow. Next to him, a police officer spontaneously collapsed, apparently feigning unconsciousness. As the officer was not on the front line, had had nothing thrown at him and was wearing full body armour including helmet with visor down, he could not have been injured. The only nearby medic immediately tended to this officer. Both medics and police ignored me and my friend who shouted repeatedly for assistance. Giving up, he half walked half carried me to hospital. Once there he attempted to get the police to take a statement from me but was told there was none available.I spent three hours in hospital, dizzy, bleeding from the head and being repeatedly sick. My speech was apparently slurred and I have poor memory of what happened for the rest of the day. I had been told to stay overnight but feeling scared and victimised from being hit I left and returned home. The man who’d saved me was named Adam but I never learned his surname.

Kit Withnail
Birkbeck, University of London

I was fairly sure that, as a society, we’d established that if you find yourself saying ‘I’m just following orders’ it definitely means you’re doing something wrong. It turns out this is still a part of the British riot policeman’s arsenal. Having spent a cold five hours stuck in Parliament Square, I had had my fill of wandering around what basically seemed like a festival of chaos. I’d visited the Treasury Smashing tent, poked my head in at the Mounted Police exhibition and warmed myself at the bonfires. Now tired of police brutality and anarchist violence, I walked around the muddy square looking for my friends. Some time after 9.30 p.m. we were packed onto Westminster Bridge, proceeding at a snail’s pace, and then brought to a halt. It was a dense crowd, I’d say peak-time underground-train kind of packed. What otherwise would have been a nice view of London from the bridge was mostly spoiled by the cold and the wind chill, which was bringing temperatures down to zero. A lot of people hadn’t intended to be out in the elements at ten at night, so they were getting frustrated. We waited for a while, with no indication of how long we’d be there. I was with one of my friends and we were pretty close to the front of the crowd, where the riot police were forever reinforcing their lines with more androgynous personnel and vans. So far there had been sporadic chants of ‘Let us go! Let us go!’ and other three-syllable slogans, but after about 25 minutes the chant spread to everyone and rose to a crescendo. Before we knew it the crowd surged, broke the first police lines, and forced us through the broken groups of riot police. The police got confused, aggressive and started pushing with shields and shouting. The people at the front of the crowd, being forced through the police, began to hold their hands in the air and shout: ‘This is NOT a riot!’ In time, the police managed to re-create a line across the bridge. It was this line which the two of us found ourselves pushed up against, toe to toe with the police. After the momentum gained by the previous push, the creation of a solid line obviously built up a degree of pressure that forced the crowd, their hands held high, into the police. Worried about another line break, they brought down batons and started shouting and hitting. My friend was struck on the head and fell down screaming. I followed her down to the ground while grabbing her and shouting her name. At the boot-end of the mêlée I realised briefly how easy it is for people to get trampled in crowds. I got stamped on a bit and couldn’t get up but soon heard shouts from the crowd of ‘Pick them up! Pick up the people who’ve fallen!’ and soonish we were hauled up by the crowd. I spun around to the riot police, who had mostly stopped beating and were now shouting and pushing. In my most reasonable shout I screamed: ‘What are you doing? Stop! Why are you doing this?’ I was told to stand back and that it would be fine, to which the answer seemed obvious: ‘This is not OK! This is not fine! We can’t move back! There’s no room! What are you doing?’ I received the timeless response that they were ‘just following orders’. Well that’s OK then.

It was a further half an hour before they created a funnel of riot police which culminated in a gauntlet through which people could walk in single file. I couldn’t help but think of cattle ranches. We’d been taken out of our enclosure, herded together, moved forward and now were being sent one by one down a concourse to have our ears stamped. It was significantly colder and darker than I imagine cattle ranches to be. I was told to take off the scarf I’d put over my face. I said ‘no thanks,’ aware that they like to photograph everyone and that it’s legal to cover yourself up. As soon as I’d said that, I was grabbed, and had my scarf pulled down while someone examined my face against a piece of paper. A bright spotlight was shined at us and I could hear the click of a camera. All I could think about through all the waiting was how I wished I was back in Parliament Square sat on top of the statue of Palmerston watching people smash stuff up.

Angus MacDonald
King’s College, Cambridge

It is not in the script for a Cambridge professor to find himself kettled. I walked unimpeded into Parliament Square at 1.30 p.m. Half an hour later I discovered that I was not free to leave: officers told me that the whole of Parliament Square had been designated a ‘criminal location’. At 5.40, just after the parliamentary vote had been announced, I tried at the Great George Street cordon to present two practical points to the police: first, that after four hours of containment the policy of continuing to keep well over 5000 mostly young people in the square, after the moment of protest had passed, was no longer preventive but provocative; second, that there should be some form of communication from the authorities about plans for dispersal. I was refused permission to communicate these points to those ‘up there’. The policeman gestured towards the helicopter overhead. There was no announcement from the police for a further two and a half hours, during which period damage to buildings was done by a small unruly group. The term ‘kettle’ is most apt. Kettling confines large numbers of individuals under a tight lid while applying the heat of fear.

At the end of the night, pushed out of a 50 metre-long ‘spout’ of shield-wielding riot police, we were photographed. No permission was asked – we were collectively ‘criminalised’.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n01/letters

[pscot]

1. The people are the enemy

of the National Security State.

[Joanne98]

2. Yep!