Building Security, Transport Security

British police show two faces to G20 protesters

By Alice Kok | 2 April 2009

The contrasting faces of British policing were on display yesterday as the London Metropolitan Police (Met) called in support from 30 forces across the country to create a 5000-strong team of officers for at least six diverse demonstrations in the City of London and Trafalgar Square.

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Outside the Bank of England police horses and riot officers were pushed back by the sheer force of demonstrators—helmets were torn from officers’ heads and cans, fruit and flour rained down. In retaliation the police surged forward, using pepper spray, CS gas and batons on the protestors while surveillance teams looked on from the roof.

Commanders at the Met, said to be among the best public order officers in the world, insisted they would not let the city be brought to a standstill. Familiar tactics were used to trap 4000 people into streets outside the Bank of England in a practice known as “kettling”—where demonstrators are corralled into a space for several hours.

Mets tightened the cordon when violence flared in one part of Threadneedle Street and a group of protesters, whose faces were covered, broke into the Royal Bank of Scotland and sprayed “Scum” and “Burn” on the side of the bank..

Commander Bob Broadhurst, in charge of the operation, said, “My aim was to facilitate peaceful protest.” But this ‘peaceful protest’ is called into question when demonstrators inside the cordon with no toilet facilities and little water, questioned if they were allowed their right to march.

The police excused the use of a cordon because missiles were being thrown at officers. Police rights to use such measures were reinforced in 2005 when a judge ruled that surrounding and holding 3,000 protesters in Oxford Circus, London, for seven hours at the May Day protests in 2001 was reasonable in order to stop violence and damage to property.

Some protesters were able to infiltrate police ranks by dressing up as police officers.

In other areas Bishopsgate, protestors succeeded in closing the road and pitching tents. Protestors there put the laid-back policing down to the peaceful protest. Rob Bailes, a legal observer, says, “The police here have been very friendly with us, because we have been friendly to them.”

By late afternoon, the Met said 32 people had been arrested. Eleven were held for driving an armoured van in police uniform, one for criminal damage and two for aggravated burglary.

The £7.5m security strategy for G20, Operation Glencoe, boiled down 84,000 police man-hours allocated to the entirety of Operation Glencoe. All police leave had been cancelled in London for Wednesday and Thursday.