A brief report on the UCAPV rally Sat 23rd May.

On Saturday at 3pm I went along to observe the police tactics deployed against the march and demonstration against police violence organised by group United Campaign Against Police Violence.

Two other DPP members joined me walking with the demo in order to film and observe the tactics of police. It’s worth noting that it was always going to be a tricky one for the police since this demonstration was specifically for those concerned about violent Police tactics! However given recent media coverage I didn’t really expect even the most aggressive police officer to step out of line and thankfully we didn’t see any repeats of the events at the G20.

The march began at Trafalgar Square, headed down past number 10 Downing Street and turned right at Parliament Square towards Scotland Yard. Here there were speeches and the march organisers planned a kettle of Scotland Yard. Police were in attendance along the whole route of the march and at Scotland Yard. The visible police presence was a mixture of Met Police in normal gear (not riot police), a sizeable group of FIT officers and a number of police vans no doubt with riot police in reserve.

The good news:
All police officers present appeared to be wearing ID, which was an improvement on the Bank of England Protests on the 1st and 2nd April where a number of examples of lack of ID were documented. A Silver Star commander was present and for me at least he was reasonably accessible to approach and communicate with. worth noting here that unfortunately there was no attempt at dialogue with the police by the UCAPV demonstration organisers prior to the beginning of the march, due to anger around the way some groups within the coalition have been treated in the past demonstrations (G20, Gaza and Bush demonstrations). There was also no attempt at kettling by the police, although in a turning of the tables demonstrators did briefly form a cordon around Scotland Yard as a symbolic act.

The bad news:
The only really poor element of policing of the demo happened at quite an important point when the relatives of those who had died in police custody were reading out a roll call of names. In a fairly provocative and unhelpful move the Police decided halfway through this they would start their own announcement ordering people to move from the road. Have interrupted one of the bereaved family members a number of demonstrators moved over to van and began remonstrating which then left the announcement entirely inaudible to most of the demonstration.

At this point (16.30pm) some officers began getting into protective gear and looked ready to impose a cordon. Despite being 10ft away from the Van I actually had to approach the police commander and asked what the announcement had said. Apparently it was to stop blocking the entrance to Scotland yard and the road outside or risk facing arrest under S14 of the Public Order act and for violation of ‘access and egress’.

Both of these of course are legitimate concerns but considering the demonstration had only been there a short amount of time, the way the announcement was made was not only inappropriate, interrupting a bereaved family member but also entirely inadequate in terms of informing the demonstrators. In addition the use of access and egress to Scotland yard as an excuse to move people on was on dodgy grounds since despite Silver Stars assertions that there was only one entrance to the building I checked and there was a totally unaffected second entrance around the corner…

Other than this confusion over announcements, individual police officers also proved to be pretty unhelpful in terms of any form of dialogue. Before managing to find the Silver Star commander I asked 3 other officers what the announcement had said and all declined to officer any explanation. For instance officer KD54 of the FIT team when approached and asked what the announcement had asked demonstrators to do simply refused to give me any information and walked way from me saying he did not wish to speak to me. Two other officers also acted in this way, one ignoring me entirely and the other saying he had not heard the announcement but not offering me any advice as to who to speak to. I then moved a little further away to the officers who had come through as back up and they had no knowledge of what the announcement stating ‘we were round the corner so didn’t hear it’ Although in the end the situation calmed down and the police did not appear to deploy excessive force to clear the road at the end of the demo.

I think this does give another example of the problem at climate camp: The police claim to have informed people the demo is being shut down yet the method of informing people is woefully inadequate. Not only in terms of the announcement but the fact that officers either refuse to explain it or don’t even hear it themselves. Combined as it was at the G20 with use of excessive force this lack of communication creates real problems. I appreciate its not always easy, but its vitally important that our front line police officers actually be educated that they need to be accessible to both the public and protestors, even if they disagree with the nature of the protest. In the case of the FIT officer mentioned above, there is no excuse since they are supposed to engage in dialogue with protestors as part of their job (although presently all they seem to do is film them).