Police told to "behave" at Mayday Street Party

Smash EDO's Mayday! Mayday! Street Party on 4th May looks set to be the next stop on the summer of rage. The mobilisation has been linked firmly to a new wave of resistance against global capital. A map has been published showing the location of EDO's key investors and business partners in Brighton. The list includes highstreet banks, BP, American Express and Mcdonalds. The message is clear, EDO cannot operate in a vacuum; it is propped up by the state and a network of global corporations.

Despite all this the police seem to be firmly on the back foot after the media backlash, triggered, by the killing of Ian Tomlinson, against police violence and repression at the G20. Sussex Police have been told to 'behave' by Chief Constable Richards who fears that “People’s confidence in policing has been shaken by things they have seen on their TVs and read in their newspapers". All this must be rather difficult for Sussex police as they have been gearing up for some serious repression of Smash EDO for quite sometime. Dick Barton, a Sussex Police officer seconded to the Home Office who was responsible for training Iraqi police recruits in Basra and Baghdad, has been given the dubious honour of coordinating investigations of 'crimes against EDO'. Past police tactics have included following 'organisers', supporting a dodgy injunction, engaging in ridiculous conspiracy cases, attempting to cultivate informers and attacking mass demonstrations

...and debate with the thick blue line.

Sussex police, desperate for information, have written to people they perceive to be organisers, saying that the policing of the demonstrations will not be repressive if organisers negotiate with the police. Smash EDO responded, in an open letter, giving the example of the Camp for Climate Action who engaged in dialogue (see here) with the Met before their G20 protest but were still subjected to brutal attacks. The police have told the Argus that they plan to target suspected 'ringleaders'. The Gold commander for Mayday! policing has taken to posting appeals for information on Indymedia.

Indymedia - Timeline|Last Hours - Timeline

Previous Coverage of Smash EDO Mass Demonstrations:Shut ITT - October 2008|Carnival Against the Arms Trade - June 2008|Freedom to Protest - June 2008

Smashy
e-mail: smashedo@riseup.net
Homepage: http://www.smashedo.org.uk/mayday-09.htm

Comments

Hide the following 13 comments

who wrote this

02.05.2009 23:40

"the example of the Camp for Climate Action who engaged fully with the Met before their G20 protest "

eh... no.... how did you come up with that piece of fantasy?

shit

Sussex police behave?

03.05.2009 00:21

That lot, act decently that'll be the bloody day i know them especially Brighton mob for the bullying nasty bastards they are who will believe anything from anyone - HB - all good wishes and strength to those on the march

John Smith

the climate camp did meet the police

03.05.2009 01:23

although they didnt "fully engage" with the police they did meet. at this meeting the campers expressed that they would be peacefull and violence would not occur at the camp. this did not seem to stop the police at all...

lessons should be learned, the police aren't our friends.

solidarity with the decomissioners.

good luck on Monday

x

Climate Camp comments

03.05.2009 08:03

there were meetings between the police and climate camp:

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/southcoast/2009/04/428130.html

smashy

Shining the shoe that kicks your arse.

03.05.2009 13:25

The police only want to talk to people "organising demos" for very limited reasons:

1. To gather intelligence

2. To use that intelligence against the demo

Why hand the means to shut down the demo to them on a plate!?

Of course there is always scope for providing misinformation, but doing this publicly makes you look even more underhand than they are, to the casual observer... doing it indirectly is another matter.

Shame however, Sussex Police couldn't expend as much resource investigating war crimes, and it then people would be having to sneak around doing their jobs for them.

I wonder how many will be asking themselves on Monday if they really signed up to protect the interests of war criminals.

Black Kettle

Thanks for the consideration...

03.05.2009 20:33

Nice one for blurring (most of) the faces of those who didn't mask up.

. of .

climate camp and the cops

04.05.2009 01:40

The phrase 'fully engaged' was extremely misleading in describing 'dialogue' between climate camp and the cops pre G20 (and I notice the phrase has been removed from the indymedia uk feature). The climate camp legal team approached the cops asking for information about their chain of command during the g20 protests but their enquires were ignored. Then the police claimed through the media that climate camp had refused to speak to the cops when in fact they never even tried. The media team then got the press to correct the story by providing documented proof of the legal teams email so the police then agreed to meet the legal team in a bit of last minute damage control. That meeting could certainly not be described as 'fully engaging' with the cops. At no time did the climate camp ask the cops for any kind of permission and at no time were the climate camp under any illusions that the cops were 'friends' just there to help facilitate 'peaceful protest'.

acab

Climate Camp and the state

04.05.2009 07:11

Liberal Democrat Members of Parliament participated in Climate Camp and there were reports that one of them at least was a legal observer at Bank!

AC(and politicians)AB!

pointless

04.05.2009 22:55

who cares - its all a waste of time anyway

rex

Innocent Targets

05.05.2009 14:51

Great demo, but tragic to see broken glass, stones and various other missles thrown at police on horses. Inevitably the horses get hit, I saw a rock smash one police horse on the back of the neck and a glass bottle crack onto one of the visors.

Police horses have died in riot situations in this country - please think about these innocent victims when you are lobbing stuff.

Anyone agree?

Louis
mail e-mail: superlouper@hotmail.com

Photo Links

05.05.2009 16:36

Let's get some ASAP guys, would cool to be see some fellow protester's snaps. Get 'em out!

thats right

05.05.2009 19:54

If you throw a bottle , throw it on the cop not on the horse! If you are blind or shit with accuracy, don't throw and at first train at home. but better to use a technique to confuse horses, by jumping and making artifitial horse clapping noise, so the horses retreat.

Ratamahatta

Horses

06.05.2009 13:38

The people throwing bottles at horses were not doing so in self-defence. The horses were standing still and I agree that the small number of people at the back of the protest that lobbed bottles at the line of horses were totally unacceptable. The majority didn't do it though because most activists are not assholes.

I get the fact it's all to easy to get caught up in the heat of the moment. However, it's not the horse's fault and it's not what we are about. Justifying silly attacks on innocents is what states do!

I hope we come to a consensus that attacks on horses will not be tolerated! Let's be creative in our actions in out smarting the cops (as the majority were) and not just follow the idiotic media stereotypes of nasty thugs attacking animals like a tiny minority did (probably not even activists just people from town).

We should remove (after a warning) those that stupidly attack animals on demos.

Party goer