"Visibility Policing" on March 19th Anti-War Demo in London

Quite a few people I spoke to on the large anti-war protest on Saturday March 19th 05, remarked on the style of policing deployed for the march.

While they were not criticising the actions of any police officers, they were keen to point out that there was an increased level of close policing along the route and the increased use of police vans to create road block barriers, both en route and at Trafalger square, where the march ended.

Line at Piccadilly Circus 1 (police, barriers, vans)

Line at Piccadilly Circus 2

Second Van Line at Piccadilly

Police Line at Traf Sq as March Enters Square

Line across Traf Square

Traf Sq Exit Block 1

Traf Sq Exit Block 2

Traf Sq Exit Block 3

White Ribbons

They commented that this was more evident than the previous massive anti-war demonstrations. Of course things were different on this protest march to many of the previous protests, since the route both detoured around the US embassy passing through Grosvenor Square (with the obvious security concerns raised), and also entered into the bottom of Trafalger Square, as opposed to the top of the square as has been seen most of the earlier marches.

I took a few pictures en route and at trafalger square (see below) - there were lots of other places where vans were used as road block barriers and not just in the immediate area around the US embassy.

There were also many more areas cordoned off with white ribbons - some said this was for emergency vehicle access - however many were also situated outside buildings which were being more 'guarded' by police than others. There was also a much higher use made of metal crowd control barriers than previous anti-war demonstrations.

It was interesting to see this higher visability style of policing, especially since this was the first major national demonstration in London this year. No one was saying that this hasn't been seen before, or that other large anti-war protests haven't had high police presences, just that this felt a bit different and more visable.

One person did say they had heard quite a few Scottish accents from some of the police on road blocking duty, and wondered if this was in any way related to the G8 Summit due later in July in Scotland.

signifying nothing - probably.

Comments

Hide the following 4 comments

Picadilly

20.03.2005 16:20

Picadilly is almost by tradition the hot spot for sit down protests during big demonstrations.

Other peace protests have had massive police presences, and whitehall is always blocked off anyway now. Though there were more police along the route and side roads blocked and barriers.

What it means is

20.03.2005 16:34

What it means is the police and authorities have learnt their lessons. This is the reason marches like this achieve nothing. They are now little more than street performance.

Police Watcher

Dear Police Watcher

20.03.2005 23:40

Dear Police watcher,

So the anti war tactics helped the police hone their tactics against protesters. So what? Isn't that exactly what happens in one of your 'fewer but better' protests, except that in this case, thousands more people had their actions validated. Find your elitism disturbing. Need bobody to act for me but myself. Why don't you stay at home instead of me?

why not engage with the outside world

...and counting

21.03.2005 09:56

I counted over twenty police vans and that was just at Hyde Park. As for the pigs with Scottish accents, the Imperialists have always used Scots to do their dirty work. It's either that or swig Tenants at the tube station.

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