I was watching some of the live footage of the Charlottesville rally before the state of emergency was declared and the march was broken up (with the unfortunately terrible aftermath).
It appeared that the Alt-Right protesters were marching down one of the city’s streets right alongside counter-protesters who were on the same street with no separation, barriers, or police presence. In the short time I watched there were multiple incidents when individuals from each side, some with helmets or shields, would get into violent altercations.
Now, my experience is that whenever I recall having seen a planned protest where there were expected counter-protesters, the police have set up separate areas for the two sides, with barriers and officers keeping them separate.
Now I don’t know the layout and logistics of Charlottesville, but from the video I saw, there was no effort to keep the sides separated during the march itself.
Does anyone know what the appropriate crowd control techniques are for this type of situation? Can anyone comment (in a GQ manner) on the techniques planned or applied in Charlottesville?
Policing protest and counter protest marches is expensive. The Metropolitan Police in London have vast experience and can vary their response to the situation. The pride march, for example, had a very low key and friendly response, while hard left v hard right demonstrations like the one in Charlottesville would have barriers and a lot of police on the ground, and the guys with the shields lurking in vans out of sight (so as not to actually provoke a response). The police work hard at gathering intelligence so as to be able to nip trouble in the bud. It would also be the case that anyone armed would be ‘snatched’ and arrested.
The problems in Charlottesville will be the result of a series of bad decisions. Reluctance to spend money, underestimating the nature of the marches, or just plain incompetence. Add to that the fear of being between a rock and a hard place and knowing that whatever they do (or don’t do) will be seen as favouring one side or the other.
Rightists and conservatives want a strong hand used to crush their ideological enemies. Leftists and liberals want the state to destroy those opposed to their ideas.
When the same strategy is used against them each cries ‘brutality’ whilst applauding it in the mirror image.
So there’s no magic bullet even if American police bring themselves to could pull the trigger — state actors are always the bad guys for one side or both, added to which the astounding propensity for violence and passion for excitement that demands decisive events.
The response was not planned for that location. The location was moved back to the originally requested site Friday by a court decision. Further complicating preparation was that police then had to support UVA campus police at a demonstration Friday evening. The terrain was also more challenging because it got moved into the town center instead of the more open and controllable park the city was planning on.
It was very much a planned and executed on the fly operation.
The cops need to be as flexible as the demonstrators/rioters. With everyone twittering and fb’ing The crowd can change plans in minutes. The cops have to monitor that and anticipate.
Political jabs are not allowed in General Questions, even if there are jabs against both sides. This is an official warning. Do not do this again.
Since you have other warnings for political jabs within the last month, I would very strongly suggest that you stick strictly to factual posts in General Questions in the future. Further warnings will result in your posting privileges coming under discussion.
The old Army in me says that good planning is the key to flexibility. It’s easier and quicker to adapt from a solid base than have to make up and disseminate every detail under stress and time pressure. You certainly don’t get temporary fencing planned and installed once the event is in full swing. Things like who is monitoring social media and how the information gets collected with other observations, analyzed, and then disseminated aren’t easily improvised well either.
The police planning for what they thought was going to happen gave them some advantages. They’d clearly managed their departmental staffing and arranged/integrated outside agency support to handle a large rally.
If you don’t understand how that’s a political jab, then you shouldn’t be posting in General Questions. Any further discussion of moderation should be taken to ATMB.
When I was in IT our firm made software for planning and executing the police/fire/EMS response to events like this.
The planning starts out very high level: how many citizens doing what implies we need about how many responders of which sorts.
Eventually it gets down to the level of “Officer Schmutz, badge #1234 of agency XYZ will deploy to the NW corner of First Avenue and Main Boulevard at 0800, departing from assembly area ABC on foot at 0730. He will be equipped with his standard police gear plus one riot shield borrowed from agency DEF and handed out at distribution point 456. He will be relieved at 1630.” “Officer Jones, badge #2345 of agency QWE …” etc., etc., for a thousand or more individual people and machines. For extended events this goes on shift after shift for days on end.
Replanning the latter level of detail on the fly is difficult to impossible even with really strong automation support. But, as DinoR said, already having about the right amount of the right kind of manpower somewhere near the rapidly changing situation helps. As does having flexible low-level leaders authorized, able, and willing to take the tactical initiative.
I learned that crowd control is a very difficult organizational and individual skill. The police can easily inflame a situation and convert a two-person altercation into a 100 person melee. Or they can, by almost the same intervention, turn a two-person altercation into one or two arrests and peace quickly restored.
Crowds are skittish and emotionally and behaviorally brittle. All the more so when it’s a hostile crowd rather than a happy albeit partly drunk/stoned crowd like at a parade or major sporting event. Any perception by either side that the police are pre-disposed against them really ups the ante. And for sure there’s at least a few people on each side of the crowd who are harboring exactly those thoughts whether well-founded or not. Throw in a few agents provocatuers and fireworks are all but assured.
One thing I read (so might have some of this exactly right) was that there was an effort by locals opposed to the rally to fill up all of the public parking around the location of the rally in order to cause inconvenience to the alt-right groups. So rather than park and walk a few blocks to the rally point, the racists had to park a mile or two away and march/parade to the site. The police couldn’t control the march because it wasn’t planned in advance.
Not totally sure where I read this, so no cite, but wasn’t there an instance recently during the Arab Spring where they controlled the crowds by stopping food stalls from being in the area? This led to people going home to eat rather than stay on and continue to protest.
So… fortunately, it’s not often someone drives a car through a crowd in the USA. That wasn’t an event that anyone could anticipate.
As far as the crowd being organized at the crowd level, probably not as much as one thinks. Some organized pockets here and there, but no homogeneity. It’d also be really dumb to post on any publicly available social media outlet what you plan on doing if you want to anarchist.
The real reason for the events that unfolded was people behaving badly. Pointing a finger at the police is a cheap shot. Both sides of the issue need to correct themselves in this manner as the point can be made without violence.