By: gerry oates

gerry oates — Sun, 22 Jul 2012 18:14:04 +0000

For a good understanding of what went on in Essex it will pay to look at the police website.Essex Police.uk and there you will find a letter from the Chief Constable who chides a local nrewspaper editor for being too alarmist plus an FAQ section designed to reassure the public.Then last march they published an information documenton on Operation Cabinet3.This outlines the elaborate preparations,including summoning up large reinforcements,arranging for financial support from the council and the home office (£10m),building of a holding area (police transit camp) – all of which points to the fact that this was the biggest operation in living memory in these parts.They included a list of injuries sustained by officers and some idea of arrests made.
There is a section on use of Tazers -not about what actually happened but what ought to happen in ideal circumstances.The original document might have been efited since but originally it stated in the final section that no complaints had been received.
The point to note is that in on the day the invading force consisted of riot police.They broke into the site.They conducted the eviction….something which in the Chief constable’s letter and in the FAQs they claimed they did not do because evictions were a civil matter and the police only attended as bystanders,ready,if called upon,to intervene in order to maintain the Queen’s peace.
What caused the Essex boys to overturn the usual police procedures if not undue deference to the local politicians and newspapermen baying on the sidelines.Did the Basildon council exert undue influence upon the constabulary.WE know that the police were softening up the media,because they held a closed press conference just about 6 weeks before the eviction in which a chief inspector claimed that there were 2,000 anarchists on the site and another 1,000 preparing to join them.The protestors on the site of Camp Constant would recognise this was hogwash
but since the riots of last Summer,mythical anarchists had become popular scapegoats.
I can see the Essex OTT jolly happening again during the Olympics.

By: gerry oates

gerry oates — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 19:31:47 +0000

Essex police held a closed press conference last September ahead of the Dale Farm eviction in which a chief inspector said the anarchist are planning to hijack the eviction.There are 2.000 of them on the site and another 1,000 “signed up” as reinforcements.
His men were monitoring 30 groups,unnamed,which are thought to be intent on violence.See Billericay Gazette/7th,Sept.and Southend on Sea 5th Sept…..although the latter report has recently been transferred to an archive dated Jan/1970.
One can reasonably expect similar tactics during the Olympics.The /Essex boys equate protestors with anarchists.

Comments on: Policing dissent at London 2012

By: gerry oates

By: gerry oates