Are the Met running out of riot cops?

My plan for Sat was to head to Leicester for the EDL demo.  However, the weather forecast was not good and I did not fancy getting stuck there if the weather turned.  Instead, I decided to head to the Syrian embassy in London.  Ive covered lots of demos there recently, but overnight a group of protesters had managed to break into the building.  There were promises of more of the similar to come.  This was unusual, the Syrians have always been peaceful demonstrators.  The situation in Syria has deteriorated over the past weeks and with UN Security Council meeting later on Saturday, the protesters were keen to get maximum publicity.

There were only a few hundred protesters and a handful of police present when I arrived.  This is kind of par for the course with the Syrians.  The embassy building bore the scars of the previous nights attack.  A large window had been kicked in and there were a few paint splashes on the magnolia walls.  The protesters were the usual mix of young men and families.  There were speeches and chants.

When you attend as many of these protest meetings as I do, you develop a  sense of how they operate.  The protesters were as usual, held in a pen, contained by metal barriers.  I knew something was afoot when the women and children all moved to one end of the pen and the young men in the crowd approached the front barriers.  Suddenly a shout went up and the men flooded out the pen.  Some jumped the barrier, some pushed the barriers aside.  There were perhaps 20 cops trying to contain a crowd of appx 100 protesters, hell bent on reaching the embassy across the road. 

While this was going on, a truck was unloading 1 ton sand bags to reinforce the embassies defences.  The cops managed to force some of the protesters back into the pen, while others reached the barriers on the embassy side of the road.  Until this, the embassy side of the road was guarded by only two cops on the door.  Quickly they were replaced by 8 others in helmets and short shields, with batons drawn.  The police managed to get most of the Syrians back in the pen.  However, now the protesters were throwing anything they could get their hands on at the embassy building.  Dozens of full plastic water bottles, eggs and sticks were thrown.

There was another charge by the crowd in the pen.  Again the barriers were overcome and the police brushed aside.  There were just not enough police.  Once the cops who were there started holding a protester, they were soon all busy and the superior numbers of the protesters reached the barrier on the embassy side of the road.  The cops guarding the embassy  had long shields and they used these to fend off the protesters who were now beginning to climb over the double layers of barriers and sandbags in their determination to get to the embassy.

Having run out of bottles etc to throw at the embassy, they protesters now turned to concrete blocks.  They smashed up lumps of concrete used to hold the metal fence separating the protest pens in place.  They were then thrown at the embassy.  Soon, windows were being smashed.  Some of the lumps thrown were huge.  It is only luck that none of the police or protesters at the front were seriously injured or killed.  Again the lack of police was highlighted.  There were cops guarding the embassy, cops trying to force protesters back into the pen, cops trying to stop the concrete being smashed and thrown.  Only the cops guarding the embassy were successful in their task.  That's not to say the others were no good, they were very brave and really up for it.  There were just not enough of them.  I saw several brick throwers grabbed by  cops, only to have three or four of the brick throwers friends pull him back into the crowd.

It would be hard to criticise the police planning of this event.  Ive already said - the Syrians don't normally cause trouble.  That said, events at the embassy the previous nigh should perhaps have rang some alarm bells.  As a regular at protest events, one stood out yesterday.  That was the time it took to get the riot cops to get there.  I heard the call for reinforcements go out.  It was a long time after when they arrived.  I would hazard a guess that most of the TSG units were way across London, policing the West Ham v Millwall game.  Mind you, that's just a guess!

Now, I'm no expert, but Ive noticed a trend appearing on some of the better police blogs.  There seems to be a lot of cops, 'Handing in their public order ticket'.  I'm presuming that means that they are not volunteering for that sort of duty(riots, demos etc) anymore.  Who would blame them?  They get shafted if they are too 'robust', they get shafted if they are too soft. They cant strike, and their bosses don't seem to have a clue as to what actually happens on the streets.

The thing that saved the cops from a lot of injuries yesterday was surprisingly, the attitude of the protesters.  The cops had to use batons on many protesters.  However, rather than fight with the police, the protesters just carried on trying to reach the embassy.  There was no sense of the protesters wanting trouble as such, they just were intent on reaching the embassy.  Even when the police had the TSG in place and began arresting those involved, the arrested walked calmly to the waiting police vans.

The protesters got their publicity.  Both Sky and BBC had crews present.  As it happens, the gorgeous Katie Stallard (blonde Sky news chick) was felled by a full plastic water bottle thrown by a demonstrator.  Russia and China blocked the UN vote.  There will be more of this to come.



So fast forward a few month to the Olympics.  I would imagine the Met will use the 'mutual aid scheme', where they borrow officers from other forces.  But will that be enough?  There are going to be big protests during the games.  How will the police cope with huge protests, the security implications of the games, and normal everyday duties?  Will we see the army being used as public order police?

There is a good selection of action shots from the demo at http://mitchell-images.com/#/syrian-embassy/4560420989