Student protests: video shows mounted police charging London crowd

[n2doc]

Adam Gabbatt and Paul Lewis
guardian.co.uk, Friday 26 November 2010 13.50 GMT


Video footage has emerged showing mounted police charging a crowd of protesters during this week's tuition fees demonstrations, the day after the Metropolitan police said tactics "did not involve charging the crowd".

Tens of thousands of school and college pupils and university students demonstrated in largely peaceful protests across the country against government plans to increase tuition fees and scrap the education maintenance allowance, but there were violent scenes at the central London protests. Hundreds of protesters were corralled or "kettled" by police, and later advanced upon by mounted officers.

Many who were in the crowd complained of being charged by police on horseback.

Police have denied that mounted officers charged at protesters; however, a five-minute video posted on YouTube last night shows a number of officers on horseback advancing at speed through a crowd of people.

Jenny Love, 22, who graduated from Bath University in July, said mounted officers "charged without warning".

"When the horses charged I was fairly near the front of the demo, where we were very tightly packed in, and found myself very quickly on the floor where I assumed the foetal position and covered my head while people simply ran over me," she said.

more with video

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/nov/26/police-student-protests-horses-charge

[T Wolf]

1. They're British. As long as the charge did not involve sabers, it doesn't count. nt

[lunatica]

2. An earlier thread calls this police tactic of creating violence 'kettling'

Where they don't disperse the crowd but instead charge it and confine it with violence and sometimes force the crowd into very confined spaces for hours so they can't go to the bathroom or get out. Then they claim it's the crowd who were violent.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9631943

[leveymg]

5. That's an interesting link. Recommended.

They've been doing that for years here in the states. It's more commonly called "corralling."

[bemildred]

3. Dang, who knew police would lie and charge peaceful crowds on horses?

(Anybody that reads history, that's who.)

[Poboy]

4. Thanks for the great video.