Riots

Sadly I went back to school before the Bring Down Bay Street march last fall. Aparently they vandalized some Toronto Star paper boxes before being redirected to Queens Park where we could all ignore them and their odor.

I've been caught in a 'police riot' before. Being charged suddenly by a massive line of horses without warning on a peaceful demo (against the Education Bill sometime in the late 80s). It's bloody scary, and you can see how they often provoke trouble by their actions rather than prevent it.

Having been on the Poll Tax demo in 1990 as well, there was a lot happening that day that stirred up the eventual 'riot' - i.e. charges by police vans.

Anyone would think they actually wanted the front pages to focus on trouble the next day rather than the issues people were protesting about.

Loads of my friends have, being activist inclined. A friend of mine was making a series on "What's cool and hip in Dublin", and went along to the Reclaim the Streets. Followed them around a bit, saw the usual jugglers, Capioera, etc, then got on film the bit where the Gardai sans identifying numbers or badges descended on them and beat the bejesus out of them. As a result six or seven officers may be going to jail (but won't).

hmm, running out of time, but I was on the criminal justice bill march and was leaving, just as we passed the police with taped over ID numbers going in the opposite direction, fun it was not. Neither was going back to Bournemouth(where the Tory party conference was being held)in a white rented van and getting pulled over with four Irishmen in the back. Cue long long questions. All in all a day to really instill a lot of faith in the country's police force.

I was on a picket line in support of the Miners strike in Yorkshire 1984/85. As I was a declared pacifist (at the time) I avoided to the violence that broke out. Prior to the aggro I got into a deep conversation with a somewhat emotional policeman (seriously) who complained bitterly about how his family and children were being ostracised in the pit-village where they lived.

(Also been in the vicinity of various football hooligan riots, the worst in Belgium, but been fortunate to always get away ASAP.)

I love the idea of the Tory party conferenece being held in a white rented van!

conference

I myself have protested at a Tory conference in Bournemouth, but thankfully they didn't set the foxhounds on me (not that they bite, but you get my point).

I am probably the least riot-friendly person in history, but I have been on peaceful demonstrations from an early age - I think I was 7 when my mum took me on a demo against the rundown of Gravesend hospital. The sad thing is that I was unworldly enough to think that the government (represented in this instance by the constituency MP, a particularly loathsome Tory of the Monday Club tendency named Jacques Arnold) would reverse its policy if the demo was judged to be a success.

I was in the first of the current series of recent big Mayday riots in London. 1999, I think. Went along to the demonstrations out of curiosity. Turned a funny corner and a bottle smashed against a wall, inches from my eye, and armoured policehorses galloped towards me. Saw cars ablaze and balaclavas and a man being run over and the glass front of an office block smashed open. The whole chase aspect turned me on. I understood the importance of people like me. The front-line consists of a couple of dozen hardcore police-baiters. Behind them there are a hundred cowards (including me) who run when the police charge, ignoring orders from the front-line to not run, but who still make the whole thing look more unmanagable. I was thoroughly entertained.

The next year, I wanted to see more of the same. Instead, I was trapped and bored in Trafalgar Square from 3-7pm by police. Went home.

Subsequent years have seen me close to the action, but too scared to remain too close, in case I got trapped again.

Inbetween, and before, I've been in situations involving violence and police but nothing you'd call a real riot.

I was caught in a riot the weekend I was in Austin, Texas. It was a huge crowd on the notorious Sixth Street (the Texas relays?)... someone fired a gun, and the crowd just burst into madness. It turned out to be someone firing a blank. Nothing got reported on it at the news... I guess these things are pretty common in Texas.

I just escaped one in a car. 100 or so muslims from an African country I won't name throwing rocks, trash bins, chasing each other with belts and chains, trying to run people over in cars. Bloody INSANE. As one of only two white people there I was damm happy they didn't find me & the ref. So yeah, my first soccer riot.

One of my memories from being v small is being chased down the road by a bunch of grown men because I was wearing a spurs shirt and my family had inadvertently wandered into a bunch of rioting Gooners. They were in their twenties. I was six.

I was in the LA Riots in 92 and caught up in some other LA skirmishes but I don't remember the years, in the 90s. I have some great photos of combat troops with sandbags and automatic weapons on the steps of the giant Masonic Temple on Wilshire. A wedding was going on across the the street at the Ebell.

I was in the 92 riots in the sense not that I was rioting (thought I was just as pissed about Rodney King as those who were), but I was trapped in a neighborhood that was Riot Central. Everything was burned, etc, no electricity for days.

I think I've told this story before but I was in the middle of a mini-riot (basically looting). When the Chicago Bulls won their first championship back in 1991. It was my first year in college in Chicago, and after they won the game a couple dorm mates and I decided to go downtown to witness the revelry firsthand. It's funny, the city was so unprepared to deal with all the people downtown. I mean, they actually let us drive there! It was a mistake they did not repeat for the future championships. Anyway, from our car we witnessed this huge crowd gathering on Michigan avenue. I seemed as though something was going to happen; then one person threw a beer bottle at the window to a Gap store, then another and another until the window busted and hordes of people entered the store and pilfered stuff.