Police brutality and excessive force in Hyde Park, Leeds

U

UFO over easy

online mahjong
I thought this might interest a few Dissensians. I know there's a fairly big leeds contingent on here.

Anyway, basically we had a house party with another house on the street that backs onto ours on Friday night. About 2-300 people were there, mostly congregated in the back alley connecting the two houses. At about 3am the police turned up, and without warning a police car ploughed through everyone in the alley, pushing people against the walls and potentially causing a lot of damage. It was a clearly provocative move designed to anger the party goers, and excuse their next move, which was to gather back up, close off two nearby roads, barricade each side of the alley and advance rapidly on those congregated there armed with batons, dressed it riot gear and handling police dogs. There was no adequate warning given, and no attempt was made to turn off the music and disperse the crowd non-violently. This seems especially strange given the fact that the police were originally summoned due to a noise complaint.

3 people were arrested for public disorder offenses, and 8 people we know of were hospitalised. One person had his arm broken by a police baton, one person was concussed from a baton blow to the head, and countless others were bitten by dogs.

There is more information on this public facebook group - http://leedsac.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2329503566

We're gathering evidence to present to the press. Our students union has organised a meeting with our local councillor, MP, and student liaison officer (who we have already been in contact with.) Several of us were interviewed by BBC Radio Leeds, and clips of this were broadcast in regular bulletins yesterday. We were also interviewed this morning by the BBC for the local news - the feature was aired this afternoon at 1.25pm and will be aired again at 6.30pm. We will also be making an official complaint through the IPCC, and we're referring those with individual complaints to the students union who are representing them and helping their case get handled by the local police authority.

Here is youtube footage of the police action -

youtube.com/results?search_query=hyde+park+riot&search=Search


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Sorry for the longwinded post but this is something we really feel strongly about, and we've dedicated a lot of time to getting word out. So many people were injured, and so many more were harrassed and verbally abused by testosterone-fuelled riot police on a friday night power trip. If anyone has any advice on how to handle the IPCC or how to effectively get our complaints addressed, please post them up here!
 
U

UFO over easy

online mahjong
Parties like this in hyde park are not unusual. The way the police normally deal with them is to ask nicely for the system to be turned off and to guide people away peacefully.

In this instance, they penned people into the alleyway and forced them into the main road violently. 8 people are in hospital. Countless others have been bitten, beaten, and verbally abused. All because of a noise complaint. Do you think that's justified?

We entirely support the fact that the party needed to be dispersed. Our complaint is the way this was handled. At no point was the sound system turned off. There was no adequate warning from the police, aside from one tannoy annoucement which wasn't heard by the majority because they still hadn't turned off the music! I was forced out of my own house by police clutching attack dogs, trained to bite, who entered illegally, and were not wearing their badges.

Do you really think this is just standard procedure?

fucks sake..
 
M

Martin Dust

Techno Zen Master
Do you think that's justified?
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No, my point was that if you are an organised crew you've got to expect it going over the top when the crowd is that big simply because they are out numbered.

Do you really think this is just standard procedure?
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We both know that there is no such thing in practice.
 
M

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
Martin Dust said:
Human nature and I'm not sure why anyone would expect any different, after going through the miners strike I'll never trust a pig again, with anything.
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yer a braver man than me, years of paranoia restrain me from putting my feelings about our dear officers on the net. Have you seen the footage though? The charge is totally above and beyond the call of duty, haven't they got homes to go to?
 
M

Martin Dust

Techno Zen Master
mistersloane said:
yer a braver man than me, years of paranoia restrain me from putting my feelings about our dear officers on the net. Have you seen the footage though? The charge is totally above and beyond the call of duty, haven't they got homes to go to?
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Yes I've seen the footage and as I've stated I don't agree with the method used, but when you have that many people kicking around at that time, sooner or later it's going to kick off, common sense. The method used was to send a message I believe, something they use't to do in our village during the strike.
 
G

Gabba Flamenco Crossover

High Sierra Skullfuck
UFO over easy said:
Parties like this in hyde park are not unusual. The way the police normally deal with them is to ask nicely for the system to be turned off and to guide people away peacefully.

In this instance, they penned people into the alleyway and forced them into the main road violently. 8 people are in hospital. Countless others have been bitten, beaten, and verbally abused. All because of a noise complaint.
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Getting police out in that kind of force costs a lot of money, they wouldn't do it unless they felt someone was watching. Sounds like someone in the leeds police is under manners from the council or something. Have there been an unusually large amount of parties recently, or saveral high profile ones? Have there been news reports? Or maybe they were anticipating a summer of parties and thought they'd lay down a marker early on?

From what I've seen of free parties and the police, the golden rule is, don't make them look like chumps; don't put them in a position where they have to be Seen To Be Doing Something. IME, the way the police behave towards people when they approach them on thier own inititive is completely different to how they behave when someone's marked thier card, be it press, polititians, community groups, NIMBYs, whatever.

And those riot police are proper gorillas - the bosses put them on stuff like diplomatic protection, where they never interact with the normal public, so they can go in a crack skulls when needed without getting all mardy about it. That pic of the copper with the dog, it's not totally clear which animal is handling which.
 
Z

zhao

there are no accidents
this is very scary. and i thought leeds was a friendly peaceful town. how did partiers react to the cop car ploughing through the alley? in other words, were there any provocation to the violence on the part of the police? were there rocks thrown or anything like that?

here in berlin i hear the police are mostly respected, because corruption virtually doesn't exist at all (unlike in Los Angeles), and they mostly do a good job in an orderly fashion. but the first of May there is usually a stand off between anarchists and police in this park, a tradition i was told was started by Einsturzende 20 years ago. my idea is to fly all the anarchists in Berlin to China, or i guess maybe Leeds, where they can take it out on the kind of pigs who deserve to get their faces smashed in.
 
M

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
zhao said:
my idea is to fly all the anarchists in Berlin to China, or i guess maybe Leeds, where they can take it out on the kind of pigs who deserve to get their faces smashed in.
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You could set up a tour company and do it every year, call it 'Club Stasi' or something.
 
D

DRMHCP

Well-known member
The problem here is that just about every working person in Hyde Park (and although its basically student central for Leeds there are still some "working class" people living there) supports the police. There sick too death of being kept awake every night (at least this was at the weekend but noise happens just about every night of the week in term time) by a load of inconsiderate Tom. Jack and Jessicas whose mummies and daddies would be up in arms if they abused the nice leafy areas where they come from in the same way.
I spent a few years in Leeds in the adjoining student area of Woodhouse whilst trying to hold down a job and the screaming and shouting every night between about 12 and 2 or 3 every night (and especially bang in the middle of the week when clubs had "student nights")as they came home used to drive me mad.

It's also a crystallisation of that age old phenomenon of middle class people going on about "police oppression" etc when just about the commonest plea from working class people in deprived areas is for more police and tougher action

Not wanting to come on the complete killjoy but surely a bit of consideration has got to be shown. In the two party scenes I participated in ie in 1988-90 when I was down in London, and early this millenium in Sheffield, they were put on in areas where disruption could be kept to a minimum. To be honest in the 1980s around the M25 you got the feeling a lot of the time that the police were forced into taking action they were reluctant to take by Maggie, the brewers and the powers that be (but that's another story). Similarly in 1999-01 in Sheffield the police generally left us alone but once again they were held in sensible places and not in the middle of housing estates! Possibly why Sheffield amazingly still had a free party scene (every summer weekend!) as recently as then.
I wonder if the consideration, empathy and common sense on those 2 scenes could have come from the fact that they weren't student led and to be honest (apart from the occasional Tony Colston-Hayer) in the case of the Acid scene in London originally an outgrowth of the old soul/funk scene and so basically working-class and planned with a bit of common sense.
 
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L

Lichen

Well-known member
I hear that. No need to crack heads, but making a racket when people want to kip is anti-social and downright rude.

And besides, a nip on the bum from a dog aint that bad (rabies not withstanding).

If I had to go to work the next I'd have been egging the police on, not dashing out to the street shouting..."noooo, don't hurt them, pleeeeasse. It's their right to keep people awake all night"
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
...and so basically working-class and planned with a bit of common sense
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So anyone with a University education is invaraibly an absent-minded buffoon who'd hard-pushed to organised a piss-up in a brewery? :slanted:
 
U

UFO over easy

online mahjong
Lichen said:
I hear that. No need to crack heads, but making a racket when people want to kip is anti-social and downright rude.

And besides, a nip on the bum from a dog aint that bad (rabies not withstanding).

If I had to go to work the next I'd have been egging the police on, not dashing out to the street shouting..."noooo, don't hurt them, pleeeeasse. It's their right to keep people awake all night"
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Firstly, it was a friday night, and it wasn't particularly loud... secondly, people getting their arms broken and being badly bitten because they were at a party "ain't that bad"? 60 violent police officers called to break up a fairly tame party "ain't that bad"? Fuck off, sorry. This was as a result of two noise complaints, we subsequently found out.

Yes, consideration has to be shown to the people in the surrounding areas, and yes, the party probably needed to be shut down, but fucking hell... at no point did the police ask for the system to be turned off, at no point did they attempt to enter into a dialogue with us, and at no point did they attempt to disperse the party peacefully. They gave one warning over a tannoy at the end of the street which no one heard due to the fact that they hadn't turned off the music or made their presence felt yet! It smacked of going through the official procedure quietly in order to have an excuse to crack some skulls.

zhao said:
how did partiers react to the cop car ploughing through the alley? in other words, were there any provocation to the violence on the part of the police? were there rocks thrown or anything like that?
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Three people were arrested for public disturbance - one drunk guy decided to roll around on the car bonnet, one guy who was filming the whole thing was arrested for swearing and had his camera confiscated (when he went down to the station to ask for it back, it'd been 'lost'), and I don't know about the third person.

DRMHCP said:
Not wanting to come on the complete killjoy but surely a bit of consideration has got to be shown. In the two party scenes I participated in ie in 1988-90 when I was down in London, and early this millenium in Sheffield, they were put on in areas where disruption could be kept to a minimum.
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I hear you definitely, and I know the student community isn't really best liked, but we weren't putting on a rave. This was just a 21st birthday party, and it was pretty tame really. There were two speakers in the front room of 19 Hessle Terrace which you couldn't even hear in the alleyway, let alone any further down the street, and I think everyone within 6 houses on both streets is a student. Most people were just chatting and having a drink.

We're still being subjected to intimidation and general police bullying... they decided to threaten us with arrest when we started going to press and organising a response. They have absolutely nothing to prosecute with though... they've managed to convince one person to put forward an official public nuisance complaint, and they have statements from all of us who live in the two houses, and that's it, so basically they're just throwing their weight around to try and shut us up :)

Through communicating with our MP Greg Mulholland we've managed to get an IPCC complaint through, there've been stories in student papers, the main local papers, fanzines, BBC Radio Leeds and BBC Look North on BBC1, and through working with the student's union we're helping individuals with specific complaints and injuries to go through the proper complaints procedures. I believe two people are pressing charges against the police... so it's all still going on.
 
mos dan

mos dan

fact music
UFO over easy said:
Through communicating with our MP Greg Mulholland we've managed to get an IPCC complaint through, there've been stories in student papers, the main local papers, fanzines, BBC Radio Leeds and BBC Look North on BBC1, and through working with the student's union we're helping individuals with specific complaints and injuries to go through the proper complaints procedures. I believe two people are pressing charges against the police... so it's all still going on.
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keep it up ben. the police behaviour all sounds crazily disproportionate.
 
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