Party Vibe

As expected there is loads of traffic on SJ about this..

I didn’t go there (and was g;ad I did) and ICBA to argue the various points raised – but from reading these posts a simple explanation of what happened is that the landowner (National Trust agent) got pissed off, and hotheads on all sides (landowner, cops, ravers) decided to play vigilanté and turn what was a fun party into a small scale battle.

Everyone dug their heels in and fought their corner – this resulted in

– a number of skirmishes betweeen cops and ravers resulting in cops being pelted and one injured which led to the final baton charge

– equipment getting seized (in some cases outside the law) and damaged

– irritant gas sprays being deployed by cops and a young child being contaminated by this spray

– the cops (unlawfully) attempting to seize photographic equipment as the incident kid being sprayed had been captured on film and video

NO ONE “WON” FROM THIS INCIDENT. Not the locals, the cops, nor the ravers and their families.

The repercussions of this incident will be played out for years – North Wales is now a more hostile place for all.

That said I hope that people get their kit back particularly the cameras etc – when this happens its a clear indication the OB have overstepped the mark and are trying to hide things.

But learn this for next time – IF an S63 is given out even by a friendly bobby in shirtsleeves with no obvious backup it is clear that the TSG are “waiting round the corner”. If one cop is pelted they will call “code 00” into their radios or press the orange button on the new airwave kit every cop for miles around will turn out to back them up. Believe it or not, they deal with unity and teamwork as well and when it comes on top can be good at it.

The fact its gone that far means that there HAVE been a lot of complaints, someone senior has planned how they are going to deal with the event. If you try fighting this it will result in trouble for all involved and no good solution. Better to regroup somewhere else.

Originally posted by USE
somettimes i wonder about you, lighting, i mean fair does try to see both sides, but you are presuminga lot when you basically rewrote an article… to brand ravers Hotheaded for responding tto prevocation by armed militia is both insensitive and insulting to the raving fraternaty. when was the last time you faced down the pigs? sometimes i thuink we should just systematically firebomb anti rave police stations around tghe counrty…..

………..it is a shame violence creates violence creates violence, but once the pigs take that a train, then fuck em. fuck the lot of em

Unfortunately they are better at controlled violence than ravers (as opposed to organised crime firms and gangsters) as they have been trained to use it properly. Have a look at “the strong arm of the law” by “PAJ Waddington” for some examples…ISBN: 0198273592 (get it from the library (most decent ones have it) or second hand stores, as its 40 quid from amazon !

I’ve seen cops (including TSG) retreat when they realise people aren’t going to be pushed around for no reason but trying to “face down” a TSG unit (riot squad) by physical force once they are determined to move someone on can be a losing battle even if you are particularly strong.

Even if you “win” (like in the early 80s) what happens is that those in society who believe in the conventional channels of “law and order” and “government” (and there are a lot of them) withdraw their support – particularly that provided either through public sector or private business etc from that area, and leave it to rot.

It becomes a “no-go” area to normal people and IME the fact cops don’t “bother” the area doesn’t always mean the place becomes ” a haven of anarchic freedom” – the word on the street and “alternative community” gets out that “violence is OK to achieve your ends” – and the real nutters and gangsters move in, often ousting by force those with more positive ideas.

This is what happened to most of the urban areas that were “liberated” by riots in the 1980s, and many estates in Britain today.

BTW I stopped thinking there was a “raving fraternity” years ago. I do have some good friends who like parties as well – and people who come together to party every weekend; but I don’t think theres a “big happy family any more” – something I’ve learnt through hard experience.

I stand by what I said regarding hotheaded people – they are a minority on all sides of the battle. All ravers are not hotheads any more than all cops, landowners or locals are; I’ve met reasonable and unreasonable types amongst all of them…

There are however people who attend parties that enjoy a bit of a fight as it makes them feel like “big men” – be that with OB or even fellow party people. Were this not the case I wouldn’t have been mentioning in other threads all the “angry people” I’ve seen at parties recently. I’ve even known ravers admitting that being a cop wouldn’t be too bad a job as you could take your frustration out on people and get away with it!

Self defence is OK – challenging unnacceptable behaviour from authorities must be done and is being done – at the same time when people decide to keep pushing the locals, landowners and authorities beyond the limit (all other crews stood down and regrouped last weekend after their events got to this point) its hardly surprising things like this happen. Yet its also surprising how much you can get away with if you are prepared to exercise a bit of “give and take”

As for violence – remember my post about how my cities community venture fscked up?

Well what happened is we were being beseiged by people at the squat who just wanted to rinse the place or use it to jack up in. I’m literally talking “besieged” as well – having to barricade doors and stuff – what should have been a fun venture turned into a living nightmare.

The chap who was the “big man” (and he is physically quite large) was basically dealing with these intruders by “any means necessary”.

At one point he was telling me how much he was enjoying chucking these people out from the squat and it made him feel good to draw blood from them! – but shortly after he had a nervious breakdown and even turned on his friends (not with such a level of violence – but still alarming and soul-destroying to see this happen)

This is what violence leads to.

info courtesy of PAJ Waddington, the Home Office and various other public domain sources including the cops websites themselves…..

TSG = Territorial Support Group. Cops organised into “serials” (a van load of 6-10 (depending on size of van and resources available) headed by a sargeant). Often (but not always) wearing “public order gear” or PPE (personal protective gear) – fireproof overalls, polycarbonate shield and protective helmet.

The two letters on the helmet are unique to each force – for instance GMP use “CK”, Metpol use “MP” and TVP use “HB”. This is for big incidents to which more than one force is deployed and is also part of the units radio call sign (such as “HB Alpha 1”)

Street term for these is the “riot squad”; although the authorities feel if a full-scale riot actually occurs they have actually failed.

You may hear them being called the SPG (Special Patrol Group) in areas close to London, this is a now-disbanded unit of the Met who were a lot more hardline and in many cases dealt out “law from the street” taking matters into their own hands in the manner you would expect a mainly white, male gang running the streets would do. Many claim their form of policing sparked off the riots across London in the 1980s!

The role of a TSG unit is quite simply to remove a potentially hostile crowd from a location where the rest of “normal” society does not want them to be, using “lawful and reasonable force”; or to provide a more “robust” police prescene to incite people to leave an area (i.e to frighten you a bit).

Their weapons include the use their own physical strength as humans; extendable batons but stuff like water cannons and baton rounds (plastic bullets) are not normally used on the British mainland (they are in Northern Ireland).

Units with firearms were uncommon until the aftermath of 2001-09-11 and are still very rare outside NI (maybe only occasionally seen in London). It woould be unlikely for them to turn up at raves unless it really went off in London and shots were fired.

TSG units were formed around the time of the Miners Strike and the Battle of the Beanfield; they have had plenty of experience at “going in heavy”; although compared to European forces they tend to use skill and tactics rather than weaponry.

Most euro forces will readily fire RIPs[1], smoke rounds and even live rounds in extreme cases to disperse a crowd. Some even have robot vehicles which discharge irritant gas; and will also use their regular Army units for backup. Whilst british cops can and do get heavy , compared to other nations they are kittens! [2]

[1] RIP = Round Irritant Personnel, a tear-gas canister fired from a modified shotgun.
[2] even kittens have very sharp claws and teeth.

Originally posted by Unregistered
Wow. Very organised. Thanks for that.

Surely such force is expensive to deploy and would (hopefully) only be used in extreme cases? I have never seen the Riot Squad at a party – have I just been lucky?

It is indeed a fairly extreme measure for them to be there; and normally only happens when the locals or landowners have made a lot of complaints.

In 14 years I’ve only known three major deployments of TSG units at raves. There have been others but I would say about 10 in total over this time period.

The senior cops don’t want to spend the money, the junior ones often lash out because they are scared [and TBH if I were the other side of the blue line I would do so as well!], ravers know their rights and will bombard the force with complaints if they are knocked about – so most forces seem to be avoiding this course of action.

What is happening (and something we must be aware of ) is that the S63 is served on Sunday afternoon; and bobbies go to the land/building owner the next day and have a quiet chat about “security matters”. A lot more places are getting barricaded off these days ..