Crusty Watch

[Gwylan]

As I saw the 21 police cars and vans parked along Lewes Road, I was thinking that today would be a good day to be a burglar. It seems that i wasn't the only one.

Phoney plain-clothes police officers burgle four Sussex homes in three hours From The Argus)

 

[Freddie Goodwin.]

It wasn't just the 24's but also the 49's and 49A buses, all those that use london Road.

Somewhat ironic that the 25's to the Uni were running quite well though.

When i saw them, near the bottom of Bear Road, they had a loud sound system blasting out some reggea type music which i'm pretty sure had the f word and also the n word that white people are not aloud to say. Even if I had missheard these (I was on the other side by Sainsburys), surely the OB could have got them to turn down the noise?

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Rather curiously, the organisation I work for managed to send 10 minibuses out of Preston Barracks and along Lewes Road at 3.00pm to do their regular afternoon work and they were all back by 4.15pm, with no delays to any of them.

 

[Barrel of Fun]

The protest cost the taxpayer £700k

 

[larus]

The protest cost the taxpayer £700k

Find that hard to believe.

Say 200 police, plus vans, horses, dogs etc for 5 hours (13:00 to 18:00).

That's £700 per hour per copper (excluding the vans, dogs and horrses).

More expensive that merchant bankers....

 

[Gwylan]

I think there were more than 200 coppers involved and it's longer than five hours, but yes, it's expensive.

I'm not quite sure why they need so many coppers - the organisers claimed 300 demonstrators (I thought it was far fewer than that, 200 at the most). Do they really need more than one copper than demonstrators?

I remember when between 1m and 2m people marched in London against the Iraq War, the Met didn't more than a million coppers to police it.

 

[larus]

I think there were more than 200 coppers involved and it's longer than five hours, but yes, it's expensive.

I'm not quite sure why they need so many coppers - the organisers claimed 300 demonstrators (I thought it was far fewer than that, 200 at the most). Do they really need more than one copper than demonstrators?

I remember when between 1m and 2m people marched in London against the Iraq War, the Met didn't more than a million coppers to police it.

No there weren't. It started at 13:00; I wasn't aware of it being on beyong 18:00

Also, the protestors were 'rent-a-mob'. I.e, scum-bags looking for a fight, not genuine protestors a-la the Iraq War. OK, 'rent-a-mob' were there too, but the majority were just normal Joe Public, not out for trouble.

 

[Gwylan]

No there weren't. It started at 13:00; I wasn't aware of it being on beyong 18:00

Also, the protestors were 'rent-a-mob'. I.e, scum-bags looking for a fight, not genuine protestors a-la the Iraq War. OK, 'rent-a-mob' were there too, but the majority were just normal Joe Public, not out for trouble.

According to the Argus liveblog there were protesters on the street before that but what I meant was that the police wouldn't just turn up when a demo started and leave when it finished - they'd be in place well before and hang around afterwards.

I went past the demo twice that afternoon and must say that they looked about as threatening as WI meeting.

Of course, there are some hard-core troublemakers but the vast majority of the EDO demo was made up of ordinary looking people. For example, John Catt may be a complete arsewipe but, in all honesty, he's not going to the sort of bloke who's going to go around smacking coppers.

The police like saying that it's a demo of trouble makers but that doesn't make it so.

 

[Acker79]

Do police just show up at demonstrations, or are there strategy meetings, research into the likelihood of trouble, people to keep an eye on, planning routes, checking plans are ok, etc. Then relaying these to the men.

Then getting kitted up and making your way to the demo route. Then of course the demo itself, then hanging around a little longer just to make sure it is over. Then of course there's the post-demo reports and paper work.

Other costs factored in will be the red tape in preparation for the demo from both sides (I imagine the police would have at least attempted to liaise with the group organising the demo beforehand). Some may also factor in the cost of regular policing on top of the demo (i.e. if you have to bring in a back up cop to cover the beat of someone who is needed at the demo).

There may also have been police officer brought in who needed training or refresher courses on demo policing, or perhaps training in new demo styles in response to improvement on previous actions.

 

[Gwylan]

Just seen the story in the Argus - the £700,000 refers to the total cost of three demonstrations this year; the one this week is estimated at £50,000 - which seems more realistic.