Critical Mass starts Riot in London Terrorized

Violence breaks out after London's day of peaceful protest
Terrorists
Steve Boggan, et al, The Independent, 02 May 2002

At least 50 people were arrested in a series of violent clashes between riot
police and protesters in London in what was otherwise a largely peaceful day
of anti-capitalist demonstrations.

About 4,000 officers were deployed with thousands more on stand-by for a
series of protests that involved between 7,000 and 10,000 people.

Those arrested were held on public order offences including assault,
criminal damage, carrying drugs and drunkenness. Fights broke out in the
early evening when police attempted to make arrests. In one incident beer
bottles containing bleach were thrown at the police.

Several people were slightly injured, including three officers. One
officer's arm was broken when he was hit by a fire extinguisher thrown at
him during a stand-off at Shaftes-bury Avenue. A group of about 80
protesters briefly ran amok, overturning litter bins, throwing missiles and
attacking a branch of McDonald's.
In Piccadilly, about 100 protesters charged the police line, throwing cans
and bottles.

Last night, mounted police advanced on the last several hundred protesters
in Soho after a baton charge. Police also adopted tactics used last year,
albeit on a smaller scale, by surrounding the remaining demonstrators. Last
year, police corralled 2,000 people in Oxford Circus for hours in an
operation later described as a mass unlawful arrest.

The day began infuriatingly, but peacefully, for motorists when Critical
Mass, which opposes the love affair with the car, staged a slow-motion bike
ride in rush hour. By noon, demonstrators were outside Philip Hockley in
Mayfair, arguably the highest-profile fur dealer in the capital.

Again, protests were noisy but peaceful, and subsided in time for animal
rights activists to join a march that traversed the fashion centre of New
Bond Street, through Park Lane, past boarded-up Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Aston
Martin dealerships and on to Oxford Street, the retail heart of London.

Yesterday, until the late events in Soho, the marchers were given almost
free rein through London's busiest streets. At most of the potential
flashpoints, police refrained from dressing in riot gear, a softly softly
approach that reaped dividends by early evening. Despite the late outbreaks
of violence most of the day was described by the police as "peaceful and
good humoured".

Stung by criticism from previous protests, the Metropolitan Police were
determined to stamp out trouble before it became serious and to ensure they
were not outnumbered. They managed the second objective with ease, deploying
about 4,000 officers to control an estimated 7,000 protesters, the vast bulk
of whom were peaceful.

The day started with a march past some of London's most exclusive areas. The
sign at the head of the throng read, without a hint of irony, "Don't follow
the logo", but the May Day marchers did just that. Past Versace,
Rolls-Royce, Mont Blanc, DKNY, Calvin Klein, Boss and Aston Martin.

The route read like a roll-call of the ostentatious and the elite. And they
were all boarded up. For one day only, as the sales pitch goes, the tills
were quiet. Like an anti-capitalist's dream, London's poshest boutiques in
Mayfair, its most exclusive quarter, had battened down the hatches in the
face of nothing more than whistles, banners and silly hats.

Until dusk, when small groups of hardcore demonstrators fanned out through
side streets to fight skirmishes with police in riot gear, it appeared that
May Day 2002 might pass off with the issues - anti-capitalism,
anti-globalism, war and exploitation - at the centre of attention, rather
than the annual bouts of bottle-throwing and window-smashing that have come
to characterise the event.

The Mayfair march was just one of a number of colourful demonstrations
across the capital. For the first time, in the official march just three
miles away, trade unionists joined forces with Globalise Resistance, the
anti-capitalist group that has been associated with trouble in the past.

Only two years ago, they would have been unlikely bedfellows, but yesterday
they found common cause through a rising tide of dissatisfaction with New
Labour, the war on terrorism and mass redundancies in the private sector.

Beside them came a 5,000-strong rainbow coalition of anarchists, peaceniks,
sex workers, bicycling ecologists and Kurdish civil rights campaigners. By
evening, the police said 7,000 people had turned up. The demonstrators
claimed they numbered 15,000.

"It has been absolutely brilliant," Guy Taylor of Globalise Resistance said.
"This is the start of a great relationship between us and the trade
unionists which we hope will grow stronger. It's what we've wanted for
years; for the issues to be discussed, instead of the trouble."

The day began infuriatingly, but peacefully, for motorists when Critical
Mass, which opposes the love affair with the car, staged a slow-motion bike
ride in rush hour. By noon, demonstrators were outside Philip Hockley in
Mayfair, arguably the highest-profile fur dealer in the capital.

Again, protests were noisy but peaceful, and subsided in time for animal
rights activists to join a march that traversed the fashion centre of New
Bond Street, through Park Lane, past boarded-up Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Aston
Martin dealerships and on to Oxford Street, the retail heart of London.

Gap, which has been criticised for using Third World labour, was booed but
not attacked. Others outlets that boarded up their windows included Kurt
Geiger, the Prince of Wales's favourite gunsmith Holland & Holland, Liberty,
Boots, Tesco, Swatch, Orange, the hairdresser Nicky Clarke, Jaguar, American
Express, Aquascutum, Whittard's and, of course, McDonald's.

James Russell, manager of the perfumier Penhaligon's in South Molton Street,
said: "They should have the right to demonstrate and enjoy free speech, so
long as it doesn't get violent." The shop, like LK Bennett and Tag Heuer on
the same street, was boarded up but open for business. "We were warned by
police eight weeks ago that Mayfair was to be the focus of attention, so
we're taking no chances," Mr Russell said. "It must confuse tourists."

By 1pm, the focus had shifted to the official march, a vast collection of
interest groups, trade unions and fringe political parties that embarked on
a two-mile meander through central London from Clerkenwell, a traditional
gathering point of the left, to Trafalgar Square, the destination of choice
for decades for campaigners from CND to those trying to save the pigeons.

The boisterous but good-humoured procession, headed by the veteran
left-winger Tony Benn and Bob Crowe, the head of the RMT rail union,
stretched for more than half a mile with a forest of banners backing causes
from unhappy taxi drivers to prostitutes looking for better protection from
the law.

Louisa, 33, a stripper suitably dressed for the day in swimsuit and feather
boa, said: "This is a gathering of working people who feel cheated by the
Government and by the system. We see injustices going on everywhere, not
least the climate of fear in which sex workers have to do their jobs."

The official march passed outposts of the favourite villains of
anti-capitalism, including Starbucks and Exxon, without even a murmur of
condemnation. Even when it reached a boarded-up McDonald's, the most violent
reaction was vicious whistling.

George Anthony, the southern region TUC's chief marshal for the event, said:
"I was on eggshells over linking up with the anti-capitalists, but they were
good as gold. This is the best May Day in my memory, and I'm 70. I can't
begin to tell you what a success I think it was. Absolutely marvellous."

Yesterday's police operation, loss of business, and damage is expected to
cost about £20m. The financial burden comes at a particularly bad time for
the Metropolitan Police, which is struggling to control street crime.

At the heart of the police strategy was the GT intelligence centre on the
second floor of the Scotland Yard headquarters in central London. A bank of
television monitors linked to cameras carried by officers, at fixed
locations, and on the force helicopter, followed every step of the May Day
demonstrators.
From the airless GT operations room staffed by about 100 senior detectives,
orders were sent to the thousands of officers from the Met, the City of
London force and British Transport Police scattered throughout the capital.

The main aim was to identify troublemakers or potential flashpoints and
control them or frighten them off. Teams of police spotters were used to try
to arrest or confront wanted offenders or suspected troublemakers.
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