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On the tactic of kettling: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kettling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kettling * https://www.vox.com/2020/6/6/21282509/george-floy

On the tactic of kettling: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kettling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kettling * https://www.vox.com/2020/6/6/21282509/george-floyd-protests-kettling-new-york-nypd https://www.vox.com/2020/6/6/21282509/george-floyd-protests-...

Unfrozen0688 3y ago
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- darkclouds 3y ago
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  - Unfrozen0688 3y ago
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expertentipp 3y ago
The best one is kettling by the police without any exit, while appealing through the megaphone to the entrapped crowd to disperse.
- giraffe_lady 3y ago
  I've been to a lot of protests but I think the worst one I've ever seen was summer 2020 chicago. They declared an immediate curfew and simultaneously raised the bridges to downtown and shut down transit. The police were so incredibly violent after that, they had total control and very little restraint. And there was local news or police media team ready to catch every act of desperation from the protestors. But very little of the state violence made it to the news. They were singling out people filming, smashing phones, arresting anyone nearby. I remember stumbling into a corner and falling to the street and seeing it already covered in blood and mucus and teeth, and thinking "that's more teeth than one person has in their head wtf happened here." And then having to come on the internet every day since and hear about the "rioters" and looters and lawlessness and shit.
  - expertentipp 3y ago
    The covid despotism was a trial period of the most absurd dystopia. Now they know much better how far they can go, and unfortunately it's quite far.
    - flagged24 3y ago
      Police brutality on pandemic protesters and really the handling of the pandemic has made me realize how fragile our democracy is.
klondike_klive 3y ago
My gf and I were accidentally in a crowd that was kettled in London's Occupy protests quite a few years ago. Facing a line of masked police with riot shields was an extremely intimidating experience, even though it only lasted twenty minutes or so before they started letting people out through a gap. Maybe the intimidating effect would have diminished over time, and maybe if we were actually protesters we would have been amped up and fortified by numbers but it was interesting to note my immediate panic and helplessness!
- prennert 3y ago
  Just worth keeping in mind that the UK police is about the softest there is in terms of crowd control. No guns, no gas, I don't think they have used a water canon yet. They do have horses though which are scary AF. Once you got a panicked horse playing rodeo with it's rider while chasing you through an alley, you know what immediate panic feels like. Edit: I found horses worse than the crowd panic, breathing and eye issues after CS gas was released. And despite water cannons engaging is a very dramatic moment, I cannot imagine how it must feel when police give warning shots or even fire live ammo into the crowd (even you don't get hurt). Musst be a completely different level. Luckily I have never been in a situation on which police was even near such an escalation.
  - SEJeff 3y ago
    UK Police have batons, and they are trained to use them when necessary. Don't equivocate lack of lethal weapons with softness. They're not soft. Source: a coworker was on the police force for 10 years in London.
  - dmurray 3y ago
    > the UK police is about the softest there is in terms of crowd control. No guns, no gas... The UK police forces literally invented rubber bullets, and used them very liberally, and lethally, against protestors in Northern Ireland [0]. Just because they go easy on some climate march you were at in London doesn't mean they never take it further. [0] https://rubberbullets.longlead.com/chapter/rubber-bullet-history-northern-ireland https://rubberbullets.longlead.com/chapter/rubber-bullet-his...
squarefoot 3y ago
Kettling protesters, provoking them with multiple charges, then pushing them to "expendable" places with cars and shops is a common tactics to smear their public image. Someone will eventually lose their patience, throw something at a car or a window, to be immediately caught by a camera and broadcast nation wide with comments by political opponents. This happens pretty much in every so called democratic country; in other countries the police directly shoots at protesters.
- mike_hock 3y ago
  "Someone," not necessarily an actual protester, will eventually "lose their patience."
  - 93po 3y ago
    I was on the ground floor at George Floyd protests in Seattle and someone mysteriously left a large pile of neatly stacked bricks in the location where police kettled us.
  - Tronno 3y ago
    To add: Quebec police infiltrated a peaceful protest while wearing face masks and carrying rocks. In this case the protestors picked up the ruse and kicked them out. Of course they claim they weren't trying to instigate anything. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/quebec-police-admit-they-went-undercover-at-montebello-protest-1.656171 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/quebec-police-admit-they-went...
    - alsetmusic 3y ago
      I saw a video, years ago, where three guys in masks and boots (matching the nearby cops’ boots) were trying to instigate. A protest leader with a white beard was loudly denouncing them and saying they wanted no violence and that they weren’t part of their group. The instigators left, crossing into the crowd of cops in uniform unheeded. Huh, what a coinkidink.
slavboj 3y ago
When you intentionally enter an area with restricted ingress / egress like a highway in an attempt to shut it down, it's not exactly dirty pool to try to actually arrest and charge everyone involved.
- ryaneager 3y ago
  No you’re right, protested shouldn’t be disruptive. That is not their very point or anything….
  - pc86 3y ago
    I think there's certainly a middle ground. Disrupting and provoking the very people you are trying to convince of something is objectively counterproductive. On the other end of the spectrum if there's not some level of disruption you just get ignored. The trick is to find the line where you cause people enough disruption to think about why you're without causing so much that they just immediately side against you, and it seems like most protests completely miss the mark.
    - 542354234235 3y ago
      >Disrupting and provoking the very people you are trying to convince of something is objectively counterproductive. What were all those "whites only" lunch counter sit-ins MLK did then? They sound like a textbook definition of "provoking the very people you are trying to convince", and yet.
      - Quillbert182 3y ago
        The sit-ins were specifically targeted to break the laws they wanted changed. I don’t think many people are protesting laws saying that you can’t stand in the middle of the road.
        autoexec 3y ago
        Activists protesting the Vietnam war weren't participating in sit-ins to change the laws about loitering around campus buildings or in government offices. The people who chain themselves to trees scheduled to be cut down aren't protesting to change laws concerning tree bondage. Some sit-ins are planned as narrowly targeted acts of civil disobedience, but others are simply acts of passive resistance and they are no less valid as a means of protest. While at a high enough level of disruption, the acts of protesters might harm public support of the cause, I think that level is probably pretty high and supporters will largely understand if they are temporarily inconvenienced, while some people who already oppose the protestor's cause will tend to use any inconvenience as a more socially acceptable excuse to justify their opposition instead of more honest reasons like plain old bigotry.
nimbius 3y ago
fascinating tactic. i wonder if there are any countermeasures? - surely this does not work in all cases, only those where protestors are still convinced of the lawfulness of a peaceful protest, exploited by the threat actors (police) - what is the maximum size of a "kettle?" can this be exploited by creating an oversized kettle such that it would "burst?" - could kettling trigger a violent fight-or-flight response depending on demographic? many wild animals will exhibit ferocity when similar tactics are imposed. - can you kettle a peaceful --yet fully armed-- protest? what are the benefits? risks? - what is the economic impact to the city? minneapolis and other US locales have had to pay millions to settle unlawful detainment lawsuits during such events. is there a "break-even" point where kettles will be avoided for fear of inciting overwhelming expenditures? does the class/race makeup matter?
- pc86 3y ago
  Surely you don't actually mean to compare protestors or certain "demographics" to wild animals, right?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- justsomehnguy 3y ago
  > can you kettle a peaceful --yet fully armed-- protest In the last 20 years who were the most eager to open fire in any situation?
- throw0101b 3y ago
  > - can you kettle a peaceful --yet fully armed-- protest? what are the benefits? risks? If you wish people to accept or even join your movement, violence seems to be counter-productive: > For more than a century, from 1900 to 2006, campaigns of nonviolent resistance were more than twice as effective as their violent counterparts in achieving their stated goals. By attracting impressive support from citizens, whose activism takes the form of protests, boycotts, civil disobedience, and other forms of nonviolent noncooperation, these efforts help separate regimes from their main sources of power and produce remarkable results, even in Iran, Burma, the Philippines, and the Palestinian Territories. * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10056014-why-civil-resistance-works https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10056014-why-civil-resis...
kouru225 3y ago
They did this in Brooklyn in 2020 and a lot of people I know won’t ever forgive the cops for that. They kettled them and then beat them with batons. They had been completely peaceful.

Unfrozen0688 3y ago

[flagged]

darkclouds 3y ago
[flagged]
- Unfrozen0688 3y ago
  [flagged]

expertentipp 3y ago

The best one is kettling by the police without any exit, while appealing through the megaphone to the entrapped crowd to disperse.

giraffe_lady 3y ago
I've been to a lot of protests but I think the worst one I've ever seen was summer 2020 chicago. They declared an immediate curfew and simultaneously raised the bridges to downtown and shut down transit. The police were so incredibly violent after that, they had total control and very little restraint. And there was local news or police media team ready to catch every act of desperation from the protestors. But very little of the state violence made it to the news. They were singling out people filming, smashing phones, arresting anyone nearby. I remember stumbling into a corner and falling to the street and seeing it already covered in blood and mucus and teeth, and thinking "that's more teeth than one person has in their head wtf happened here." And then having to come on the internet every day since and hear about the "rioters" and looters and lawlessness and shit.
- expertentipp 3y ago
  The covid despotism was a trial period of the most absurd dystopia. Now they know much better how far they can go, and unfortunately it's quite far.
  - flagged24 3y ago
    Police brutality on pandemic protesters and really the handling of the pandemic has made me realize how fragile our democracy is.

klondike_klive 3y ago

My gf and I were accidentally in a crowd that was kettled in London's Occupy protests quite a few years ago. Facing a line of masked police with riot shields was an extremely intimidating experience, even though it only lasted twenty minutes or so before they started letting people out through a gap. Maybe the intimidating effect would have diminished over time, and maybe if we were actually protesters we would have been amped up and fortified by numbers but it was interesting to note my immediate panic and helplessness!

prennert 3y ago
Just worth keeping in mind that the UK police is about the softest there is in terms of crowd control. No guns, no gas, I don't think they have used a water canon yet. They do have horses though which are scary AF. Once you got a panicked horse playing rodeo with it's rider while chasing you through an alley, you know what immediate panic feels like. Edit: I found horses worse than the crowd panic, breathing and eye issues after CS gas was released. And despite water cannons engaging is a very dramatic moment, I cannot imagine how it must feel when police give warning shots or even fire live ammo into the crowd (even you don't get hurt). Musst be a completely different level. Luckily I have never been in a situation on which police was even near such an escalation.
- SEJeff 3y ago
  UK Police have batons, and they are trained to use them when necessary. Don't equivocate lack of lethal weapons with softness. They're not soft. Source: a coworker was on the police force for 10 years in London.
- dmurray 3y ago
  > the UK police is about the softest there is in terms of crowd control. No guns, no gas... The UK police forces literally invented rubber bullets, and used them very liberally, and lethally, against protestors in Northern Ireland [0]. Just because they go easy on some climate march you were at in London doesn't mean they never take it further. [0] https://rubberbullets.longlead.com/chapter/rubber-bullet-history-northern-ireland https://rubberbullets.longlead.com/chapter/rubber-bullet-his...

squarefoot 3y ago

Kettling protesters, provoking them with multiple charges, then pushing them to "expendable" places with cars and shops is a common tactics to smear their public image. Someone will eventually lose their patience, throw something at a car or a window, to be immediately caught by a camera and broadcast nation wide with comments by political opponents. This happens pretty much in every so called democratic country; in other countries the police directly shoots at protesters.

mike_hock 3y ago
"Someone," not necessarily an actual protester, will eventually "lose their patience."
- 93po 3y ago
  I was on the ground floor at George Floyd protests in Seattle and someone mysteriously left a large pile of neatly stacked bricks in the location where police kettled us.
- Tronno 3y ago
  To add: Quebec police infiltrated a peaceful protest while wearing face masks and carrying rocks. In this case the protestors picked up the ruse and kicked them out. Of course they claim they weren't trying to instigate anything. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/quebec-police-admit-they-went-undercover-at-montebello-protest-1.656171 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/quebec-police-admit-they-went...
  - alsetmusic 3y ago
    I saw a video, years ago, where three guys in masks and boots (matching the nearby cops’ boots) were trying to instigate. A protest leader with a white beard was loudly denouncing them and saying they wanted no violence and that they weren’t part of their group. The instigators left, crossing into the crowd of cops in uniform unheeded. Huh, what a coinkidink.

slavboj 3y ago

When you intentionally enter an area with restricted ingress / egress like a highway in an attempt to shut it down, it's not exactly dirty pool to try to actually arrest and charge everyone involved.

ryaneager 3y ago
No you’re right, protested shouldn’t be disruptive. That is not their very point or anything….
- pc86 3y ago
  I think there's certainly a middle ground. Disrupting and provoking the very people you are trying to convince of something is objectively counterproductive. On the other end of the spectrum if there's not some level of disruption you just get ignored. The trick is to find the line where you cause people enough disruption to think about why you're without causing so much that they just immediately side against you, and it seems like most protests completely miss the mark.
  - 542354234235 3y ago
    >Disrupting and provoking the very people you are trying to convince of something is objectively counterproductive. What were all those "whites only" lunch counter sit-ins MLK did then? They sound like a textbook definition of "provoking the very people you are trying to convince", and yet.
    - Quillbert182 3y ago
      The sit-ins were specifically targeted to break the laws they wanted changed. I don’t think many people are protesting laws saying that you can’t stand in the middle of the road.
      - autoexec 3y ago
        Activists protesting the Vietnam war weren't participating in sit-ins to change the laws about loitering around campus buildings or in government offices. The people who chain themselves to trees scheduled to be cut down aren't protesting to change laws concerning tree bondage. Some sit-ins are planned as narrowly targeted acts of civil disobedience, but others are simply acts of passive resistance and they are no less valid as a means of protest. While at a high enough level of disruption, the acts of protesters might harm public support of the cause, I think that level is probably pretty high and supporters will largely understand if they are temporarily inconvenienced, while some people who already oppose the protestor's cause will tend to use any inconvenience as a more socially acceptable excuse to justify their opposition instead of more honest reasons like plain old bigotry.

nimbius 3y ago

fascinating tactic. i wonder if there are any countermeasures? - surely this does not work in all cases, only those where protestors are still convinced of the lawfulness of a peaceful protest, exploited by the threat actors (police) - what is the maximum size of a "kettle?" can this be exploited by creating an oversized kettle such that it would "burst?" - could kettling trigger a violent fight-or-flight response depending on demographic? many wild animals will exhibit ferocity when similar tactics are imposed. - can you kettle a peaceful --yet fully armed-- protest? what are the benefits? risks? - what is the economic impact to the city? minneapolis and other US locales have had to pay millions to settle unlawful detainment lawsuits during such events. is there a "break-even" point where kettles will be avoided for fear of inciting overwhelming expenditures? does the class/race makeup matter?

pc86 3y ago
Surely you don't actually mean to compare protestors or certain "demographics" to wild animals, right?
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
justsomehnguy 3y ago
> can you kettle a peaceful --yet fully armed-- protest In the last 20 years who were the most eager to open fire in any situation?
throw0101b 3y ago
> - can you kettle a peaceful --yet fully armed-- protest? what are the benefits? risks? If you wish people to accept or even join your movement, violence seems to be counter-productive: > For more than a century, from 1900 to 2006, campaigns of nonviolent resistance were more than twice as effective as their violent counterparts in achieving their stated goals. By attracting impressive support from citizens, whose activism takes the form of protests, boycotts, civil disobedience, and other forms of nonviolent noncooperation, these efforts help separate regimes from their main sources of power and produce remarkable results, even in Iran, Burma, the Philippines, and the Palestinian Territories. * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10056014-why-civil-resistance-works https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10056014-why-civil-resis...

kouru225 3y ago

They did this in Brooklyn in 2020 and a lot of people I know won’t ever forgive the cops for that. They kettled them and then beat them with batons. They had been completely peaceful.