Riot police behaviour in current disturbances clarified by retired Senior Superintendent

The police now have the technological equipment with which to accurately gauge the size of big crowds or marches to within a thousand or so. Their figure of 183,000 is reliable to within a thousand or so.

Police officers wearing face masks. These are not, as your informants imply, the same face masks as worn by the demonstrators to prevent photographers taking pictures of their faces. They are protective masks, and goggles or visors, against small projectiles, corrosive or sewage liquids, etc.

Personal Identification numbers and unit identity are sewn on ‘riot’ or hard-order gear as it properly known. Where there have been reports of people not being able to see police ID, the cause may have been that it was obscured by other apparel or equipment being used by the officer, eg bullet-proof vest which is not on personal issue to every officer; just issued as the need arises for officers. Also shields or shoulder pads may obscure ID. And, when reasonably asked, a police officer is duty bound to reveal his identity, failure to do so being a disciplinary offence.

“The police looked thuggish” and “gangs of officers hanging around” even when things were peaceful around them, is pejorative vocabulary, rather biased in circumstances where one can compare them with the few thousand hard-core activists in the march, dressed in black, wearing improvised body armour with face-masks and/or gas-masks hung from their belts. Although not on display until the final affray at the end of the march, we now know that their rucksacks held cans of spray-paint, crow bars, hammers and Molotov cocktails. Police officers have to be ready dressed in hard-order gear, with their equipment. And they have to be ready to deploy immediately, once the order is given. If they are out of sight, sitting in their vehicles down a back street, it will take that much longer to attend the scene where they are urgently needed to protect life and property.

The police should have had officers in their regular beat-patrol blue uniforms marshalling the crowds. It may be that your informant is not aware of the nature of the riots over the last six months; sudden and very violent action during marches by demonstrators against both life and property. It would be remiss of the Commissioner of Police to put his officers-in-blue, patrolling singly or in pairs, in a situation that could turn nasty in minutes and leaving said officers caught without adequate protection.

“There were no female police officers”. There were most certainly women police officers in hard-order; four per platoon normally, more depending on the situation. I wonder what identifying features of women your informant was looking for? Dressed in hard-order, like their male counterparts, especially if complete with protective mask, goggles/visor and helmet, they are practically indistinguishable from their male counterparts. And to deliberately make them identifiable as women to their antagonists, would be both sexist and risky; rendering them more vulnerable to attack.