Globalise Not!

Wimpy Cops vs Peaceful Demonstrator

The blue circles with the X inside indicate the regular police officers. The ones in the orange circles marked "P" are the Police Tactical Units and the yellow circles with the A inside are the demonstration areas.

Near the demonstration area closest to the C&E Centre (the yellow circled "A" at the top of the map), the police will place a PTU (Patrol Tactical Unit) of 41 persons who are to prevent any demonstrators from getting near the conference site.

Originally, the PTUs were trained in controlling situations and suppressing riots and they should be more than up to the task. However, according to information from the police, the government has ordered that all PTUs must refrain from using violence in order to preserve the image of Hong Kong. In other words, "no bloodshed." Under these conflicting requirements, the PTUs had to develop a new strategy.

The so-called new strategy is basically defensive in nature. A source said: "In the past, the PTU were trained for tactics that can be either offensive or defensive. Now, they are training for a defense-only formation designed to reduce the probability of injury to the police officers." But a PTU member who had been trained in anti-riot procedures was not too please about the new tactics: "This is a strange formation. It definitely cannot be used for offense. At most, it can stop people from moving forward."

In the past, each team has at least seven to eight Remington shotguns. In the new formation, there are at most one or two. They will be using either rubber bullets or beanbags. A PTU member said that there have been many violent incidents at previous WTO meetings and he is afraid that their setup will make them defenseless. Together with their lack of practical battlefield experience, this may cause chaos if things get out of control. The department's arrangement indicates that they consider not sustaining any injuries will be a victory of sorts.

The traditional Hong Kong police formation consists of four rows: the first row consists of police officers holding small round shields mainly for defense purposes to prevent the demonstrators from advancing; rows 2 and 3 are police officers with batons and tear gas launchers mainly for close physical contact and self-defense and row 4 has police officers with Remington shotguns and other weapons in the event that the demonstrators deploy violent methods.

The new Hong Kong police formation has the PTU members holding long shields that are five foot tall, forming a protective wall in the front (row 1) and in the back (row 4) with police officers in rows 2 and 3 carrying small round shields and batons with some members even wearing full body armor to prevent injury. All members will carry long batons, but there will only be one or two Remington shotguns using plastic bullets and beanbags.

And look at this absolutely bias misrepresentation of a protestor



WAKE UP people! We have told you UMPTEEN times... WE ARE PEACEFUL! We did not look anything like that at the round table meeting did we? Now we look like we just walked off the set of "Young and Dangerous".

Technorati Tags: World Trade Organisation, International Monetary Fund, WTO protest, Ministerial Conference, MC6, WTO, IMF, Hong Kong and HongKong.

posted by they lied @ 8:17 PM Comments: 0