THE BACKLASH OF BRISTOL
Police begin hunt for hate-filled mob of hundreds who hijacked protest… and left more than 20 officers injured
DETECTIVES were last night hunting for up to 500 members of the ‘extremist’ mob responsible for one of Britain’s worst riots in a decade.
Some 21 officers were injured when a ‘hardcore of serious criminals’ hijacked a peaceful protest and brought anarchy to Bristol streets on Sunday night.
Two officers were hospitalised, including one who suffered a punctured lung and broken ribs when he was stamped on by thugs. Three police vehicles were set alight and nine seriously damaged during the chaos, which left officers fearing for their lives in shocking scenes reminiscent of the 2011 riots.
Footage of the carnage shows rioters hurling missiles at officers defending Bridewell police station in the city centre. Rioters were filmed celebrating atop burning police vehicles.
The violence erupted as night fell following a day of demonstrations, when more than 3,000 people marched through the city to protest against planned legislation to hand police more powers to deal with peaceful demonstrations.
Police chiefs say the largely peaceful protest was infiltrated by criminals hell-bent on clashing with police.
Andy Marsh, the chief constable of Avon and Somerset Police, said: ‘I believe the events were hijacked by extremists, people who were determined to commit criminal damage, to generate very negative sentiment about policing and to assault our brave officers. There was a hardcore of serious criminals hidden within those 3,000 people – perhaps 400 or 500 people – and we certainly didn’t trigger this.
‘The officers were incredibly patient, incredibly professional and I pay tribute to them.’
Police have made eight arrests. All are male and one is understood to be from Reading. The rest are from Bristol.
A clean-up operation was under way yesterday around the police station after thugs smashed the station’s windows and wrote ‘f*** the police’ on the walls.
Home Secretary Priti Patel was among those to criticise the ‘appalling thuggery’. She told MPs: ‘The scenes in Bristol were utterly shameful.
‘I will work with everybody to make sure that where the police need the powers to tackle the type of appalling thuggery and criminality that we saw yesterday, we will achieve that while absolutely protecting the right to protest peacefully in our country.’
Investigators have begun watching hours of CCTV, bodyworn cameras and witnesses’ videos, and hope to identify the rioters in the coming days. Scenes of officers being pelted by stones, bottles and fireworks have been shared widely on social media.
Avon and Somerset Police Federation chairman Andy Roebuck said some criminals tried to set fire to police vans while officers were still inside. ‘To my mind that is attempted murder.
‘When the protesters started to disperse, the feral criminals took the opportunity to hijack the protest. Officers said they felt they were going to be killed, such was the level of violence. You look into their eyes and hear how their voices were cracking – they were in fear for their lives.’
Sir Peter Fahy, former chief constable of Greater Manchester Police, blamed the backlash from the policing of the Sarah Everard vigil, in south London, for the violence against officers.
‘I worry that police officers in Bristol were inhibited from using necessary force to stop “protesters” from attacking them because of the lack of support they saw the Met receive,’ he said.
‘The scenes were utterly shameful’
THERE can be no excuses made and no equivocation about who was responsible for the riots that scarred Bristol on Sunday.
Under the guise of peaceful protest against proposed legislation giving greater powers of control over mass demonstrations, an organised gang of thugs launched a savage attack on police.
The local station was besieged, vehicles vandalised and burned, and 20 officers injured in an orgy of violence.
Seven people have been arrested, and the Mail sincerely hopes there will be many more after officers examine CCTV and witness statements. These were vicious agitators and they must be hunted down.
But those scenes reignite the debate over what has become a crisis in public order policing during Covid.
At some protests, such as the Black Lives Matter march through London, they have stood back. At others, notably the Clapham Common vigil for murdered Sarah Everard, they piled in to make arrests and fined protesters for breaking lockdown rules.
In Bristol they were forced to retreat, as there were clearly far too few officers to meet the scale of the threat.
There must be a radical strategic rethink. Inconsistency and dithering is placing the lives of frontline officers in grave danger.