RIOT

THE POLICE DON'T NEED THIS

NORMAL, LAW ABIDING CITIZENS DON'T NEED THIS!

This is an extract from an email regarding the day of Action Friday 18th June 1999. Please note that trading was unaffected by the action of these criminals.

The June 18th demo against the G8 Summit in the City of London was amazing! It was possibly the best riot in London since the Poll Tax one. The cops totally lost control of the situation and got a good beating,and various business like McDonald's, car showrooms, banks and theFutures Exchange were trashed. According to the press four cops were hospitalised. The City was also covered in anarchist graffiti. Everytime you were with a large mob thinking this is great all these people, you'd turn the corner and there'd be an even larger crowd there creating mayhem! The day began (for me) at the Smithfield Meat Market at 10.30am. There was a few hundred activists and quite a few cops. The meat market usually operates in the early hours in the morning but there arenormall y a few people around at this time. Not so on the 18th: all theloading bays were shuttered up and the entrances were heavily locked. So instead there was a march to the British Poultry Association HQ on High Holborn, stopping outside while before going on to the Imperial CancerResearch Fund offices at Lincoln's Inn Fields via various McDonald's.After that the march made its way into the City where it met up with theother activists at Liverpool Station. There must have been tens of thousands of people there totally filling the station concourse and thesurrounding streets.There were drummers in the middle of the station and the acoustics were excellent - you could hear the sound booming out from outside despitethe absence of electrical amplification. Other drumme r s and musicianswere outside "entertaining the troops" whilst some people climbed up the walls of the banks and tied banners from them.The weather was very hot and most of the office workers came out toenjoy the carnival-type atmosphere. But lurking in the background, down side-streets, were the massed forcesof the state: the City of London police (who are just for the squaremile that is the financial district), the Metropolitan Police, and also vans from the Kent police. At this point they were taking a low-key approach.People were drinking and there was allegedly some consumption of recreational drugs. The situation was a powderkeg gently simmering (excuse the mixed metaphor) waiting for a spark to kick things off. Down the surrounding side roads were lines of riot cops in balaclavas, helmets, black boiler suits and shields blocking the way. After an houror so people wanted to move off around the City and weren't too happy atbeing prevented from doing so. The situation built up with the help ofthe ever-present "br e w crew" (crusties fond of drinking 'Special Brew'extra-strong lager) and the cops came under bombardment with bottles andcans and whatever else came to hand.But the 'thin blue line' couldn't hold out forever and eventually themob surged through them and s u rrounded several riot vans. The policeshit themselves and beat a hasty retreat into the relative refuge oftheir vehicles. Some people climbed on top and were dancing and stompingon the roof while other kicked the sides in and tore off bumpers andnumberpla t es. After a short while the police decided they'd had enoughand reversed down the road at speed. A few people were knocked down by the fleeing vans and one woman required an ambulance and fire engineafter she was trapped beneath a riot van.After this the c ops stopped trying the direct confrontation method andwatched from the sidelines as windows were put in and graffiti wasliberally daubed over merchant banks and public monuments.A McDonald's on the route was totally ransacked by activists who putthrough e v ery window, smashed up the inside and sprayed graffiti on theinside walls. The cash tills were also removed and broken open on theroad outside so people could help themselves to the money.Just down the road was the LIFFE building (the Futures Exchange) wh e resome sort of trading in stocks and shares goes on. Protesters tried tostorm the building and the foyer was totally trashed. Police were trying to intervene but the number of people opposing them forced them toretreat. The security managed to repel a ful l scale invasion but alltrading was suspended for the day. Someone sprayed "Bankers = Wankers"high on the wall of the building.Next to this a sound system had been set up and thousands of people weredancing on the road. Some water pipes had been unstoppered and jets ofwater four storeys high were spraying out. A group of people protestingfor the right to be naked in public stripped off in the middle of thecrowd. A nearby Mercedes-Benz car showroom was trashed and a car wastorched by proteters.After a few hou r s of this people moved off to Trafalgar Square to"reclaim" it from Royalists under the slogan "Fuck the Royal Wedding".The whole square was filled with hippies, punks, crusties, ravers andanarchos, with fire jugglers and drummers providing entertainment.N e lson's column was daubed with anti-police and anti-royal graffiti.People stayed well into the evening and as far as I know nothing kickedoff after that.There were also smaller actions happening simultaneously across the City such as sit-ins at various bank s , protests against Third World Debt anda "Critical Mass" cycle ride in the morning to bring traffic in the Cityto a standstill.------------When I went round the day after (Sat 19) smashed windows were boarded upand glaziers were hard at work. Cleaners wer e already starting to scrubgraffiti off the buildings (strange they don't work so quickly in ourparts of town). The City is deserted on Saturday and Sunday anyway soweekend business won't really be affected.The Evening Standard (London local daily paper) claimed in its early editions: "A ragbag of causes but no real anarchy". They'll have toamend that belief in their Monday issue judging by the headines in theSaturday papers.In summary: the day exceeded my already high expectations, but inhindsight if more p e ople had been properly "tooled up" there was thepotential for much more damage to have been caused. Also, due to the hotweather people weren't excessively masked up, so it remains to be seenwhether the police will pick people out at a later date from security video footage.If there's another one of these demos I would urge everyone to come -it's definitely not an event to miss and you won't be disappointed.

This is just the sort of utter trash that the Police have to deal with on a daily basis. It makes you wonder doesn't it. They were highly financed and highly organised. I was in the building mentioned - I know.

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