Police attack Rampart Social Center
Published:
April 02, 2009 15:29
by
imc london
Neighbourhoods: whitechapel
At around 12:30 this afternoon, 30-50 police arrived at the Rampart, an activist social centre in Whitechapel, East London. A formerly derelict building which had been empty for years, Rampart was occupied by activists and turned into a social and cultural venue more than four years ago.
When the police arrived, someone went outside to speak to them, asking them if they were going to search the place and telling them that if they had a warrant they could just knock on the door. The police told him not to worry.
A few minutes later riot police in black uniforms, wearing balaclavas came through a downstairs window, the door to the roof and a door to an adjoining building. The police broke down the doors and stormed in with drawn tazers, screaming at everyone to get down on the ground, jumping on them and handcuffing them. They had a TV crew with them when breaking in through the door. They were insulting people and saying things like "one of you croaked last night", trying to provoke a bad reaction from people.
They then demanded identification from everyone and checked IDs against what appeared to be a list of specific people. There were 2 or 3 arrests. The remaining people were then let go.
Right now it's calm, however people are a bit shaken after the experience. The cops have left the neighbourhood.
Additions
piercings and dogs, yeah, good reason for a raid
Published: April 04, 2009 19:23
by
reader
Quoting Superintendent Roger Evans during the raids: "There are all sorts of people inside: people with piercings, people without piercings, people with dogs - the sort of people you might expect to see at a pop festival."
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/797076/uk-police-detain-dozens-over-g20-riots
http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=world_news&subsection=United+Kingdom+%26+Europe&month=April2009&file=World_News2009040362523.xml
After all, we already know that if "it's a different political view. It leads to motives and things like that" and we could have that, now, can we?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/30/g20-protest-explosives-plot-arrests
can they possibly get any more vague? and how can the general public and journalists specifically not be totally insulted by statements like the above?
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Less prepared?
I'm under the impression that they are expecting some kind of summer madness anyway. The whole "Summer Of Rage" thing has been in the media for a while now so they are gonna be prepared and will probably do what they can to instigate as much shit as they can.