Managing Chaos: The Reality of Policing Protests.

“Police officers do not attend protests seeking confrontation. They attend to manage them, often under difficult and thankless conditions”

Police Commentator David from Crime Scene Images is a regular protest attender. Today, he shares his thoughts on the ongoing London protests and the challenges faced by police officers.

Having attended multiple protests of all kinds since 2019, one pattern is impossible to ignore: almost every group, regardless of political position, ends up accusing the police of bias, of supporting the “other side,” or of acting against their particular cause specifically whilst letting others get away with it.

Left or right, popular cause or unpopular, the complaint is always the same.

There is also a growing misunderstanding of “policing by consent.” Many protesters appear to believe it means police should allow them to do as they please, or avoid taking action simply because they feel their cause or belief is justified and so police must support them. Whether from the left, the right, or in this case those supporting the uprising in Iran, consent is not a licence to ignore the law, nor to expect officers to treat offences differently depending on the cause or political view.

Yet the reality on the ground is far less dramatic than social media suggests. Most protests pass peacefully. When disorder occurs, it usually begins with individuals breaching conditions, trying to force police lines, or interfering with lawful arrests.

That has been clear even in recent years. The majority of PSC marches, for example, have been largely peaceful affairs, with some offensive banners, chanting and little more , with organisers ensuring to remaining within agreed conditions. Trouble has tended to arise only when some smaller groups of pro Palestine protesters target places of worship or Jewish businesses, or stage performative protests deliberately intended to provoke arrest, such as in the case of PA.

At almost every major demonstration the same scene now plays out. If officers attempt to arrest someone aligned with the protest, sections of the crowd react immediately, from shouting “let them go” to mobbing, pushing, pulling, or even striking officers and trying to free the detained person. The predictable result is officers having to kit up and push back and gain control of course it is not a pretty sight.

The recent incident at the Iranian embassy is a clear example. When an individual climbed the building and pulled down the Iranian flag, much to the delight of the crowd, police were required to act as it was a diplomatic premises. The situation escalated only after the crowd swarmed towards officers and interfered with the arrest, did it turn ugly. I am sure many officers may have personally sympathised with the cause, but they were not there for the cause, they were there to police and respond to offences.

To claim police simply “attacked peaceful protesters” ignores the sequence of events clearly captured on video.

Context matters. Short clips shared online to fuel outrage rarely show what happened before or after. Timelines are edited, narratives are shaped, and facts are lost in the rush for clicks and likes.

Police officers do not attend protests seeking confrontation. They attend to manage them, often under difficult and thankless conditions.

A simple comparison proves the point: if a pro-Palestinian protester pulled down an Israeli flag from the Israeli embassy, there would be immediate demands for arrest. No one beyond the immediate supporters present would argue otherwise. Yet when the same logic was applied in this case, all hell broke out – much as it did in 2021 when pro Palestine supports attempted to breech police lines when trying o reach the Israeli embassy and serious disorder followed.

The same rules must apply consistently, regardless of the cause, a point too often missed by those convinced their own protest should be treated as an exception.

It is simply untrue that protests are routinely policed differently. From years of observing these events, the overwhelming majority are handled calmly and professionally.

What repeatedly turns peaceful events ugly is not police action, but the refusal of some protesters to accept that the law, and the conditions placed on a protest, apply to them.

What is also not helpful is the lack of clear police communication. Beyond arrest numbers and injury figures, there needs to be better context – proper timelines explaining when and why an event shifted from peaceful protest to disorder, not just a brief statement that disorder occurred.

That vacuum allows those with large followings to manipulate narratives for clicks, likes, agenda and in some cases, income. Including politically driven media.

To any neutral observer, the pattern is consistent. In every instance where I have witnessed disorder, it began with individuals breaching conditions, refusing to comply, committing arrestable offences, or crowds interfering with arrests, mobbing officers, or attempting to push through police lines to get to were they should not be.

Acknowledging that reality would do far more for honest debate than the constant, reflexive blame directed at the police.

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