Thread:User talk:Reckless Noise Symphony/Information please/reply (11)

That's usually the difference. People have been ranting on about how there were less than 2,000 on cops on the streets last night while the Royal wedding had just over 5,000 - to which I say a) the wedding was an event planned months in advance and b) you can't compare a number of riot equipped police with officers on the street. They're aiming for something crazy like 16,000 on the streets tonight, so we'll see where that goes.

Generally speaking, yes, UK coppers are a bit nicer than US ones. We don't have water cannon and tear gas by default and they're not armed (tazers are becoming practically standard but deploying those at a riot is madness). All I can say is thank fuck they weren't actually armed. Certainly we wouldn't use snipers. We'd have a fecking massacre on our hands if there were guns involved. Hopefully none of the gangs (some suggestions that it's gang organised since the scarves they were hiding their faces with were in gang colours) try to escalate it that far. Well, breaking as I type this, one man has died after being shot last night.