The chief constable of Avon and Somerset has condemned ‘wanton violence and destruction’ after a protest in Bristol city centre yesterday. Andy Marsh said that 20 officers were injured, two requiring hospital treatment, from the demo in Bridewell Street outside a police station.
He said: “We’ve received messages of support from across the policing, emergency service and political landscape. No-one wants to see police officers abused or attacked in this way. These men and women put their safety on the line every day to keep the public safe, and do not deserve to be on the forefront of this abhorrent criminal behaviour. I was at a Bristol station last night and can tell you the feeling of anguish was felt by all our officers and staff at seeing colleagues injured while on the frontline.
“Ahead of every protest or significant gathering, we assess the appropriate level of policing resources. There was no prior intelligence that violent acts would be committed on this scale. No specific organiser was identified prior to the event but we did engage with a number of organisations who had expressed an interest in attending to discourage them due to the current covid-19 restrictions. We hoped stressing the sacrifices the Bristol community had made over the past year would deter people from attending.
“A tactical decision was made to deal with these criminals retrospectively and not make a significant number of arrests last night, which would have impacted significantly on our resources at the scene and created a greater risk of damage to property and injuries to the reduced number of officers left to deal with the disorder.
“What the public will see now is a huge police investigation in which we’ll be gathering evidence from CCTV, Body Worn Video, social media content and images/video sent in by the public. We are appealing for people to send in footage so all those responsible can be identified – full details of where to send these will be issued on our website and social media later.
“This will undoubtedly lead to one of the biggest appeals for wanted suspects that we’ve ever done. There will be significant consequences for behaviour like this and we will leave no stone unturned.
“The cost of policing this operation, carrying out the subsequent investigation and repairing and replacing our vehicles and damage to our city centre station will run into the millions. This is money which could have been spent on safeguarding and protecting the most vulnerable in our society.”
Police vehicles were set on fire and the outside of the station was afterwards boarded up. The protest was against the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill that’s going through parliament, that among other things proposes that where a memorial has been damaged, mode of trial will not be determined by the monetary value of the damage caused and the maximum sentence of imprisonment will be ten years’ in prison. Bristol was where the statue of the slave trade profiteer Edward Colston was pulled off its plinth (pictured) and dumped in the harbour during a Black Lives Matter protest in spring 2020.
The Mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees said: “I have major concerns about the Bill myself, which is poorly thought-out and could impose disproportionate controls on free expression and the right to peaceful protest. It also misses as much as it includes, such as measures that could reduce violence against women and girls. We will raise our concerns.
“Smashing buildings in our city centre, vandalising vehicles, attacking our police will do nothing to lessen the likelihood of the Bill going through. On the contrary, the lawlessness on show will be used as evidence and promote the need for the Bill.”
