State-of-the-art technology has helped police capture exclusive footage of riot training in action, offering a fascinating insight into the dangers faced by public order officers at West Midlands Police.
During a recent exercise at the force’s training ground in Shropshire a camera was attached to the chest of Sergeant Russell Webb as he led a team through a full-scale disorder scenario.
He was charged with managing the group of officers as they brought an angry mob of petrol-bomb throwing thugs − played by colleagues − under control, inside a disused aircraft hangar.
The 14-minute operation was recorded first-hand from Sgt Webb’s perspective on body-worn video and has been edited into a short film.
The footage encapsulates the pressure that officers are under as they are forced to make split-second decisions on the best way to bring order over the baying crowd.
Shouts of “bomb” and “stamp your feet” can be heard as Sgt Webb bellows commands to his team − looking out for their safety and keeping them together as they advance through the ‘town’.
He said: “In a public order scenario we use groups of officers that we refer to as ‘serials’ and on this occasion I was leading one of them, which consisted of me and a number of other constables.
“It’s my job to steer them through the disorder safely whilst implementing plans and objectives from the inspector…there’s got to be a degree of proactivity, but with safety in mind at all times.
“You’ll see we were being pelted with petrol bombs from the crowd but there’s not much we can do about that at the time. There would be a post-incident investigation afterwards to try and identify the people responsible and arrests would follow from there.”
The training school is one of the biggest centres of its type in the country and teaches up to 3,000 officers each year from forces across the nation.
Inspector John Pickard, from the WMP Learning and Development team, said he hopes the footage offers the public an insight into the reality officers face when dealing with public order.
“A lot of the time in these types of situations we are simply caught in the middle of two separate arguments and are trying to help both sides resolve their issues peacefully,” he said.
“It’s not all physical, running around with batons and shields… it also involves facilitation and negotiation, which is why part of the course is also academic − looking at crowd psychology, crowd dynamics and decision making models.
“We regularly invite people down to observe the courses from a whole range of organisations, to see how we train and the difficulties involved. We always listen to their feedback and concerns because we’re not hiding what we do here − we want everyone to know what we’re trying to achieve when we’re faced with these situations.”
The West Midlands Police public order training school also teaches officers how to use Taser, how to react to chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear incidents and how to identify victims in disaster scenarios.
Insp. Pickard added: “These are all important things that many people don’t realise police officers have such specific training for. The idea is that we make it as realistic as possible and out of the thousands of training days our injury rates are very low.
“We want to put the maximum amount of danger and threat into a scenario but in a controlled way, which means the students can learn to trust their equipment and they are given exposure to making rational split-second decisions.”
Video: http://youtu.be/UO53QGxx0hY
