London Critical Mass kettled and arrested

27.7.12

Coin­cid­ing with the Olympics open­ing cer­e­mo­ny, peo­ple are tweet­ing that over 100 cyclists are being put on coach­es and arrest­ed, after being ket­tled and some CS/pepper sprayed for cycling in Olympic-only lanes and break­ing an imposed Sec­tion 12 for­bid­ding going north of the riv­er.  Cops ensured David Beck­ham could get through at one point by punch­ing cyclists. 

Video (dur­ing).  Video (arrest­ed onto bus­es after).  2 reports below, and pre-CM ‘why I’m going’ (& this link to updat­ed report):

More than 100 cyclists were arrest­ed by police close to the Olympic Sta­di­um on the open­ing night of the Games.

There were scuf­fles between police and cyclists on the out­skirts of the Olympic Park, at about 22:30 BST.

Peo­ple tak­ing part in a month­ly mass bike ride held in Lon­don said they were “ket­tled” near the sta­di­um.

The Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police said they had made arrests for Pub­lic Order offences but have not respond­ed to the ket­tling claim.

The force said two groups had been detained — the first on Bow Fly­over and the oth­er in Warton Road, Strat­ford.

A spokesman for Scot­land Yard said: “A num­ber of peo­ple in breach of reg­u­la­tions imposed on a month­ly cycling event have been arrest­ed.”

In a state­ment, the force said the con­di­tions on the cycle ride had been put in place “to pre­vent seri­ous dis­rup­tion to the com­mu­ni­ty and the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the Olympic Games”.

Ker­ry-Anne Men­doza, 31, who describes her­self as a cam­paign­er and writer, said: “We were cycling down the Bow Road [in Strat­ford] and the police direct­ed us down a cul-de-sac.

“Then they ket­tled us in there. There is a line of police cars and vans behind that.”

She added: “They have not com­mu­ni­cat­ed with us or told us why we are being held here or when they will let us out.”

The reg­u­lar Crit­i­cal Mass ride is a pro-cycling event.

Joel Ben­jamin, who has been on a num­ber of Crit­i­cal Mass bike rides pre­vi­ous­ly, said there were 400–500 cyclists who met on the south side of Water­loo Bridge.

“Usu­al­ly there is a light police pres­ence,” he said. “Today there were far more police than I’ve seen before.”

‘Cel­e­bra­tion of cycling’

He said police used a sound sys­tem to tell cyclists there were restric­tions placed on the ride but not what it meant.

“Basi­cal­ly, they did­n’t want us to go north of the riv­er. The police had put a road­block stop­ping all traf­fic going north.”

He said police took a “heavy-hand­ed stance”.

“I did­n’t see any arrests, but my friend, a solic­i­tor was arrest­ed.

“I left at about 8.30pm and man­aged to not get arrest­ed, but I think around 100 peo­ple have been arrest­ed.

“I guess there were peo­ple there who are against the Olympics, but Crit­i­cal Mass is real­ly a cel­e­bra­tion of cycling, there was no need to get so heavy hand­ed. ”

The Met Police said a num­ber of the arrest­ed cyclists had been removed from the area near the Olympic Park.

The arrest­ed cyclists have been detained under Sec­tion 12 of the Pub­lic Order Act.

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The Olympics has start­ed and it seems cycling has become a crim­i­nal offence, wor­thy of police bru­tal­i­ty – I hope the Olympic cyclists are okay tomor­row.

Hang on a minute: this is the same Olympics that politi­cians have been try­ing to brand as the green­est Olympics ever? Also, they did say how this would encour­age peo­ple to get fit and into sport, didn’t they?

Crit­i­cal mass met as it does on a month­ly basis to cycle as a swarm, for com­mu­ni­ty reclaim­ing of streets in Lon­don. It met near Water­loo Bridge, at the South­bank Cen­tre. From reg­u­lars’ accounts, as it is not a “protest”, this is nor­mal­ly free from police sup­pres­sion and it fol­lows the whims of the mass, with no clear direc­tion end­ing its route on the Roy­al Mall.

On this gath­er­ing, the police were there on mass too: an author­i­tar­i­an mass. They announced that under a sec­tion 12 no cyclists were allowed to cross the rivers and go to any of North Lon­don. Like oth­ers there, this was where I live, and haven’t I been bom­bard­ed with Olympics posters encour­ag­ing me to get on my bike.

The over a thou­sand peo­ple assem­bled, did not move for a while. Then we set off first try­ing to cross Water­loo Bridge. The police blocked this route.I moved with the mass and we had sim­i­lar prob­lems at Black­fri­ars, our way blocked by a police line, which was also block­ing the traf­fic. Then we head­ed to try South­wark Bridge, again this was blocked.

Inci­den­tal­ly, it was noticed amongst the crowd that David Beck­ham was stuck the oth­er side of the road­block in a dark SUV head­ing south. His pres­ence stirred rip­ples of excite­ment, although the focus was more about how to head over the riv­er.

As passers­by start­ed to pay a bit more atten­tion, to take pic­tures and look at him, the police react­ed. Or in my inter­pre­ta­tion, unlaw­ful­ly over­re­act­ed a lit­tle like the impo­si­tion of the Sec­tion 12. I saw cyclists thrown off their bikes, hit and man­han­dled for stand­ing still. If the police had not blocked the road, this would not have hap­pened. I report­ed this, moments lat­er, to a senior offi­cer; explain­ing that one of the offi­cers had com­mit­ted assault – he was not inter­est­ed.

I even­tu­al­ly crossed a bridge, as many oth­ers did, and made my way towards Strat­ford; fol­low­ing a pro­ces­sion of riot vans. In Strat­ford, these vans were lined the streets, with offi­cers ket­tling a group of cyclists who had done bet­ter exer­cis­ing their rights to free move­ment.

When I arrived the police had ket­tled around one hun­dred cyclists, also I heard there were oth­er ket­tles else­where and fur­ther arrests and assaults by police offi­cers. These cyclists were tak­en away by the bus load, hand­cuffed with an offi­cer per per­son. I over­heard a senior police­man remark that they were going to var­i­ous police sta­tions, and their bike tagged and tak­en to a depot.

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Why I’m going to the Crit­i­cal Mass this fri­day

Here’s my rea­son why; back in 2005, we found out the news that Lon­don was going to host the Olympic games, lots of peo­ple in the media make com­ments about how much of a shit hole Strat­ford is, but truth is, its not real­ly that shit, it’s just an easy tar­get for the devel­op­ers, there’s no one to defend it. Any­way since 2005 the amount of rede­vel­op­ment with yup­py flats and Tescos pop­ping up all over the town is out of con­trol, the locals have been pushed to once side. I’m mates with a local Tory cam­paign, fun­ny cause he’s a tory, and all his con­stituents hate the Olympics, and he agrees. I’m assum­ing that after the Olympics like the Mil­le­ni­um Dome and Iraq, the top politi­cians will admit it was a bit of sham. Every­where I go I hear peo­ple moan­ing about the Olympics, and then when I turn on the TV, I see noth­ing but smil­ing faces. Even my par­ents who are mis­er­able, Dai­ly Mail types want to see the VIP lanes blocked. We got taxis dri­vers moan­ing, dairy farm­ers out on strike, now its times for the oppo­site end of the spec­trum to join in with the crit­i­cal mass. When I heard about the crit­i­cal mass, I thought it was time to give ‘them’ a her­nia with stress. 130 quid fine for cycling in the VIP lane? that’s an insult to the nor­mal peo­ple who are stuck in Lon­don. Any­way over the years I’ve was part of the Sum­mit Hop­ping move­ment, but no-one in Lon­don has realised all the Olympics is anoth­er polit­i­cal sum­mit, and it should of been treat­ed as such, with mas­sive direct action, ban­ner drops, etc etc. Any­way if your com­ing to the mass on fri­day, expect the police, GCHQ and they’re oth­er resources to real­ly treat us like shit. On sat­ur­day a face­book event was blocked with in one-hour of its cre­ation, I hope the girl who made the event does­n’t use her own ip address. GCHQ are def­i­nite­ly going to watch this one. Prob­a­bly a mas­sive Copen­hagen ket­tle on one of the bridges, or south­bank, so keep your wits about you, ride a blue bar­clays bike, and ditch it if shit gets heavy lets not for­get, the psy­cos of our Armed Forces are in Lon­don in num­bers, and they can’t tell the dif­fer­ence between an Afghan wed­ding and ter­ror­ist camp. Keep telling your mates, and invite them along. See you in the streets.