honetpot
Well-Known Member
They are using horses as tool for crowd control, and depending how that tool is used it can be aggressive and be frightening. If you have ever been pushed over or confined by a horse, even by accident its frightening. Horse were used in the miner strikes to break up crowds, there is also the use of 'kettling' to confine crowds, which is controversial.
I think who ever sent the horses out is at fault, it just escalates a situation, most of the people there will perhaps have never seen a large horse close up, and it just turns the horse in to a weapon being used against them. I wouldn't have thrown a brick but if I had been on foot and horse were coming towards me and I was frightened I would have probably done my best to make them back off.
I understand why people are angry, I think, and a riot over something I unfortunately predicted. You disenfranchise people and they show their displeasure and the government has managed to make a lot of people feel powerless . If you are young and a BAME, a white guy in a suit lying to you and telling you to behave is even more infuriating than it is to me.
There is the constant under currant that young black men are seen as a threat on the street, to start off with. If you have had the police 'assume' something about a situation you are in you quickly realise they are not always on your side, it just happens to BAME people more.
I think who ever sent the horses out is at fault, it just escalates a situation, most of the people there will perhaps have never seen a large horse close up, and it just turns the horse in to a weapon being used against them. I wouldn't have thrown a brick but if I had been on foot and horse were coming towards me and I was frightened I would have probably done my best to make them back off.
I understand why people are angry, I think, and a riot over something I unfortunately predicted. You disenfranchise people and they show their displeasure and the government has managed to make a lot of people feel powerless . If you are young and a BAME, a white guy in a suit lying to you and telling you to behave is even more infuriating than it is to me.
There is the constant under currant that young black men are seen as a threat on the street, to start off with. If you have had the police 'assume' something about a situation you are in you quickly realise they are not always on your side, it just happens to BAME people more.