NCJ Number
79681
Date Published
Unknown
Length
0 pages
Annotation
Three professionals with expertise in riot control and prevention discuss how police and others can best respond to mass disturbances, emphasizing that agency coordination is an essential ingredient to a successful plan. The audience for these lectures includes police officers and attorneys preparing for the 1978 Pan American Games in Puerto Rico.
Abstract
An American agent who headed the Governor's Racial Strife Task Force in Florida suggests police plans for meeting disturbances at various threat levels. He suggests that officials avoid any opportunities for citizens to accuse the police of repression, especially in riot cases, and that police make use of emergency powers accorded them to meet the particular level of emergency. For example, police can make use of legislation enabling them to control gasoline sales, enforce curfews, or stop and frisk suspects. Police should review and identify any measures that could be useful during an emergency before the disturbance takes place so as to be better prepared. Police should be particularly careful to avoid actions that would attract civil suits; to guard against such actions by citizens, police should develop contingency plans for mass detention, ensuring that they can handle arrestees' personal needs (i.e., sanitary measures, toilet facilities). The Florida agent also discusses terrorist tactics regarding the use of bombs and methods of handling ideological demonstrations and antisocial activities. Colonel Louis Guiffrida, Director of the California Special Training Institute and lecturer at the Army War College, discusses ingredients for violence and police plans for handling the violence that may result. He suggests that a crowd of emotionally charged people can turn into a mob as a result of such factors as anonymity, contagion, suggestibility, panic, and publicity. He emphasizes that plans for handling disturbance must be drawn up in advance, that agencies must coordinate their activities, and that police must be prepared for every contingency. Finally, Richard Clutterbuck, an expert in riot control from the United Kingdom, examines the aim of strikes and their handling, using the events in Northern Ireland on a 'Bloody Sunday' in 1972 as an example of a strike that exploded into violence. He emphasizes mistakes made during this confrontation between soldiers and militant youths.