Protesters at London student rally capture police "snatch squad" on video

Alan sez, "The vid is grainy and hard to read the superimposed text, but you can clearly see the plainclothes agents going into the crowd, 'attacking' a protester and at the end a group of as many as 8 plainclothes police detaining one person. Welcome to London I guess."

'Snatch Squads' Caught On Camera At London Student Rally

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: authoritarianism • london • police • protest • uk • video • youtube

More at Boing Boing

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

digi_owl

This is getting insane…
blakelock

maybe they were removing somebody identified as violent. removing protestors seeking to start violence is a good thing. and yes, i’m now removing the rose-colored specs…
http://bjornstar.com/ Bjorn Stromberg

Why would you post someone’s reposted video and complain that it’s grainy? Just use the original video available in 1080p - http://youtu.be/QntZh4ISUoQ
ZikZak

Often snatch squads are used when the cops know the face/description of a particular person they want to arrest. They’ll go through the crowd grabbing whoever they want, and then letting them go if they don’t fit the description.

Quite reasonably, if a crowd sees undercover cops barge in and attack people at random, they may take this as a provocation. Especially if the cops are disguised as civilians, the crowd may decide they need to resist these aggressors in their midst.

In short, it is a great way for the police to start a riot.
http://profiles.google.com/rob.hobson Rob Hobson

Hardly a snatch squad. Can’t we make them sound a little jollier? Slightly malcoordinated shoulder-barge squad? Flailing provocateurs?
Alan Wexelblat

@bjorn: sorry I didn’t have access to the original. I forwarded the one I was sent.
Thomas Chilvers

Boing Boing is becoming a very good site to share this type of content relating to protests and the handling of such by the police. Social networking is a huge part of our recent advance in humanity and gives power to ordinary people to share information, organise and highlight injustice, look at the Arab Spring and the Occupy movements. It is hugely important and a little funny when interjected with stories of a puppy giving a cat a massage. It’s becoming a political site but I think it is an ideal evolutionary step for this site and ergonomically terrific.
miasm

*prints 1000′s of ‘warranty’ cards.
Guest

Why don’t we have at least 50 more camera angles on this action? Nearly everyone in the crowd was recording it….
http://twitter.com/noshockdoc Dr NoShock

Hi.

I shot the video.

You can see the full HD version here on youtube…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QntZh4ISUoQ

also, available to download at noshockdoc.com

related videos…

1) http://youtu.be/67aL2N3ARQs

which captures the actual arrest being made by the snatch squad within the crowd.

Of note is the apparent non-standard restraint methods, including an officer holding the arrestee by a hand around the throat.

2) http://youtu.be/V_kCB54oi04

which shows what happens to the detainee after he was removed away from the police barricade into the side street.

In this clip they clearly show police id cards, confirming they are actually officers.
http://twitter.com/noshockdoc Dr NoShock

ps, I’ve sent a message through your site, but publicly for all to see, thanks for running this video on your website.