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UK: Clashes follow demonstration

01 January 1996

Police clashed with protesters following an unsuccessful attempt to stop a spontaneous march through Brixton, south London, after a vigil outside the police station. The vigil was held in memory of Wayne Douglas, a black man whose body was found in a cell at the police station, after his violent arrest last December (see Statewatch Vol. 5 no 6). Police anger at their failure to contain the march prompted them to exacerbate an already tense, but peaceful, situation by introducing riot and mounted police. They blocked off roads and unsuccessfully attempted to corral demonstrators, observers and shoppers into Coldharbour Lane. People were verbally abused, pushed and truncheoned when they attempted to escape the cordon. Word spread, provoking widespread anger and hostility, as people arrived and spilled onto Brixton Road. They witnessed mounted police making increasingly arbitrary - and undisciplined - charges into crowds of protesters and bystanders, (at one point a senior officer was reduced to chasing an enthusiastic mounted unit down Coldharbour Lane screaming: "Come back, for fuck sake come back..."). Within three hours of the picket of the police station the situation had ignited into hostility with riot police sealing off Brixton and abusing or attacking anyone who questioned their authority. As local people became increasingly exasperated small groups of youths responded with stones, bricks and eventually petrol bombs as the police completely lost control of events. Despite the fact that the media was noticeably absent throughout most of the incidents that took place in Brixton their coverage was extensive and hysterical. Many of the tabloids denied that the death of Wayne Douglas, and the suffering of his family, had any bearing on the events. Others called for incitement charges to be brought against the organisers and speakers of the vigil outside the police station. The attack culminated in the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Paul Condon's, call for the self-censorship of the black newspaper, The Voice, which published eyewitness accounts of the arrest, and death, of Brian Douglas.