[lbo-talk] Seattle redux

boddhisatva boddhisatva at netzero.net
Wed Oct 1 18:26:48 PDT 2003


Doug wrote:

"There are something like 40,000 cops in NYC. As I recall, Seattle had about 1,200."

First, NYC has the highest density of cops in the nation, but they don't used them all for single events. Seattle has 1200 and what they deployed would have been completely adequate for WTO if not for incompetence and police incitement. The London Metropolitan Police use about 600 officers to patrol soccer games city-wide and of course they are confronting people who actively plan large brawls for every important game. Daytona Beach hosts Bikeweek and Spring Break where thousands of drunk, potentially violent people descend on the city. Care to guess how many cops they have total? And you would not even believe how few cops patrol the Sturgis rally.

What ChuckO wrote:


>I wouldn't argue that police have to have massive forces to control
>a crowd, but a massive force of police can put a significant damper
>on crowd behavior, i.e. as the NYPD has shown in NYC.

- is conventional wisdom about crowd control that has long since been disproved. Large forces of riot police incite crowds to violence as has been shown time after time.

By the way, when did you guys become spokesmen for the cops?

peace,

boddi



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