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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 36, Number 4. 21st March 1973

Festival "Warm—Up" Too Hot

Festival "Warm—Up" Too Hot

On the Beat image

I've just read the Sunday Times "Comment" on the [unclear: froogs] outside the Town Hall. It [unclear: o ls] like 'stumblebums', 'rowdies, ragamuffins', 'surlily'. Not about the police, of course, they were 'unruffled', 'cool', 'disciplined'. The Sunday Times fails to comment that with better organisation none of the chaos and violence would have happened. In which event the Sunday Times would have missed their chance to couch their smears on anti-establishment youth in the middle of their adulatory drivel about the police.

The police approach was low key as the paper described, except when they were making arrests. Then they used all the strong arm frogmarching, knee and boot action, in fact all the trademarks that our police share with the gestapo anywhere and anytime. Also low key but effectively inflammatory was the hectoring, patronising way policemen tried to get the crowd to disperse. They had many variations of "come kiddies, it's well past your bedtime", and used them all.

The Sunday Times predicts from Friday night's events that the police will be able to handle the disruption if the tour comes. They are fooling themselves, and misleading the public about the police tactics and about the causes of general discontent. If the police and the public continue to ignore the problems in the organisation of entertainment and the social conditions that have caused a large section of the country's youth to be prepared to violently confront the establishment, they wilt have only themselves to blame when there is a greater eruption of violence.

The conclusion I drew from Friday night is that the police will in fact not be able to handle such an eruption. They were successful on Friday night only because the Mongrels lacked conviction. In a typical instance three policemen, hundreds of yards from their fellows, arrested a bottle thrower and marched him a long distance to the van. About twenty of the arrested man's mates followed their progress. One shouted, "Let's get them, there's only three of them and twenty of us". If they had tried to free their mate and maul the policemen they would have succeeded. But the best they could do was to chant "Pig, Pig, Pig".

After all the bottle throwing, brawling and arrests were over, I overheard a fifteen year old boy boast "I killed three pigs tonight". On the night it was no more than a wish. Soon it may be a reality.

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While the police were wading through the [unclear: crowd] outside the library, constable [unclear: B5] stood guard by the police van parked at the back of the Town Hall in Wakefield Street. As I walked past him to get round to the other end of the fray, B5 was chuckling to himself, whistling, and generally enjoying his lot. Passers by may have thought to themselves "What a nice policeman", particularly if they were unaware of the scene on the other side of the Town Hall.

I, however, had seen it and been disconcerted by the hectoring, blunt police action, and I found [unclear: B5 s] nonchalance somewhat less than human.

Passers by would not have lingered to watch B5 when the pressure was on. As his fellow policemen were frogmarching arrested youths back to the van and throw ing them in, [unclear: B5] took it upon himself to help each one in with this boot.

I wasn't able to get close enough to discern whether he continued smiling, or smiled more, when he was putting the boot in. When I did confront him shortly after his action, to get his number, I remarked in the mildest tone I could man age that I wasn't over impressed with his unnecessary [unclear: savagery] The only public relations effort [unclear: B5] cared to make was to threaten me with the same fate, if I didn't 'move on' right away.

R.W. Steele

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