The Battle of Stokes Croft (Updated Again!)

bristol | protests | feature Friday April 22, 2011 10:03 by imcvol

More links on this story: Bristol SF condemn Police violence, Video of the event (vidzi.co.uk), Reporting a riot in Britain: how the police spun the battle of Stokes Croft & Observing the Stokes Croft Riot (opendemocracy.net), Facebook Page on Party at Stokes Croft for Thursday, April 28 · 8:30pm - 11:30pm, The Battle of Stokes Croft: an account of the riot (counterfire.org) plus loads more links here (onlyben.com)

More commentary on last nights events; Tesco’s has been pushing for a store in stokes croft against public opinion for two years now. Despite a public opinion poll showing upwards of 90% of the local community opposing the opening of a Tesco’s store the council gave the go ahead and the store opened on April 15th. In its first week the store received mostly peaceful protests and muted dissent. Local message boards and news sites including Indymedia were split in opinion; on one hand the store would bring jobs to the area and could be easily boycotted, on the other it has been considered a capitalist infringement on the cultural backbone of Bristol and a direct attack on local and independent business. Between these two arguments all sorts of views could be found right down to the basic apolitical delight that some felt in the possible arrival of a cash point to Stokes Croft. Full article

An eye-witness of last nights event, now bring called 'The Battle of Stokes Croft': The police tactics were unfathomable. They seemed to consist of running from one end of Stokes Croft to the other (and up several side streets), randomly charging about the place, getting more and more people involved and moving the violence into new areas that had previously been quiet. Needless to say, the ‘active’ (ie. rioting) members of the crowd simply avoided the charges and filtered around to attack the police all over again from a different angle. The police helicopter flew low overhead constantly from 9pm to 4.30am, beaming its searchlight on anyone and everyone. This was not a tactic to win any ‘battle for hearts and minds’ either. Full article.

A larger article - The Battle of Stokes Croft has just been published here: Tesco has been trying to move in to stokes croft for over 2 years and has been unable to because of huge protests. They have had to move builders in under police escort and have 24 hour roof top private security. Last weekend Tesco opened and there have been non stop protests all week.... At something like 10PM a huge crowd landed on the front of stokes croft drawn by the lowflying helicopter with spotlight and the army of police emerging from 12+ riot vans dressed for combat. Pretty soon tension peaked as no explanation would be given for the roadblocks and there was intimidation on both sides... Full Article

The uneasy face-off between protesters and Police at the newly opened Tesco's on Stokes Croft erupted tonight in open violence and confrontation. 7 Ambulances and their Paramedics had to attend to take away the casualties. A spokeswoman for Avon & Somerset Police said 20 people had been arrested for Public Order offences and Criminal Damage...

Squat in Stokes Croft (image: gobletsgallery)