The WOMBLES were a loosely aligned anarchist and anti-capitalist group based in London. They gained prominence in the early 2000s for wearing white overalls with padding and helmets at May Day protests, mimicking the Italian group Tute Bianche.
A black bloc is a tactic used by protesters who wear black clothing, ski masks, scarves, sunglasses, motorcycle helmets with padding or other face-concealing and face-protecting items. The clothing is used to conceal wearers' identities from both the police and politically different organizations by making it difficult to distinguish between participants. It is also used to protect their faces and eyes from pepper spray, which is used by police during protests or civil unrest. The tactic also allows the group to appear as one large unified mass. Black bloc participants are often associated with anarchism, anarcho-communism, communism, libertarian socialism and the anti-globalization movement. A variant of this type of protest is the Padded bloc, where following the Tute Bianche movement protesters wear padded clothing to protect against the police.
Entrapment is a practice in which a law enforcement agent or an agent of the state induces a person to commit a crime that the person would have otherwise been unlikely or unwilling to commit. It "is the conception and planning of an offense by an officer or agent, and the procurement of its commission by one who would not have perpetrated it except for the trickery, persuasion or fraud of the officer or state agent".
The Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) was an anti-poverty group in Ontario, Canada, which promoted the interests of the poor and homeless. The group used publicity-generating direct action techniques such as squatting and demonstrations which could be confrontational, for example the 2000 Queen's Park protest. On May 13, 2023, OCAP decided at its annual general meeting to cease operations.
The Miami model are the tactics employed by coordinated law enforcement agencies during demonstrations in Miami, Florida relating to the negotiations for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) trade agreement in November 2003. The same tactics were first developed and tested at the 2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania under the direction of John Timoney, who served as police chief to Philadelphia during the RNC and Miami during the FTAA.
Jaggi Singh is a Canadian anti-globalization, social justice, and anarchist activist. Singh has worked with Montreal based groups such as Solidarity Across Borders and No one is illegal collective.
William Sterling Blair is a Canadian politician and former police officer who has served as the minister of National Defence since 2023. A member of the Liberal Party, Blair represents Scarborough Southwest in the House of Commons. Blair previously held the portfolios of Minister of Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction and minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness. Before entering politics, Blair worked for four decades with the Toronto Police Service (TPS), serving as the chief of police from 2005 until retiring in 2015.
A political demonstration is an action by a mass group or collection of groups of people in favor of a political or other cause or people partaking in a protest against a cause of concern; it often consists of walking in a mass march formation and either beginning with or meeting at a designated endpoint, or rally, in order to hear speakers. It is different from mass meeting.
Forward Intelligence Teams (FITs) are two or more police officers who are deployed by UK police forces to gather intelligence on the ground and in some circumstances, to disrupt activists and deter anti-social behaviour. They use cameras, camcorders and audio recorders to conduct overt surveillance of the public. An unsuccessful legal challenge has been made against their use of overt surveillance, but in 2009 the Court of Appeal ruled that they must justify retention of photographs on a case-by-case basis. Any retained information is recorded on the Crimint database.
Covert policing in the United Kingdom is employed to enable an officer of the British police to gather intelligence from and about suspects without alerting them that they are under observation.
Kettling is a police tactic for controlling large crowds during demonstrations or protests. It involves the formation of large cordons of police officers who then move to contain a crowd within a limited area. Protesters either leave through an exit controlled by the police, leave through an uncontrolled gap in the cordons, or are contained, prevented from leaving, and arrested.
The 2009 G20 London summit protests occurred in the days around the 2 April 2009 G20 London summit. The summit was the focus of protests from a number of groups over various long-standing and topical issues. These ranged from disquiet over economic policy, anger at the banking system and bankers' remuneration and bonuses, the continued war on terror and concerns over climate change.
The 2009 G20 Pittsburgh Summit was the third meeting of the G20 heads of state and heads of government to discuss financial markets and the world economy. It was held on September 24 and September 25, 2009 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Commander Robert James Broadhurst is a British police officer. He was the 2012 Olympics Gold Commander for the Metropolitan Police Service. He was formerly Commander for Public Order and Pan London Operational Support of London's Metropolitan Police Service.
The 1982 demonstrations in Poland refers to anti-government street demonstrations organized by underground Solidarity to commemorate the second anniversary of the Gdańsk Agreement. The bloodiest protest occurred in southwestern Poland, in the town of Lubin, on August 31, 1982. The Lubin demonstration resulted in three protesters killed by Communist services, and an unknown number of wounded. On the same day, rallies and demonstrations took place in several cities across the country. According to Solidarity sources, there were four more victims—in Wrocław, Gdańsk, Nowa Huta, and Toruń. According to official government sources, there were demonstrations in 66 cities.
The 2010 G20 Toronto summit was the fourth meeting of the G20 heads of state/government, to discuss the global financial system and the world economy, which took place at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, during June 26–27, 2010. The summit's priorities included evaluating the progress of financial reform, developing sustainable stimulus measures, debating global bank tax, and promoting open markets. Alongside the twenty-one representatives of the G20 major economies, leaders of six invited nations, and eight additional intergovernmental organizations also took part in the summit.
Public protesting and demonstrations began one week ahead of the 2010 G20 Toronto summit, which took place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on 26−27 June. The protests were for various causes, including poverty and anti-capitalism.
A mass arrest occurs when police apprehend large numbers of suspects at once. This sometimes occurs at protests. Some mass arrests are also used in an effort to combat gang activity. This is sometimes controversial, and lawsuits sometimes result. In police science, it is deemed to be good practice to plan for the identification of those arrested during mass arrests, since it is unlikely that the officers will remember everyone they arrested.
Around the end of 2010 and during 2011, it was disclosed in UK media that a number of undercover police officers had, as part of their 'false persona', entered into intimate relationships with members of targeted groups and in some cases proposed marriage or fathered children with protesters who were unaware their partner was a police officer in a role as part of their official duties. Various legal actions followed, including eight women who took action against the Metropolitan Police and the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), stating they were deceived into long-term intimate relationships by five officers, including Mark Kennedy, the first officer to be identified as such, who was publicly identified on 21 October 2010 as infiltrating social and environmental justice campaigns, and Mark Kennedy himself who claimed in turn that he had been incompetently handled by his superiors and denied psychological counselling. According to The Guardian, Kennedy sued the police for ruining his life and failing to "protect" him from falling in love with one of the environmental activists whose movement he infiltrated.
