Beyond Control

Front matter

A Mutual Respect Approach to Protest Crowd-Police Relations

Vern Neufeld Redekop and Shirley Paré

B I © @ WN i bh We IR i

Part One: Protest Crowd—Police Dynamics 1 What is at Stake?

2 Introducing Protest Crowds Protest Crowds Moral Consciousness

Levels of Consciousness Organization

Designation of Protest Crowds Protest Crowds as Complex Systems

3 Emotions: The Fuel of Violence Human Identity Needs Emotions and Moral Consciousness Expression of Emotions Emotions and Imitation Sopow’s Analysis of Emotional Factors Emotional Intelligence

4 Introducing Police The Evolution of Protest Policing in Nineteenth Century Britain Repressive Policing Reflection on the Early Evolution of the London Metropolitan Police xi

17 17 20 24 26 33 35 39

43 45 49 50 51 52 54

57 60

VI

CONTENTS

Protest Policing since 1960

Paramilitary Organization

Tools of Technology

Tactical Options

Intelligence Gathering

The Case of the 2009 G20 Protest in London Repression versus Negotiation

Legal and Political Developments

Avoiding ‘Troubles’

Specialized Roles

Public Order Management Systems (POMS) Dynamics of Public Order Policing

Ethical Aspects of Public Order Policing Crowd Control and Management

Reciprocal Violence Mimetic Desire Mimetic Contagion Mimetic Structures of Violence

Mutual Blessing Mimetic Structures of Blessing Complexity Creativity New Levels of Consciousness Reconciliation Protest Crowd—Police Relational Blessing

Towards a Mutual Respect Paradigm of Protester— Police Dynamics Paradigms Three Paradigms of Protest Policing

95 107

116 116 118 121

138 139 140

CONTENTS VII

Relationship among Paradigms

An Integral Approach

Implications of the Mutual Respect Paradigm for Stakeholders

10 Protest Crowds and Police in the Context of Democracy Protest and the Emergence and Evolution of Democratic Institutions Protest Policing in the Current Context Beyond Current Forms of Democracy

150 156

168 171 172

Part Two: The Mutual Respect Paradigm in Practice

11 ‘Getting the Dialogue Started’: Crowd Management and Conflict Resolution—A Case Study What did we Learn about Protest Crowd—Police Dynamics Research?

The Aftermath to the G20 Demonstrations Focus Groups Conclusion

Introduction

Healing Dialogue to Rebuild Active Democracy by Julia Fleming

Bridging the Gap: Conversations among Demonstrators and Police on the Right to Dissent by Carl Stieren

Collaborative Management of Crowd Dynamics by Gary Nelson, Retired Police Officer

Covering Conflict: A Media Perspective by Leonard Stern

Reflections of a ‘Bystander’ by The Rt. Rev.

Peter R. Coffin, Former Anglican Bishop of Ottawa

177 193 194

197 197

198 198

VIII CONTENTS

Index

A Reflection from the Academy by Raymond Laprée, Professor Saint Paul University (retired)

Practical Suggestions for Community-Based Initiatives What are the Roles of the Different Parties?

What are the Rules?

Mutual Respect Protest Crowd—Police Process Suggestions Crowd Dynamics Dialogue The Crowd Dynamics Seminar Event Preparation Conclusion

219 220 229

230 232 233 235 236

IX

Foreword

By Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Dissent. Marches. Protest. Violence. Public order policing. Repression. I have witnessed all of these. Protests, called toyi-toyi in South Africa, have been important, not only in ending Apartheid but also for the emergence of full democracy and the development of South African culture today. These phenomena raise important questions about the dynamics of a democratic society.

Foundational to how I make sense of such phenomena are the twin lenses of Ubuntu and Reconciliation. Ubuntu comes from my African roots and highlights how our lives and humanity are tied up with one another. My Christian roots emphasize reconciliation through the promise of profound transformation when former enemies can escape from their resentment and hatred, visualising the humanity of the other and a common future together.

My own experiences colour my interpretation of these things. During the Apartheid era I stood with those calling for justice. Though at odds with the political power of the time, a dissenting voice needed to be heard as it was expressed in many ways. One of these was through our activities with protest crowds. As one privy to the inner workings of government in the new South Africa, I saw how difficult it is to establish an orderly society, especially when so many still experience injustice.

What is refreshing about Beyond Control is the vision for the kind of society in which protesters and police recognize their mutual humanity as well as how both are needed for a democratic society to function well. This is Ubuntu applied to a contentious aspect of community life. Police and protesters are indeed connected. Governments, as targets of protest; bystanders, who watch; and media, who cover these events, are all part of a web of relational systems centered on protest crowd activities.

In the Mutual Respect paradigm and case study of the seminars in Ottawa, there are promises of the possibility of reconciliation in the wake of mutual hurt. There is something magical in face to face encounters that take place in a safe environment. I saw this again and again during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Those who lost loved ones at the hands of repressive police could open their hearts to forgiveness of the very people who had hurt them profoundly. Not that there is a formula nor that it happens easily, but seeing the humanity in the heartfelt witness of the other has a profound impact.

We all live with our own truths—what we know by way of our own experience and reflection on that experience. At times our truth is crucial for another whose past has intersected with ours in a conflictual way. The sharing of truth can lift burdens and open new relational possibilities.

X FOREWORD

Protesters and police who have confronted one another through the violent actions of batons, tear gas, rocks and Molotov cocktails have their own truths of how they experienced the event. When Redekop and Paré recount the story of protesters who suffered tear gas at the Quebec Summit of the Americas and exchanged their truths with those police who launched the tear gas, I can well imagine the redeeming impact of their mutual insights into the lives of each other.

Beyond Control is an important book for any who wish to look beyond simple partisanship to the complex set of relations and roles that make democratic institutions work. This book provides police and protesters with deeper insight and understanding of each other’s motivations and how their tactics can positively or negatively impact their relationship. I believe this book presents an opportunity to better understand that our lives are tied up with one another and it makes sense to put in place discursive structures that allow us to talk with one another about issues of justice, democracy, and making the world a better place.

XI

Acknowledgements: Vern Neufeld Redekop

Little did I know that when Dan Clapin, director of development for Saint Paul University (SPU), invited his friend Richard L’Abbé for a meeting to discuss an endowed chair in conflict studies it would open up a whole new world of meaning and action; namely, the relationships between protesters and police. ‘Can you do something about crowd control?’ was L’Abbé’s innocent question. It came from his hope, as then CEO of Med Eng Systems Inc.’ that a more irenic relationship might evolve between protesters and police. At the time, I was President of the Canadian Institute for Conflict Resolution where we had developed a methodology for Community-Based Conflict Resolution using Third Party Neutral (TPN) training as an intervention, even in such challenging places as Rwanda and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Without hesitation, I answered in the affirmative and so began a journey, the result of which is this book.

My first step was to enlist the support of Shirley Paré. A retired officer with the Canadian Forces, she had taken Third Party Neutral training along with my seminars on deep-rooted conflict, reconciliation, and community-based conflict resolution. As someone with experience in a command and control environment, she complemented my own experience with community action and development. Within the methodology of community-based conflict resolution is a ‘gathering process’ whereby representatives of key stakeholder groups are invited to a training session such that there is a good balance of whoever needs to be there. Shirley was a master at principled gathering and the success of the seminars with protesters, police, government, media and the community was due in large measure to the quality of her work in this regard. She further assisted with the seminars, the advisory council meetings and eventually the writing of the book. At every step we talked through the ideas, debriefed on meetings, and planned how to proceed together. We have attempted to write a book that is balanced—we entered critically yet empathetically into the worlds of protesters and police in the hope that each would better understand the other. Shirley has played a key role in sensitively ensuring that the book does not take sides. I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to work with her on this project.

To Richard L’Abbé I owe my thanks for the initial research grant which made it possible for us to test our theory through what became participatory action research. Further funding came from the Canadian Police Research Centre, thanks to the efforts of Julie Graham, and the Canadian Ministry of

1 Note that since then Med—Eng Systems has been sold to another company; the line of police protective gear, described below as an example of what is on the market, has been discontinued but the Med-Eng brand is still used for some products. Richard L’Abée is not involved in the new company.

XII ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: VERN NEUFELD REDEKOP the Solicitor General. This made possible additional development work as we conducted the Strategic Leaders Seminar and tried out our process as a preventive intervention leading up to the G20 meeting of finance ministers in 2001.

Trish Blackstaff and Julia Fleming deserve special recognition for their courage in participating in our second seminar as representatives of the protest community. Both had been at the receiving end of tear gas at the Quebec City Summit of the Americas and were passionate in their commitment to the social justice issues that were the focus of protest. It was not at all straightforward for them to join the Strategic Leaders seminar with the very people who had fired the tear gas and confronted them in protective gear. We are grateful they did and for their subsequent contributions to the development of the paradigm.

On the policing side, Gary Nelson, then with the Ottawa Police, and Peter Henschel of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) were key to the success of our research seminars. Not only did they support the initiative from the start, they became active members of the Advisory Council. They were the ones who noted that ‘for this to go anywhere in the policing world, it needs the support of senior officers.’ This prompted our plan for a seminar for leaders; as soon as the decision was made each got on their cell phones and called their bosses, who, on their recommendations agreed to participate in the three-day session—a significant time commitment for senior officers.

As we continued to reflect on the significance of lessons learned and the corroboration of our application of my own theoretical work on deep-rooted conflict in this domain, it became clear that more thoroughgoing historical and conceptual work was needed. This led to an examination of the history and interpretive models used in the understanding of protest, crowds, and policing. Eli Sopow, who hada history of protest (he protested with Greenpeace before it was called by that name) and of consultation work with police, wrote his doctoral dissertation on public protest. He kindly shared his insights and corroborated the ideas we were developing. Wishing to include cutting edge theoretical work around complexity theory and developmental levels of consciousness, I consulted with Deborah Sword and Richard McGuigan who had done their doctoral research on each of these respectively. They subsequently reviewed those portions of the book in which these ideas were presented and we happily made revisions in response to their constructively critical comments.

Also to be acknowledged are the significant number of police, protesters, journalists, and community leaders who participated in our developmental processes. Without them the basic understandings of this book would not have emerged. They are represented in the short essays in chapter twelve. Those who contributed deserve special thanks: Gary Nelson, representing

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: VERN NEUFELD REDEKOP XIII the police; Julia Fleming and Carl Stieren, protesters; Leonard Stern, then a reporter and now an editor with the Ottawa Citizen; Peter Coffin, then the Anglican Bishop for Ottawa and now retired, is a community leader with international experience; and Raymond Laprée, is an academic with expertise in group dynamics.

This book has gone through a number of peer reviews and I am grateful for the anonymous comments that prompted refinements along the way. It was Caroline Wintersgill of Bloomsbury Academic who managed the final processes leading to publication. It was a joy working with her as we cleared various hoops and did the final polishing of the manuscript. She joins with us in the hope that this book will eventually make a difference on the ground.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu was most gracious in contributing the foreword. His perspective, coming from South Africa, frames this work in a most meaningful way.

Among Canada’s First Peoples there are teachings that stress beginning with oneself and letting insights grow like ripples to include ever more people. With this in mind, I must thank my lifelong partner Gloria for providing that community of closeness wherein I could experience the dynamics of dissent, protest, and re-emergent order. These dynamics distinguish institutions— from marriage to organizations to nations—where conflict is dealt with in a mutually respectful way that inspires creativity.

My hope is that protesters, police, bystanders, journalists and politicians will each enter empathetically into the lives and perspectives of one another as they are presented below; that seminars, workshops and other discursive structures will be set up to encourage mutual understanding and the creative development of helpful scenarios; that insights from this book will help in the emergence of healthy democracies out of current repressive regimes; and that messages bursting out of a passion for justice and community well-being will be communicated effectively without there being loss of life or violent paroxysms on either side of the protest line.

Vern Neufeld Redekop August, 2009

XIV

Acknowledgements: Shirley Paré

This work is the culmination of my practical inauguration into training as an intervention. Through the lens of protest crowds and security I came to fully appreciate the power and efficiency of community-based conflict resolution and experiential learning. The journey has been gratifying and spiritually rewarding.

First and foremost I acknowledge my mentor, colleague and friend Vern Neufeld Redekop and his seemingly effortless talents and ability to conduct this project. I admire his eternal optimism and am grateful for his positive support. Vern developed the model of identity based conflict, thus providing a foundation and common language for people in conflict to discuss emotional issues. Additionally, he truly believes in the principles of community based conflict resolution and is skilled in applying those principles in any situation.

Secondly, I must acknowledge the participants in our training sessions. They came with hopes for a better future and participated from the heart. From our wonderful participants we were able to develop an intervention for Ottawa at the time and a model for the future. I am enriched by their presence and participation.

Thirdly, I am grateful for the participation of the members of the Advisory Council chaired by Vern and coordinated by myself. Initial members included Daniel Clapin, Saint Paul University (SPU), Julie Graham (then of Canadian Police Research Centre), Peter Henschel (Royal Canadian Mounted Police), Raymond L’Aprée (then of SPU), Gary Nelson (then of Ottawa Police), and Jean Robichaud (then of Med Eng Systems) later Peter Atak (activist), Trish Blackstaffe (unionist) and Leonard Stern (journalist) joined the Council.

Management, academic and administrative staff at Saint Paul University went out of their way to support the project. They were most cooperative and helpful. I am grateful for their support.

Finally, there is a myriad of people who contributed selflessly to the project. Most importantly, I am indebted to my husband Michael for his technical and personal support.

Shirley Paré August, 2009

Introduction

Societies worldwide, and the communities within them, are caught in a constant interplay between the needs for continuity, on the one hand, and change, with the stimulation and growth that accompany it, on the other. The public interface between these competing needs often manifests itself as the boundary between protest crowds and police. Some protester movements are resisting change, which they perceive to be harmful, and others are pushing for change to address what they perceive to be injustices embedded within the current situation. Police use a range of tactics—from repressive use of force to negotiation and many in between. Their relationship to their political masters ranges from being fully directed by political leaders to relative independence. In any case, police are active within communities in a way that brings them in direct contact with protest crowds. The protest crowd—police relational system is the primary focus of this book. The book examines the interface between crowds and police from the neutral perspective of community-based conflict resolution.

People nest their identities within a variety of groups based on kinship, ethnicity, values, religion, and calling—all of which are manifest at the community level. Community itself has taken on a complex set of meanings in the information age—ranging from geographical communities to communities of interest—that can bring together people with common values who may be spread around the world but linked through the internet. These diverse aspects of community are significant when dealing with protest crowds. Regardless of the type of community, protester engagement with issues often implicates their identities. This means that the values that motivate them are backed by a combination of rational argument, moral principles and emotional vitality.

Given the emotional engagement with the issues and the propensity of many of the players to resort to violence, the relationship between crowds and police includes features of deep-rooted or identity-based conflict. During our work, we have discovered that exposing the underlying conflict in an honest and open dialogue has the potential to transform the relationships and create space for more effective and safe, non-violent protest for all. In Part One of Beyond Control we present theoretical research on both protest and policing interspersed with state of the art theories of identity-based conflict. Part Two tells the story of our Ottawa experiences which we present as a case study.

So, what happened? In the summer of 2000, we were given the challenge of addressing the issue of violence between protest crowds and police. Our community and others like it were facing escalating violence during international meetings and the accompanying demonstrations. What we observed was a conflict of cultures and a dearth of meaningful dialogue. Strategies for ‘success’ abounded on both police and protester sides and there were plenty of negotiations but no real dialogue. The anger and underlying needs of those in ‘violent’ conflict at the coal face of the demonstrations went largely unrecognized. The more the violence escalated, and escalate it did, the more angry everyone became until eventually the demonstrations became more about the violence during the protests than the issues the crowds were protesting. Demonstrators went out of their way to challenge the authority of the police and police erected barriers and deployed tactical troops in riot gear with Tasers, water cannon and other ‘less than lethal weapons’ to keep the demonstrators under control. Chaos reigned.

As experienced process leaders and professionals in community-based conflict resolution, we had developed the discipline of treating people equally and coming across as neutral about the issues. We were practitioners with little experience in either the protest or policing communities and we brought fresh perspectives to the challenges. We could provide a safe space for meaningful dialogue and had developed a methodology whereby the deep-rooted anger could be expressed with minimal hurt to either side.

Neutrality is never easy. Those who were intent on putting us in one corner or the other certainly found reasons to do that. In fact, we were accused of being on both sides of the issues as is usually the case when strong emotions and little trust are involved. The emotions and lack of trust were so strong in the beginning that it was difficult to convince enough representatives from divergent sides of the conflict to be in the same room together. By the end of our project, we were unable to meet the demand for participation in our processes.

Our work in the field and the subsequent research uses an interdisciplinary methodology of deep-rooted conflict, reconciliation and community-based conflict resolution that is applied to the protester—police relational

INTRODUCTION 3 system. As such, it is not meant to provide a strategy for either side to win at the expense of the other. Rather we wish to look at the phenomenon as a conflict, a conflict that can take on a structure of violence or a conflict that can take on a structure that enhances creativity, justice and mutual empowerment.

Both public order policing and protest have developed over time; hence in our research we found it necessary to trace their histories, paying particular attention to paradigmatic changes and how each has understood their role and has been understood by others. An insight emerged from this historical reflection that both protesters and police are necessary for a well-functioning democracy. If both are necessary and both need to be effective to avoid the worst alternatives—violent anarchy or violent tyranny—the question arises, ‘What is to be the nature of the relationship between them?’ Relationships can never be prescribed; however, paradigms of what relationships could be can guide the imaginations, actions, and principles that help mould the patterns of how groups relate to one another. This book explores paradigms past and proposes future possibilities.

From our knowledge of several widely respected conflict theories, we knew that emotional reactions that fuel conflict and violence happen when needs are threatened. We also knew that violence on one side is returned by violence ‘with interest’ from the other and this results in an ever increasing spiral of violence. Our interest and our focus in meeting the challenge of how to imagine a protester—police relationship that allows both to fill their role with integrity was to find a methodology for exposing the underlying needs of participants on all sides of demonstrations regardless of roles. Additionally, we were interested in facilitating a process so that the divergent communities developed the requisite expertise to provide a platform for protesters to express the intense emotions associated with the important issues they wanted to address without resort to violence.

In describing our approach in Ottawa we believe we have produced a model whereby communities worldwide can adapt their own process for facilitating non-violent protest. It is a methodology for creating meaningful dialogue in confrontational situations where there are strong emotions and little trust. We recognize and acknowledge that there are members of the protest community who believe that destructive violence is the only way to get their message across. This book is not for them—or then again, maybe it is.

The insights that resulted from our intervention pointed to the need for more research and theoretical development. In turn, delving into public order policing and protest crowd literature helped us to see what we did in the early years of the new millennium in a fresh light. Hence, the theoretical research is presented first in Part One and is grounded for the reader with examples from our experiences as well as the documented cases of others.

In Part I we introduce the key players in the drama of the protest crowd-police encounter. The dominant parties are protesters and police to be sure but the picture is not complete without introducing bystanders, media and the targets of protest—with each of these the plot thickens as conflicts become more complex. The conflict theories we use to make sense of conflict are applicable to all players in the various relational systems. We have chosen to alternate the introduction of the parties with the presentation of theoretical perspectives that help us understand emotions, scapegoating, power structures, and reciprocal violence. These conflict theories feed into a description of the mutual respect approach that concludes Part One and which we advocate as a vision for productive relationships between police and protesters.

The story of the challenge and how we responded is told in Part Two. The initial action took the form of training as an intervention and eventually participatory action research. The subject of the training was deep-rooted conflict, a concept that the participants applied to the context of protests. We collected data during seminars and this data informed our research. We interpreted our data through the lens of the conflict theories with which we are intimately familiar and have been presented in Part One. Thus the book is positioned right at the nexus of theory and practice. As such, it could be read in two ways—beginning with either Part One or Part Two.

Part Two begins by telling the story of our project, a series of process seminars that brought together representatives of the various stakeholder groups. We present our story as a case study that illustrates a model for the methodology we recommend. We examine the links between lessons learned through these events and subsequent development of ideas and understandings. Part Two goes on to give voice to representatives of the different groups asthey share from their own perspective what is significant in the protester crowd—police dynamic. Finally, it suggests what can be done at the community level to build constructive relationships between police and protesters, drawing on the early portions of the intervention model.

INTRODUCTION 5

The combination in one manuscript of comprehensive overviews of both protest and public order policing academic literature along with our practical application of interdisciplinary conflict theories is unique in the field.

Our Context: Rooted in Canada with a Global Perspective

We live and work in Canada, a country with a unique place in the global community. We are geographically adjacent to the United States, the most powerful nation in the world, with whom we share many cultural affinities and apart from whom we take pains to distinguish ourselves. We emerged out of the British Empire yet retain a viable French legacy making us a vital player in la Francophonie. We have an indigenous population that has preserved a complex mix of tradition, creativity, and cultural development, on the one hand, and struggled to overcome a legacy of forced assimilation and loss of land, on the other. As much as any other country we have welcomed immigrants from the global community and encouraged them to keep their customs and languages. Within our corporate psychological make-up, we bear the marks of both power and vulnerability, of victor and victimized. All these factors have shaped both what we protest about and how our police have evolved.

Though we cannot escape the specific context out of which we view the world, we hope that the present work will be useful in many societies. We have tremendous respect for the complexity of different cultures. Each culture looks at acts of protest differently. However, the world has shrunk and mimetic contagion does not respect the fine points of culture: protest and police practices are replicated globally. Moreover, the conflict theories that form the foundation of our work have been demonstrated to be useful to people from countries around the world.

Nothing can take the place of dignifying all individuals with the intrinsic value that accrues to them by being part of the human family. Nor is there a substitute for respect for the stories, imaginations and personal space of people. There is a blow to our collective well-being when people are designated as anything less than fully human. Stereotypes and disparaging language are the first tools of human atrocity. The bottom line message for protesters and police is that there has to be mutual dignity and respect. Within this context, we present an ethical vision of blessing that means that if relationships were framed such that parties would truly contribute to one another’s well-being the world could become a better place. Dignity, respect, mutual blessing—the rest is truly commentary.

For some people, ‘blessing’ is a problematic word since it is associated with religious institutions and may not resonate positively with people. This is understandable; hence we will provide some background on the etymology of the word and how it is technically defined in this book. The English word ‘blessing’ translates Hebrew and Arabic words berikah and barakat respectively. These Semitic words connote the orientation, attitude and actions meant to enhance mutual well-being. We will use it to designate the mutual concern for, and actions that reciprocally enhance the well-being of those within a relationship. We find no other word works as well for the concept we wish to describe.”

We make reference throughout the manuscript to concepts of complexity and levels of consciousness. Both of these theories have been developed in interdisciplinary ways and we are just beginning to see how relevant they are to the issues talked about in this book. Complexity and chaos theory links us to broad systems theory that emphasizes our interconnectedness (Sword, 2003). The connections among us are so complex that we cannot think in linear cause and effect terms. Any action can set in motion a myriad of consequent actions and events. As soon as we do anything, the effects are out of our control. At certain times, there is a convergence of events such that one small action can have a huge impact. Richard McGuigan has shown us that those with a well developed level of consciousness are able to handle complex conflicts creatively (2003). We have great hope that these theories will bring clearer insights into the relationships associated with protest crowds, thus raising the level of consciousness and hence a capacity to prevent a spiral of destructive violence.

More than anything, it is our hope that the pages that follow will inspire the parties involved, in any country and any culture to get together for honest dialogue. There is nothing that takes the place of a free, open and honest flow of meaning. From the First Peoples of Canada we learn the importance of coming to dialogue with a good mind. They use the smoke of smoldering sweet grass, cedar, tobacco or sage to wash their minds so they think good thoughts, their ears so they hear good things, their mouths so they say what