Crowd Management for Law Enforcement - The case for the Police Cyclist

Current Problem 

Public scrutiny of law enforcement has significantly increased in recent years. Ease of access to information afforded by technology has given citizens and media a first-person seat to observe police tactics.  The confluence of increased public access into how police work is done and the denigration in public perception of law enforcement from this access to information has driven an evolution in policing. Information can be transmitted real-time on a global scale and, as such, scrutiny and second guessing no longer wait for Monday morning. This creates pressure on law enforcement to get it right and get it right now. In the law enforcement realm, situational facts generally dictate law enforcement actions and, in some situations, there may be no “good” action that can be taken.  This has never been truer than when law enforcement deal with civil disorder. Technology has not only provided citizens a front row seat to police activities but it has also increased capabilities of the protest communities in organization and execution of tactics with sometimes nefarious intentions. Public perception, technology, training and organization of malevolent participants are all considerations when and how law enforcement must apply crowd management tactics and tools developed and largely unchanged since the 1970’s. 

Introduction and Purpose 

Policing civil unrests with properly trained and equipped resources provides an effective and proven solution for law enforcement management of erratic protest entities. Admittedly, most participants and entities organizing free speech events do so in a completely peaceful and lawful manner. However, this document deals primarily with civil unrest and police response to intentional criminal acts as well as criminal acts committed during moments of spontaneous opportunity. As such, the term protestor, as used in this document, is intended to represent the violent, unlawful actors in protests, demonstrations, and events. The purpose of this document is to highlight those situations wherein current local and state law enforcement agencies need new tactics and technologies to mitigate organized violent civil unrest.  An effective crowd management program has an integrated approach to leverage tactical and technological strengths while abating program weaknesses. As a nation, we can’t deny that local problems can quickly become national problems (Ferguson, Charlottesville, Berkeley etc.). Properly utilizing police cyclists presents a solution to successfully manage and palliate these violent protest entities in a way that is both effective and meets public expectation of stopping violence while protecting free speech.

Background 

There has been an evolution in the way that protest and civil disorder are conducted in the United States.  The watershed moment in the development of modern protest tactics was in 1999 in Seattle, Washington during the World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference (“WTO”).  Social Media was in its infancy and became an extremely useful tool in organizing large numbers of people for civil unrest. An evolution of tactics and organization of the protesters was underway utilizing social media technology. At that time, Seattle Police Department (“SPD”) officers were instructed on the Mobile Field Force (“MFF”) model, a model similar to one taught by FEMA today, the success of which is predicated on large static protest operations. The weakness of the MFF is that when events turn mobile and violent, the combination of the mobility and organization of event participants can quickly overwhelm an agency’s ability to handle problems as they develop. In 1999, SPD was overwhelmed by large numbers of protestors during WTO who were mobilized by technology with some seeking to do harm. In 2017, we see protestors continue their evolution in leveraging technology to overwhelm the same police department tactics which have not been significantly developed or enhanced since well before the WTO of 1999.

Crowd Psychology 

Entities that are engaged in organized violent efforts of civil unrest are relying on certain concepts that are commonly referred to as crowd contagion, mob mentality, or de-individuation.  De-individuation occurs when the individual becomes so caught up in the event that their individuality is temporarily minimized and they are more likely to engage in behavior to which they would not normally be prone; the individual takes on the identity of the crowd. This becomes an extremely dangerous phenomenon when a group’s identity is to commit acts of violence and property damage. Groups that are trying to take advantage of this will obscure their identity by dressing in the same color and cover their faces. They train and practice ways to stop traditional police response by engaging in de–arrest as well as other tactics. These groups will nurture and try to propagate crowd contagion; they want to dictate the group identity. Therefore, it is extremely important to be able to hold individuals accountable for criminal action during these events where they are present. If individuals believe that there will be consequence of action, crowd contagion is stopped. If these organized protest entities are successful, they will be able to co-opt larger groups to do their bidding in promoting violence and property destruction in the hope of provoking a universal police response to individual actions. This will have a compounding negative effect.

Limitations of MFF

Strategic Limitations of MFF-Problems compound when agencies are unable to deliver resources in a timely manner and a protest group turns violent. Inherent in planning a large event using only MFF foot or vehicle borne resources is the challenge of transporting large numbers of officers and resources from point A to B, due to the sometimes coordinated traffic impacts of the protests. Coordination of multiple units and potentially multiple agencies and vehicles to support the people and equipment all require a large, time consuming, and cumbersome footprint. Whether planned or unplanned, a large-scale event displaces traffic resulting in considerable delays and hindering an agency’s ability to transport the MFF resources to desired locations in a timely fashion. While trains or light rail have merit, they also have limitations in desired destinations. Officers travelling on foot can travel only a limited distance due to gear and support needs. Experience has shown that some protest groups have been incredibly well organized in creating specific traffic problems to limit the responding agency’s ability to respond. 

Officer presence is one of the oldest and most effective abatement and crime prevention tools used by agencies. If officers are not present with the crowd, the first chance at providing strategic de-escalation is missed. If a protestor becomes violent and or commits property damage, the ability to stop the crowd contagion effect is not there. 

To effectively manage events that become mobile with MFF, it is advisable to place a unit of officers with the event at the originating location, a unit at an area where to which you think the event will move, and one unit in transit to either leap frog to the following location or cover for the other two units in case you had bad or no information. Officers on foot and suited up in gear will have difficulty keeping up with a mobile protest for sustained periods. For vehicle-bound officers to move with a protest, traffic must be well-managed. 

Tactical Limitations of MFF-It is a tactical advantage for squads of officers to control access to streets and areas as well as hold protestors who are violent or commit acts of property damage. An assessment must be made of the numbers of officers it takes to cover one complete street, the speed at which the officers can move, and what tools are required to complete those tasks. 

When planning for access control using foot officers, the practice is to place officers shoulder to shoulder.  This could easily take 30 or more officers to control access to one side of an intersection. Officers will be carrying large batons, protective gear, and or shields. Is it effective and reasonable to have 30 officers on a line on just one side of the street? What is their ability to move to the next street or the next block and to maintain presence with the mobile mob intent on violence?

If the officers are on foot and observe an action in the crowd, they are relying on that squad’s speed as a unit to observe, decide on a plan of action, and respond to apprehend the perpetrator. This has had mixed results, at best, when applied to organized and mobile groups bent on civil unrest. Unsuccessful apprehension attempts for criminal activity has a compounding negative effect on the crowd, as it demonstrates that perpetrators of violence and property destruction will not be held accountable.

Public Perception-The public are the real arbiters of change for law enforcement. Public perception is limited to and only as good as the information to which the public has access.  The rapid progression of technology provides a platform for transmission of any message or image in support of someone’s ideology; this can be good and bad for law enforcement. The window to the world for many is often through this technology.  The optics of officers in Kevlar helmets, shields, and batons are much less appealing than officers riding a bicycle.

The Solution: The Police Cyclist  

Among the lessons developed with the Seattle WTO, the bicycle is the most resounding answer to managing civil disorder. The application of the bicycle for crowd management was realized when large coordinated groups shut down law enforcement and the conference became a siege. The ability of the police cyclist to get resources to a problem quickly and undeterred by urban traffic became a huge advantage in managing and controlling civil disorder. Since WTO, tactics, training, and deployment models have been created and developed through the experience of managing hundreds of direct-action events in Seattle.  The result is a resource that meets the challenges of managing and controlling well organized, mobile, violence-prone entities with opposing viewpoints and managing expectations of the public in a manner that is palatable to a wide array of political viewpoints.

Strategic Advantages-When officers and commanders have been trained on bicycle crowd management tactics and the appropriate equipment is used, the police bicyclist is an effective and efficient edge for commanders. Bicycle crowd management squads have the ability to maintain constant presence with entities that are highly mobile. The mechanical advantage of the bicycle gives officers the ability to travel for multiple miles over multiple hours, all the while, maintaining constant contact with the crowd. This provides the abatement impact missing from MFF deployments. Law Enforcement often looks at de-escalation at the officer level; this provides an opportunity for strategic de-escalation at the command level allowing commanders to maximize the use of resources.

Tactical Advantages-The mechanical advantage of the bicycle allows resources to be both present with the event and ahead of the event at the same time. The bicycle will give each squad the ability to cover ground quickly. The ability of the police cyclist to control access to areas and streets is much easier than officers on foot with a stick. The use of the bicycle as a physical barrier gives one officer the coverage of about three foot officers standing together side by side.

The combination of attributes, mechanical advantage of the bicycle, and the physical barrier benefits of the bicycle allows for a bicycle squad to have the time to identify and quickly respond to specific acts of violence and property destruction. The tactics and physical barrier of the bicycle allow for law enforcement to isolate the problem individual(s) and hold them responsible for their actions. This stops the crowd contagion cycle and allows agencies to take effective actions on problematic individuals while protecting the broader crowd’s rights of free expressions. 

Public Perception-If you were to go to just about anywhere in the world, most people are familiar with and have ridden a bicycle. For many, irrespective of race, creed, or sexual orientation, it is often one of the first gateways to freedom in this world and has those positive attributes associated with it. Leveraging it as the primary tool to protect freedom of speech and managing crowds is an easy case to make on many levels.

Conclusion

Trained bicycle crowd management teams are an effective and efficient resource in protecting free speech and minimizing violent protests and injury to officers and the public. Deployment of properly trained and equipped police cyclist squads in most cases eliminates the need for crowd control tactics and negative contact with protesters. In other cases it will effectively reduce necessary force and effectively manages public expectations of law enforcement.  

Evidence Based Success

Cleveland, Ohio was on a national stage hosting the Republican National Convention (“RNC”) in 2016. There were widely reported expectations that the city would be overwhelmed, the event would be shut down, and that there would be uncontrolled fighting in the street between a multitude of opposing groups.  The Cleveland Police Department (“CPD”) prepared with FEMA training and significant purchases of tear gas and other munitions. They had shipping containers of extra munitions on standby in adjacent cities. The CPD did not have a functioning bicycle program, let alone a Bicycle Crowd Management program. After consultation with Tiger Mountain Tactical (TMT) and federal funding, the equipment was purchased. TMT provided the Bicycle Public Order Training, Skills Training, and Commander Orientation. TMT also provided on-the-ground consultation with the Bicycle Commander during the RNC. There was great internal doubt that the bicycle units would be an integral role in managing the thousands with opposing views that were expected to fill the streets and create civil unrest. A day into event, the Chief of the CPD was asking for a bicycle to gain access to areas quicker than a vehicle as well as take advantage of the public popularity of the police bicycle teams that saved Cleveland.  This success was largely due to the ability to completely manage all the movements of every march and having a constant presence with the crowd, with the clear capabilities to hold anyone accountable that violated the law. It was reported by news outlets like the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and just about every mainstream and local news outlet how each group could express themselves without it turning into a big melee. On a national stage, the TMT model of training clearly worked with a department that lacked any existing bicycle program infrastructure and where every expectation was for significant problems. TMT has also successfully trained cities like St. Louis, Atlanta, Orlando, Orange County, Tampa, Dayton, California Highway Patrol, and Michigan State Patrol. This is a proven solution to keep an agency out of the negative spotlight and headlines.

NOTE –MFF and other foot and vehicle borne resources provide agencies with significant capabilities in managing civil unrest events. Bicycle resources are best used in conjunction with these resources, maximizing your resources and capabilities. This articles intent is to focus on the attributes that properly trained and equipped squads of police cyclists will provide law enforcement agencies.

#experiencematters #tigermountaintactical