Ways in which the current Victorian police response to protests is highly unusual - a 🧵, with a few 🐦 leaks thrown in.
The normal police event department which has for decades run the police response public events, be that concerts or protests, has had their office stripped of management & it's now run by police command, which has never happened before.
This is obviously the most upper rungs of VicPol. Think good old Cornelius level. Which makes sense because the list of cops with the authority it takes to 1. sign out some of those weapons & 2. give on the spot fire approval (required) on unarmed people is very, very short.
Since then we've seen the Public Order Response Team (PORT) go from being a rarity at protests, to a regular, to first response. Their true purpose is only for riot response. So them open firing rubber rounds at protesters walking down the st without warning isn't exactly normal.
The orders given to police yesterday were "go for it". The ones for today are "by any means necessary". So there's a realistic expectation that cops will once again be used as a 'rush & fire' squad at citizens walking in a st or park without doing any wider public crowd control.
Yesterday they were accompanied by a slick looking truck called a bearcat. In reality under police operational orders this is ONLY to be brought out in "terrorist or seige situations". Exact quote. Obviously a few hundred unarmed civilians falls a little short of this threshold.
There's a viral clip of camo officers in a vehicle in Southbank. They're NOT military. It's the VIC Special Ops Group, self-nicknamed Sons of God. Mostly ex-military they're more nimble than other cops but usually NEVER seen on the streets unless it's a terror or seige situation.
Many don't know cops are entitled to unlimited 'mental health days'. What keeps happening is many take them on protest days as they can't stand what they're told to do. As a result you get a disproportionate amount of bad eggs & new recruits that can't handle themselves properly.
There are clearly ppl in the community who only care about a disproportional police response when they disagree with why it's happening, which as foolish & ironic as that is it's worth noting how disturbing a precedent is being set right now in the unnecessary force being used.
If you think this won't bleed into other problematic police/govt behaviour, you're absolutely lying to yourself. Quite literally the only difference is if you decide you agree with the cause or not, not the behaviour itself. It's incredible how many fail to see this basic point.
The police are still part of this community & many have said they hate the conflict & damage it's causing. Uniform comes off, you wouldn't know them from anyone else. They're being commanded how to behave, don't forget. It's the commands that are bad. So who's giving them then?
To those who would say they should quit if they know it's wrong, the issue is then we're just left with the ones who actually agree. Similarly if people are protesting how their job loss impacts their families, can you happily tell others to put themselves in the same situation?
The amount of violence & division that's happening here is as awful as it is unprecedented. At the end of the day it's all a failure of leadership - at every level. The list of people who should be resigning immediately just grows every day that this chaos continues.
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