The Battle of Stokes Croft
Around 10pm on Thursday 21st April, people from Stokes Croft and St Pauls in Bristol, reacting to blatant provocation, started attacking riot police gathered from three different forces with glass bottles. What ensued was seven hours of constant clashes; police charges, volleys of glass, brick and concrete, burning barricades and the trashing of a much-loathed Tesco recently forced on a community who for so long battled to stop it opening.
Just before 9pm, police had forcibly removed a small protest from outside the Tesco, which had been there since the store opened a week earlier and set up a cordon closing that stretch of the road. Their stated aim was to enter the squatted ‘Telepathic Heights’, an iconic, graffiti covered building opposite Tesco. They claimed to be acting on intelligence that suggested some occupants where planning to make petrol bombs with which to attack Tesco. Even if this intelligence was accurate, the numbers of police was far disproportionate to the half a dozen occupants of the squat.
The blocking of road by the police and the news that Telepathic Heights was threatened and that the Tesco protest had been forcibly broken up meant it wasn’t long before a substantial crowd had gathered. The crowd became more and more angry as police refused to give justification for their presence, pushing or hitting anyone who got close to their lines. The increased tension of recent months, which has built up as austerity measures begin to kick in and the community of Stokes Croft and St Pauls feel ever more ignored and marginalised, had found a focal point and personification in the belligerence of the police. All it took was for someone to tip over a glass recycling bin.
After the initial barrage of bottles, a retreat into St Pauls. As people came out their doors to see police marching through their streets, many joined in defending against the police. A routine of the police charging then retreating under a hail of bottles and bricks started to develop. Bins were set on fire and charged into police lines, others were used to form makeshift barricades. Around 1pm police retreated back to Stoke Croft and soon found themselves and their vans surrounded. The vans were prevented from moving off as others pelted them from a side street. Eventually the police broke out and sped away in the vans out of sight further up the road.
Celebrations broke out as the crowd realised they had the streets. Calls of “Smash Tesco!” rang out. Tesco windows and an abandoned police vehicle were smashed and a police trailer full of riot equipment was looted. Police then returned to the area. More clashes as police forced people back into St Pauls and down Stokes Croft before finding themselves again outmanoeuvred and at which point they again retreated. This time Tesco’s windows went all the way through as well as the shutters behind. When the police came back, their vans sped straight into the crowd. At least one person was caught behind police lines, unable to get out of Tesco in time and took a frenzied beating whilst on the floor. Someone else was run over, sustaining an injury to his foot and others hit by vans. Next time it was made sure vans would not be able to manoeuvre in this way as a skip was dragged into the road. Tesco was entered a second time and objects being lunched from rooftops made it increasingly difficult for the police.
A number of injuries were sustained and nine arrests made including four of the occupants of Telepathic Heights. Police report that eight of their number were hospitalised.
One local resident noted the police had “thrown a quarter century of semi-decent community policing down the drain” another saying “If they [the police] don’t calm down, things are getting tense enough on a range of other issues for a new pattern to develop of poor community relations and repeat rioting against a police force which has chosen political sides”.
The police provoked this. Turning up in this area of Bristol with such numbers, attacking Telepathic Heights and blatantly using public money to defend the interests of a corporate giant such as Tesco was always going to get a reaction.
Bristol Anarchist Federation 
Alert citizens have to be aware that the Police failure to take telepathic heights and their being out-thought on the streets is going to leave them exceedingly pissed off. The fact that Police had already been shipped in, on phenomenal overtime rates, from Wales would suggest that a) They wanted confrontation and b) Wanted another Force to do their dirty work.
LikeLike
I hope the chief constable reads all this info.
Wether the reports of petrol bombs are true or not, is the response of 200 odd officers, half of which in full riot gear and without a clue as to why they where there, warrented in evicticting half a dozen ketimined up piss heads, whom one of may of which made a drunken threat towards tescos actualy reasonable?
no bloody suprise the police took a bloody battering, no community liason!
I heard from several officers that they had no legal grounds for blocking or obstructing the street, they couldn’t justify the legal reason they were there, or who give the name of whom higher up the command chain made the order, who the police liason officer was or how we could contact them to make a complaint. no bloody wonder there was several hundred pissed off people on the street. The police were being totally ignorant to peoples needs to get to their homes!
come into our streets and community, block off our roads without any reason and expect to get away with it without any reason? is that the way community policy works?
The police effected an eviction of telepathic the day before and all that the community knew was that this was an over the top eviction attempt!
I wonder if anyone calls the police with any petrol bomb threats wether they’ll be treated to the same level of protection as tesco has in Stokes Croft? makes you wonder doesn’t it whos side the police are really working for?
I bet the average everyday guy or girl doesn’t get that much help when they call for it when threatened with shit!
Given the austerity measures and how its affecting people is it any wonder that the force that upholds unjust laws get a welcoming like this when they come in heavy handed
Wouldn’t it be quite nice if the police who say thier concerned with our communities actually worked with us instead of against us, I’m sure after all that we’re all after the same thing really, and thats a better place to live in
LikeLike