MPS considers water cannons for public order policing

Water cannons could be a feature of policing large-scale disorder in London in the future, a report by the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) has suggested.

An increased number of baton gun teams have also already been trained for deployment.
The MPS’s interim report into the August disorder, published last Wednesday (November 30), said a new CCTV strategy is also being developed which will look at the further use of facial recognition technology.

The force is looking into buying three water cannons which could serve in London and the South East, at a cost of almost £4 million, according to the report.

There are currently no water cannons on the British mainland, although six are owned by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), and the MPS is considering purchasing the £1.3 million units.

Baton rounds, also known as attenuating energy projectiles, were available during the riots but were not used due to the agility of the disorder and the availability of other tactical options.

The report said the force is considering a further expansion of baton gun teams, in addition to the extra officers who have already been trained, to provide more localised availability of the resource for commanders.

Among the ten main findings of the report, it was found that the MPS intelligence gathering systems “could not cope with the scale and speed of the spread of disorder”. In addition, the number of resources activated and deployed “were not enough and they did not arrive quickly enough to deal with the speed with which the violence escalated and its spread” and the “MPS processes of resource control meant that not all officers were deployed as effectively as they could have been”.

About 3,000 officers were deployed on August 6, the first night of violence. That rose to nearly 4,300 the next day and 6,000 by August 8.

To tackle the difficulties the MPS is developing an accredited public order trained group of intelligence and investigation specialists who will manage fast developing intelligence arising from public order situations or perform the lead role of investigating large scale disorder.
It is also reviewing the level of resource required under mobilisation plans and how officers can be deployed in a more agile way.

“Changes have already been made to the way in which public order officers are mobilised,” the report said.

In addition, the MPS is looking to expand mobilisation plans to include specialist officers, logistical services, Metropolitan Special Constabulary (MSC) and police staff. New technology is also being evaluated for the Command Centre to assist in the coordination of resources.
Further recommendations made by the report include considering requesting additional public order powers or a review of other legislation, and professionalising the police use of social media as an engagement and intelligence tool.

It was acknowledged at times the public felt let down by the police’s inability to help them or prevent the destruction of property. The MPS said this was because there were insufficient officers available to deal with the “unprecedented scale and geographical spread of the disorder”.

Violence erupted in 22 of the 32 boroughs overseen by the MPS after the fatal shooting of 29-year-old Mark Duggan by police in Tottenham on August 4.

Despite attempts to engage with the community to understand their concerns following the shooting, including a lack of communication with Mr Duggan’s family, the force could not predict the disorder that followed.

The report said this meant “either the violence was spontaneous without any degree of forethought or that a level of tension existed among sections of the community that was not identified through the community engagement process”.

More than 150,000 hours of CCTV footage in relation to criminal offences during the rioting still need to be viewed. There have been over 3,000 arrests and over 2,000 charges following the disorder, with 729 ca