Police and public
Sir: I am saddened by all the calls for, and talk about, further strengthening of police defence equipment and capability even to the extent of visored headgear and water cannon.
The concept of community policing, i.e. of a police force that springs from the community and is engaged in holding the balance, in accordance with the law, between conflicting interests of community members — car-drivers versus pedestrians, burglars versus householders, as exaggerated examples, if you will — is of such great value in the long run that nothing should be done in the short run to damage that concept and image.
If we have now reached a stage where small sections of the public are determined to attack the police per se, that is tantamount to an attack on the community at large and should be dealt with as a separate issue — not by kitting out the police in a fashion that could strike fear into all, nor by using the army which has its own special image to preserve, but by instituting and employing quite separate and distinct (both in name, uniform and manner) Riot Squads.
Such squads should be trained, kitted and employed in a fashion that would indeed strike fear into mobs, against which it would be legitimate, after proper notice had been given, to use considerable force, once the `ring-holding' function of the ordinary police, with their ordinary helmets and truncheons, had been, or was about to be, overwhelmed.
In this way the positive traditional image of the police• would be preserved in the minds of almost all, whilst order on the streets might well be more expeditiously restored than is now the case.
M.R. Bishop 26 Vincent Square, London SW1
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