Eyewitnesses: The Baltimore Riots Didn't Start the Way You Think

[djean111]

31. The kids were "kettled" - done in England - bottle them up until something boils over.

http://flesl.net/Reading/Society/Kettling/Kettling1/kettling1.php

Kettling is a tactic used by police to control street protesters. This is how it works: police officers wearing riot gear use their bodies to form a “cordon” around a group of protesters. The area inside the cordon is called a “kettle” and the process of enclosing protesters in this way is called “kettling.”

When they are setting up a kettle, the police advance slowly, moving in formation, sometimes banging their shields and grunting to intimidate the “enemy.” Once the protesters are inside a kettle they are forcibly held there. No one is allowed to leave without special permission, and this is not often given. Inside the kettle, the protesters are given nothing to eat or drink, and they are not able to use toilets. Often, after a group of protesters has been kettled, the police tighten the cordon, and push the protesters into a smaller and smaller space until they are packed very closely together; if the protesters push back, the police retaliate by hitting them with their shields, their batons, or their hands. Sometimes police officers go inside the kettle and roughly pull out someone they suspect of having committed a crime — or someone who is shouting, or holding a sign, or taking photographs. Sometimes, over a period of several hours, all or almost all of the people inside a kettle are arrested and taken away by the police. On other occasions, kettled protesters are simply released.

Because they wear riot gear, move in formation, and use shields and batons to fight their “enemy” the specially trained riot police who are used for kettling, look more like soldiers than ordinary police officers. The military look of kettling fits in well with the history of the tactic and with the history of the word itself.

Interesting as fuck, how the police are being trained, isn't it?