Police will deploy new tactics to arrest “troublemakers” breaking the law and “chase people down” at protests in London this weekend over the attacks in Israel and Gaza, the Met Commissioner said on Thursday.
Sir Mark Rowley said his officers would use “sharper interventions to make arrests in big crowds” and use analysis of social media and retrospective facial recognition to identify and detain extremists committing hate crimes or supporting banned terror organisations such as Hamas.
He also vowed to do “everything we possibly can to take dangerous people off the streets”.
The promise of swifter, more robust police action came as Sir Mark disclosed that “70 to 80” suspects have been arrested in the capital over hate crimes linked to the turmoil in Israel and Gaza with most of the offences targeting Jewish people and a further “chunk” directed at Muslims.
He also revealed counter-terrorism officers are examining around 250 potential terrorist offences involving “really toxic” material posted online and warned that of a growing risk that some extremists could be “provoked” into carrying out an attack.
He added that the challenge faced by police was “unprecedented” and insisted that his officers were “constantly trying to deflame tension” despite unable to intervene over some distasteful conduct because laws passed by Parliament give a “very wide leeway for the right to protest”.
Sir Mark’s comments, in an interview for The News Agents podcast, come as controversy continues over the handling of protests in London since the murderous attack by Hamas, a banned terrorist organisation, on Israel and the ongoing retaliatory offensive in Gaza.
A pro-Palestinian protest at Liverpool Street station on Tuesday evening prompted renewed complaints about Jewish Londoners being made to feel vulnerable in the wake of earlier marches – including one denounced as a “hate march” by Home Secretary Suella Braverman – in which the word “jihad” was chanted by some participants.
Sir Mark said the Liverpool Street protest had been managed by British Transport Police, not the Met, but that officers made decisions about protests on a case by case basis, depending on the context, and that those in “shared public space” such as a railway station or Whitehall were more likely to be permitted than others attempted outside synagogues or mosques.
He added, however that his officers would be deploying new tactics this weekend, when further large protests are anticipated, in an attempt to arrest law breakers more rapidly.
“We are starting to look at how we can use technology to help us more, use of social media analytics, retrospective facial recognition to identity people who are behaving badly very quickly,” he said.
“We are doing a range of things to identify the troublemakers in the crowd and deploying some different tactics so we can make sharper interventions to make arrests in big crowds,”
“We are going to do everything we possibly can do to take the dangerous people off the streets who break the law.
“We will keep doing that, we will chase people down, we will look at new tactics, that’s our job, but we can’t enforce taste and decency, that’s not our job.”
Warning that “unbalanced public debate will drive division and tension” – in what some will interpret as a swipe at Ms Braverman’s “hate march” remark – Sir Mark said that although he supported tightening the law, police had to enforce legislation as it currently existed and were restricted in when they were able to prosecute, including over the word jihad and other language which might have different interpretations.
He warned, however, the police were facing “an unprecedented moment” and that the threat of a terror attack was rising, along with a growing volume of hate crimes.
On Thursday morning, a group called Jewish Anti-Zionist Action staged a protest at St Pancras train station, conducting a peaceful morning prayer service in support of Palestine and calling for an immediate ceasefire.
