How should police control a crowd? When are they allowed to use more force such as the use of teargas, water cannons, rubber bullets or even live ammunition? Kenyan security expert and ex-special forces officer Byron Adera breaks down the actions of the security forces.
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00:00It's the day of the protest. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of people stream into the streets.
00:07The organisers had notified the police, but the sheer numbers are overwhelming. So how
00:13to react?
00:14The ideal scenario is that any unit that is tasked to manage within that area of jurisdiction
00:22would go in to protect those rioters, I mean those protesters, to get to their endgame,
00:29in which case present a petition to either a power or an agent of their target, and in
00:36a way to influence action or to just basically spell out their grievances. And once that
00:40is done, then go back home peacefully and retire peacefully.
00:46So the police are supposed to protect, especially in countries which guarantee the right to
00:51freedom of assembly, in other words, the right to protest.
00:55And then we've also just seen where there are excesses on the part of the riots and
01:00where, as we know it, infiltrators come in to take advantage of the sheer numbers. And
01:04that's where, again, the infrastructure that's supposed to be providing security has got
01:10to be very vigilant to single out these actors and to relevantly apply force to impede some
01:18of these actions and or to arrest them altogether.
01:22What we've seen across the African continent, however, is that police are armed to their
01:26teeth. And in many cases, when the situation becomes more volatile, they fail to de-escalate.
01:32In Kenya's most recent protests, police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse even
01:37just a handful of people. And in footage that we filmed, officers used their firearms even
01:43accidentally.
01:45If you are to drag out a weapon and to shoot at, you know, at whatever it is that is out
01:50there, there's got to be an existential threat to life. That is either the life of the operators
01:56themselves, of the security agencies, and or there's wanton destruction of property
02:01and or there's a risk to, you know, a threat to life, especially on the part of the people
02:05that are being protected.
02:07In preparation for the FIFA World Cup in South Africa in 2010, police and security forces
02:13got special training to prepare them to control the crowds of tourists and football fans that
02:18would descend on the country.
02:22For South Africa, which only emerged from the brutal apartheid era a few years back,
02:27it was a learning curve. They could not afford to endure visiting fun. So what needs to be
02:33changed? Better training, discipline, and more consequences for those who don't stick
02:38to the rules? What's clear is that the change needs to come from the top.