jensting, posting on WWP, wrote:
Right, back on the 'net!
pics starting at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jensting/6247377326/in/photostream . No good ones, sorry, busy getting my phone grabbed
An randomer stormed over, right after we had started letting lose with Rick Astley and shouted that we had to stop the music, that we were waking his baby and that he "would fucking kill you" (directed at another protester) if we didn't turn the sound down.
This was at 12:20 - ish on a busy day in the middle of the high street. You could hear the musc, but inside a car, say, it could have been less loud than the car stereo.
Especially if the car was parked 50m - ish away, as his car was. He - the randomer - went back to the car, took a child out, picked it up and walked back to us. I had started videoing with my phone, since this had all the hallmarks of a Bad Situation. The randomer stormed right up to me, stopped close up, grabbed my phone and yelled at the top of his lungs "YOU KICKED MY BABY!" and threw my poor old phone into the far of two lanes of busy traffic. He then pulled back (as did I) while he was interacting with the general populace (who were going WTF!); I was encouraging the protesters to ring the police. One minute ago.
The police got there. By that time, the randomer had left(!), gone back past where his car was. We explained the situation to the police, a police man and I went in search of the car and were directed to the correct one by a member of the public who had seen the whole thing and gave a statement to the policeman. I then went with the police to the station.
On the way to the station, the best thing happened: The police men got a radio call and turned around, ending up driving after the randomer with the sirens blaring, pulling him over and having a chat after which one policeman drove back to the station with me and the other in the randomer's car with the randomer, the baby and someone else (who had been in the car, on the mobile phone - not driving). This was barely a chase, the siren only had to be used to make a couple of extra overtaking manoeuvres and the perp was driving along quietly.
That said, being in a police car, sirens blaring driving after the guy who just tried to take a swing at me, that was excellent!
It almost made up for the sick feeling at the bottom of my stomach at the thought that someone would complain about noise (hmm, well, OK), go get a baby, walk back with that baby and get VERY CONFRONTATIONAL while holding that baby. And then walk away.
More news as the police get back to me. Needlessly to say, I'm pressing criminal charges as much as I can.
A clam with a baby sent our friend Non the clown to hospital for a fortnight when he and three of his clam friend pushed Nono to the ground and kicked him in the head.
Ah, well, the mobile phone survived (a Samsung Nexus S, I'm not affiliated with Samsung, but I'm now a customer who is somewhat more impressed with the solidity of the product)
I know what it is with East Grinstead. It's the same stuff that happened years ago,
http://www.tingleff.org/jensting/duke_tour/muslinger/egrinstead9805_b.html half way down.
tl;dr Always have several video cameras running. Do not break this rule. Look at San Fran raids to see how it's done. This time, we failed to have redundant cameras, and we were lucky that my one camera did not in fact get broken.
The clams were snappy at St Hill this year (see earlier report), you know where to be next year!
Best Regards
Jens
