Spectacle draws cameras and fuels notoriety. It also masks incremental security progress. So it is or has been with recent crowd control efforts in Los Angeles and Toronto, from the Laker basketball title victory to the G20 summit. Both events drew unruly crowds expressing either elation or disgust by torching otherwise innocent vehicles posing neither threat nor obstruction. In L.A., video coverage of thugs torching a taxicab made it to YouTube. This video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xfQR6YomJs&feature=related) shows a uniquely modern touch to an otherwise unchanging pattern of mob destruction. The pattern begins with tentative strikes that gather momentum and intensity as attackers meet no resistance and only magnify their glee at being able to hit things or people without being hit back – to the cheers of their own crowd.
The modern novelty comes in the ubiquity of cell phone camera flashes, as thugs pause after smashing a window or jumping on a car hood to immortalize their impact while grinning and cheering. Those with higher-end cellular phones take a turn at playing videographer, while their more electronically challenged fellows, lacking in the souvenir-taking technology, must content themselves with smacking the defenseless cab with renewed vigor. What are these destroyers ostensibly doing all the while? Celebrating their team’s victory. That’s right. These are happy people, expressing their joy by robbing a taxi driver of the means of his livelihood.
Move forward, now, to Toronto. Mobs vandalize banks and retail shops while torching police cars. Their worst destruction, attributed to Black Blocs (See http://www.csmonitor.com/World/terrorism-security/2010/0627/Black-Bloc-tactics-mar-Canada-s-G-20-summit), appears to be carried out under the banner of anti-capitalist, anti-police, anti-government – anti-you-name-it sentiment. So these are unhappy people, expressing their discontent by destruction that, at a given moment, looks remarkable indistinguishable from what happy rioters did in Los Angeles. These crowds use technology a little differently. Not that they don’t take their own souvenir photos. However, their mobile phones are communication devices first and documentation devices second. Text and Twitter messages offer Black Blocs their command and control, redirecting crowds on the fly to exposed targets and away from riot police strongholds.
Welcome to the new global pastime of modern unruly crowds. Among the principal differences between jubilant crowds and angry ones is that the latter come better prepared, hence the projectiles that Black Blocs used in Toronto to launch bags of urine and feces at police. Similarly, the Toronto mobs included stalwarts drenched in vinegar to offset the effects of the teargas they expected to draw. For once, the inherent sourness of violent protestors comes with a telltale, odor-bearing signature, as observers in Toronto reported tracking mob progress by following the vinegar smell with their noses.
Where is the good news for security practitioners? Well, it may not be good news exactly, but it is better than it could be. So far, both venues have been far less destructive than they could have been. True enough, one single torching of a car or business is one too many. However, it could be a lot worse. The Laker game mob’s swath of destruction in L.A. was a fraction of what previous ones have been. Similarly, the G20 rioting in Toronto has drawn 4,000 instead of the greater than 100,000 rioters in Italy for a past summit. Observers in Toronto report that riot police were refusing to be drawn into skirmishes when Black Blocs and other rioters torched police cars and broke store windows. Again, this is bad news for the custodian of the damaged asset.
However, there remains a certain wisdom in containing destructive forces, in channeling them to where they literally burn off their energy as they burn up some things in their path. Call it crowd control meets the Dog Whisperer. Once that energy dissipates, so too does a good measure of aggression. Better that this process take place with some impact to property and less jeopardy to human life. Security may not be perfect in either circumstance. But there are signs that it is better than it used to be for similar events.
– Nick Catrantzos
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Nick Catrantzos + Tom Goff
- All Secure
- NICK CATRANTZOS is the lead author of the All Secure website and is the emeritus security director for a large public organization. He has also managed security aspects of corporate takeovers, response to international hostage situations, and finding and keeping secrets. He has been board certified in security management, licensed as a private investigator, and certified as an incident commander. He worked as a case officer for a discreet branch of public service. He protected stealth technology at Lockheed and, later, as a consulting security director for both Kroll and Control Risks, he assisted executives with workplace violence cases and with protecting VIPs and critical assets globally in volatile areas. Nick's partner, TOM GOFF, was a captain in the Military Police Corps, U.S. Army Reserve and has a law degree from the University of California at Davis. He is a former reporter for Fortune Magazine, was senior editor at New York Magazine and Esquire, and has provided crisis and communications counsel to senior executives at Fortune 500 companies, including Lockheed, ARCO, Microsoft, Nissan, and Sony Pictures.