George Rebane
[I found this little bagatelle buried in my RR WIP folder where I had stashed it a couple of weeks ago after being inspired by some serious news videos from our inner cities reporting on a particularly egregious evening of riotous celebrations during our summer of love. Anyway, since such observances continue unabated, I thought I’d just throw it out there for what it’s worth.]
It is clear that the police assigned to man the line during street demonstrations and riots are not very organized in the way they encounter rioters who need to be addressed – constrained, pushed back, arrested, defended against – as individuals. Today police appear to act either as loners without dependable support, or as members of an ad hoc squad that suddenly decides to form and descend on a rioter while other officers either join the engaged squad, thereby contributing to the disorganized appearance of piling on, or they individually just mill around while obviously not addressing the remainder of the rioters.
The problem is that individual officers know that it is dangerous to go one-on-one with a rioter, because other rioters will come to the aid of one of their own and attack the lone officer trying to do his duty. The result is that the overall response of the massed police operating in this manner turns out to be much less effective that what is possible with a different command structure on the ground.
A workable solution to this problem is that EVERY officer on the street is first and foremost a member of a two-man team, every officer has an assigned partner or ‘wingman’ (a la fighter aircraft). They operate as a team in constant communication with each other. They are never more than, say, ten feet apart, always with an eye on each other. They go after a rioter together in a tactic where one can address the rioter, while the other defends the encounter.
Such two-man teams can also call for other such teams to support them as the need arises. The fundamental point here is that no line officer feels alone and uncertain of what kind of support he may depend on or receive, when either attacked or in response to a decision taken to inhibit or arrest a rioter. Everyone always has a wingman, everyone operates in pairs.
This principle is already adopted and in practice with regular patrol officers up to the level of detectives who work with an assigned partner in relationships that endure anywhere from many months to many years. This format needs to be replicated on the streets when responding to demonstrations and riots. Every demonstrator should know that police operate in pairs, and that they will quickly be reinforced by other paired teams. In short, no officer should feel like the Lone Ranger when it all hits the fan.
rebanesruminations.com 
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