Northern Ireland’s police chief has warned rioters that his officers will no longer stand and take the violence directed at them as he made clear there has been a “shift” in responding to disorder under his watch.
Jon Boutcher acknowledged there had previously been reluctance within the Police Service of Northern Ireland to deploy tactics such as baton rounds (AEPs) and water cannon due to concern among officers that they might be subject to complaints.
He said that since last summer’s race-related disturbances in the region, the PSNI was being “far more proactive and robust” in response to attacks directed at them.
Speaking to the media at an event at Stormont to highlight high levels of assaults against officers across all areas of policing, the chief constable also described as “nuts” social media platforms that enable people to generate income from livestreaming disorder.
There were multiple incidents of people livestreaming disorder in parts of Northern Ireland last week.
Mr Boutcher said his officers had put themselves in harm’s way to police the incidents, with 87 injured as a result.
“I have a duty to protect those officers,” he said.
“In the disturbances last August you will have seen a shift, we were far more proactive and robust in our tactics last August. And we are more robust again.
“And I will bring support in from policing (elsewhere) in the United Kingdom to ensure that we can police these disturbances until we’ve arrested all of those concerned. And we will arrest them. We will pursue them, we’ll find them, we’ll arrest them, we’ll prosecute them, and we will put them in prison.”
He added: “I’ll be very clear, I have no tolerance for assaults on police officers. And I think if you speak to the police officers here, they would be unequivocal in the fact that we use all the tactics available to us, whether that’s AEP rounds, whether that’s water cannon, but we do it proportionately.
“You’ve seen the footage of what these officers have faced – the masonry, the petrol bombs, the railings and axe (all thrown at them). We will not stand there and be assaulted. We’ll defend ourselves.
“We’ll take proactive measures to stop that, and we will go after them. And we’ll put their images in the media, that wasn’t happening. So we’ve released more images of people we want to arrest.
“Don’t do it. Stop it. I will be very clear. I will not accept this. I will not accept it, but none of us should accept it. Nobody in society should accept this.”
Mr Boutcher continued: “So last year, last August, to be clear, when the disturbances started, I felt that, and I spoke to police officers, officers told me that they didn’t feel supported, they stood there and took incoming missiles of all sorts of descriptions.
“There are a range of tactics available to them. They felt that here complaints are made against them for using those tactics in a way they’re not made anywhere else.
“This is our police service. This is the line between keeping society safe and there being, you know, havoc in society, chaos in society.
“We will use all the tactics available to us to protect those officers and protect society. We will not stand there and take missiles in the way that I’ve seen occur before, unless we absolutely have to. We will be absolutely robust in dealing with people.”
On the issue of livestreaming rioting, Mr Boutcher said: “Much of the stuff that you see online, and there is so much of it, is from overseas. Most of it is from abroad. It’s not from here.
“People who don’t know Northern Ireland, they don’t know Portadown, they don’t know Ballymena, they’re just getting on this almost crowd euphoria looking remotely. That’s what’s encouraging a lot of this behaviour.
“I was only told recently, the more looks or likes you get when you’re filming these events, you get money on social media platforms. That’s nuts.
“Don’t go out anywhere near these disturbances and disorders. Stay away, because if you get caught up in it, it can change your lives forever.
“Whatever you think you can achieve in life will be seriously handicapped if you are arrested and prosecuted for these crimes that are being committed. Don’t do it.”
