Police Use CS Spray on 14 year old Boy after Strike Rally as Santa Arrested

bristol | protests | news report Friday December 02, 2011 17:02 by Bristol AFed & Co.

In the early hours of Wednesday November 30th some naughty elves dropped banners over every entry route in to Bristol City Centre bearing slogans including 'N30 Strike', 'No Cuts In Bristol', Stay Warm This Xmas – Burn The Rich” and 'Oi Scabs, You're On The Naughty List' ensuring no one was unaware of the big day.
A feeder march started outside Easton Community Centre, taking detours to show solidarity with picket lines and making their way to College Green to join the 20,000 strong march that then meandered through Bristol, ending with a rally in Castle Park.

In the spirit of the season a group of local anarchists handed out 100 Santa hats and 300 carol sheets with seasonal songs to inform the public of tax dodgers, cuts supporters, and other companies that had earned themselves a position on Santa's Naughty List.

Then with festive cheer 200 people left the rally and marched through Broadmead stopping at Vodafone, Barclays, Boots, Marks and Spencer, Topshop, TK Maxx, Savers, Tesco, and the 'meet your local police' kiosk in the Galleries. There are numerous reasons for these companies to be on the naughty list this year, many of them are responsible for dodging billions of pounds worth of tax while pensions, housing benefit, legal aid, and many other vital services are being cut, others for signing letters to state their support of these cruel government cuts, and the police, well they proved exactly why they're on the naughty list during the demonstration.

Avon and Somerset Constabulary, hereby known as 'The Cops That Stole Christmas', gave a tremendous display of police intelligence when they grabbed a straggling Father Christmas and arrested him on suspicion of being someone else, given the large number of people who commit crimes dressed all in red with big white beards it's obviously and understandable mistake! To be fair the likeness to Santa was so great that even the Guardian had to reasure thier readers that this was not the real Santa.

Terrified at the prospect of a Christmas without Santa, the rest of the march came to his aid, and a scuffle broke out as Santa's helpers were met with extreme anger and force by the cops. People were thrown back, shoved, stamped, and, in a move that no one expected, sprayed CS spray at the crowd, leaving several people lying on the grass in castle park including a 14 year old boy with Santa's helpers trying to wash their eyes out. Santa later described his view “The police were all pushing me and screaming at me, all I could see was black masks and Santa hats”

An legal observer later commented "During the peaceful Santa Uncut action earlier today police arrested Santa because he couldn't prove he WASN'T someone else (yeah we hadn't heard of that offence either). In some of the most bizarre protest scenes in awhile, police proceeded to nearly run over an elf before pepper spraying several of Santa's helpers."

In a sign of solidarity with both the Santa and Huw 'Badger' Norfolk (who the police had mistaken santa for) the march continued defiantly to Trinity Road police station, taking a detour past the Evening Post building singing 'I'd rather be a Badger than a cop' and waited outside.

Inside the police station Santa was treated as some sort of spectacle with every officer in the station including CID coming to stare at him, slap each other on the back and even (they admitted) placing bets on the outcome of the finger print check. In the Cells Santa was forced to remove is top to show his chest to the officers while Santa's solicitor had to complain about why he had not been able to see his client yet.

Santa was release without charge and a warning that he was likely to be arrested again should he continue to look like someone else.

This is the second time the police have made themselves look like fools by arresting someone who they thought was Huw, and just another act of unnecessary violence and aggression which can't be given a number because of the frequency of it's occurrence.