Outrage as Manchester cops ‘herd GRT kids out of city centre like cattle’

Greater Manchester Police (GMP) is facing a furious backlash after footage emerged of cops violently forcing Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller (GRT) kids out of Manchester city centre and onto trains. It appeared to be a targeted operation against young people from those communities – and already GMP is being questioned over its racist policing tactics.

Racist pigs – yet they’re the ones doing the herding

Footage emerged of the incident on Saturday 23 November on social media:

Cattle Plod

Distressing footage of Gypsy and Traveller children being forcibly herded onto a train in Manchester has emerged over the weekend. @Drive2Survive3 is campaigning for Greater Manchester Police to be held accountable. https://t.co/ifuF8povw5 pic.twitter.com/CAIVtGT37K

— Jake Bowers (@bowers_jake) November 24, 2024

It seems that GRT kids had travelled to central Manchester to visit the Christmas markets. However, GMP had put in place a Section 35 Dispersal Order. This falls under the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. It gives cops the power to exclude a person/persons from an area for up to 48 hours.

According to one of the deputy mayors of Greater Manchester Kate Green, cops put the Dispersal Order in place due to:

concerns about large groups of people causing disturbances at Christmas markets.

Kate has shared the following statement regarding the dispersal order issued by Greater Manchester Police in Manchester city centre yesterday. pic.twitter.com/EnuUrrUi4V

— Deputy Mayor for Safer and Stronger Communities (@DeputyMayorofGM) November 24, 2024

GMP told Manchester Evening News:

We are responding to reports of hundreds of youths gathering in Manchester city centre and causing disturbances for retail staff and patrons of the markets.

Additional powers have authorised enabling officers to manage groups involved in anti-social behaviour more effectively, and so far, we have issued 40 dispersal orders which instructs someone likely to cause harassment, alarm, or distress to leave an area immediately.

However, it seems that at best this was an overreach by GMP. It admitted that it only arrested two people as a result of the 40 Dispersal Orders. Oh, and it “broke up fights” as well.

GMP targeting GRT kids for no good reason

Back in the real world, and it seems that actually, racist GMP was just targeting kids from GRT communities:

Footage showing cops herding GRT kids onto trains doesn’t seem like a response to anti-social behaviour. It seems like racist policing of a minoritised community on the prejudiced assumption that they were going to cause trouble; much like Stop and Search and Section 60s against Black and brown communities in London and beyond.

It was a clearly organised campaign – with the cops even lining up like something reminiscent of an authoritarian state (except of course, for minoritised communities we actually are one):

Campaign group Drive to Survive said of the incidents:

Of course, for members of GRT communities this is par for the course in racist Britain.

GRT communities are systemically targeted

As one anonymous cop summed up to a parliamentary committee’s inquiry into how the police treat GRT communities:

Gypsies and Travellers have been the two ethnic groups where it’s been okay to be openly racist against, almost to the point where it’s expected really, nobody bats an eyelid if someone’s being overtly racist… I used to hear it every week…

This is backed up by qualitative evidence. Research found that three quarters of GRT community members had experienced unconscious bias, racism, and discriminatory behaviour by police.

Of course, it’s not just cops that are the problem, either. Many politicians are inherently racist towards GRT communities too – like this Labour one:

And of course, the corporate media is also openly racist towards GRT communities as well.

So, GMP’s overly racist rounding up of GRT kids and purging Manchester city centre of them is the thin end of the wedge in institutionally racist Britain – where cops and politicians alike can be openly racist towards members of these communities, and still keep their jobs.

GMP: the thin end of the wedge in racist Britain

As the campaign group Friends, Families, and Travellers summed up:

These actions by GMP raise serious questions on its operational approach, decision-making processes, and how it allowed so many innocent Romany and Irish Traveller children to be treated in such a reprehensible and violent manner in its hands.

This is extremely distressing for the young people involved, their families and the wider communities, and FFT will be pushing for a full and comprehensive explanation of the decisions that led to children being restrained and subjected to brutality.

It’s vile that instead of being allowed to act like the children they are, Romany and Irish Traveller kids are criminalised, humiliated and abused daily.

This is a serious example of how structural racism sustains the ‘cradle to grave’ policing pipeline of Romany Gypsy and Irish Traveller communities.

Sadly, it’s unlikely anything much will happen – given how embedded racism is in British society for anyone who isn’t white.

GMP’s actions towards GRT children is just another example of ‘two-tier policing’. It’s just that this time, it’s the very real kind again, against actual minoritised communities – not the far-right fairytale that somehow they’re the oppressed ones.

Featured image via screengrab