Heavily Armed Police Make Civilians Who Oppose Rising Militarism the Enemy

In the lead up to Land Forces 2024, the largest weapons show in the southern hemisphere, which was staged over Wednesday to Friday in Naarm-Melbourne, questions were raised about the organisers’ decision to shift the biannual “one stop genocide shop” from its former home in Meanjin-Brisbane, to the southern city, which has the reputation of being the continent’s activist heartland.

But on Wednesday, as Land Forces began, it was met, as expected, by a couple of thousand Disrupt Land Forces activists, and the answer to the quandary became obvious, as the menacing paramilitary Victoria police force that descended upon demonstrators not only performs its duty like an army of foot soldiers confronting an enemy, but it’s also the state police force with the best arsenal.

And while mainstream media reports tended to focus on a couple of black clad demonstrators tossing manure and stones at mounted police, the view from the social media feed was a completely different story: Victoria police were running horses into the crowd, firing projectiles from “nonlethal” military-style weapons, tossing flashbang grenades and going berserk with pepper spray.

As Melbourne Activist Legal Support (MALS) pointed out in August 2021, the Victorian government splashed out on what are often referred to as crowd control weapons (CCWs), as part of its 2016 Public Safety Package, and this hefty arsenal of weapons deemed nonlethal, includes semi-automatic rifles that can fire an array of differing projectiles into crowds of civilians.

And as the Lethal in Disguise 2 report of last year outlines, the scenes out of Naarm over the last three days are part of a global trend toward the militarisation of domestic law enforcement agencies, as they’re equipped with nonlethal weapons, which when applied to unarmed civilian crowds, as we’ve just seen in Melbourne, sees officers applying disproportionate force against the community.

CBD turkey shoot

Footage of Victoria police decked out in riot gear with helmets, carrying shields and batons, marching directly into a crowd of unarmed protesters, screaming at them to move, as they shove and push them, whilst other officers behind periodically reach over the top of their colleagues’ shoulders to hit a demonstrator in the face with pepper spray, isn’t what constituents expect to confront at a protest.

Officers were caught on film over recent days, tossing flashbang grenades into the crowd, which serve to disorientate. Another was captured on the frontline firing unidentified projectile rounds from a semi-automatic rifle at protesters, who were standing before police with their hands in the air, conducting a call and response chant that consisted of “hands up” followed by “don’t shoot”.

But the cops were shooting and shoving and spraying. And it’s been reported in regard to the weekly Naarm protests against the Israeli-perpetrated genocide in Gaza that Victoria police officers have been getting more liberal with their use of pepper spray of late, which does harm people. And over the past three days of Disrupt Land Forces, officers were captured letting it rip with the OC spray.

As can be seen in footage of a Victoria police officer hiding behind his colleague’s shield and periodically moving out from behind it, as he’s itching to take potshots using the military-style rifle he’s holding, to fire who-knows-what at protesters that weren’t posing any physical threat to police, it was obvious that individual officers were taking out all of their frustration upon the public.

Not the proper way to protest

“Well look, people have a right to protest peacefully, but you don’t say you’re opposed to defence equipment by throwing things at police,” prime minister Anthony Albanese told the press on Wednesday. “They’ve got a job to do, and our police officers should be respected at all times.”

The federal Labor leader didn’t elaborate on the fact that the police started the violence, and nor did he reflect upon Victoria police having turned up decked out in riot gear carrying nonlethal weapons that can kill and commenced firing into the crowd, while also liberally spraying anyone in reach in the face with pepper spray, as well as hospitalising one protester with a baton to the ribcage.

Numerous protesters and reporters stated that the police were firing rubber bullets into the crowd. Victoria police were first noted as having fired kinetic impact projectiles on protesters during the August 2021 lockdown demonstrations. However, Victoria police chief commissioner Shane Patten told the press on Wednesday that officers had been using hard foam baton rounds upon the crowd.

But whether they were rubber or foam projectiles, either way these weapons are designed to result in nonlethal harm on civilians exercising their right to protest. And, as the Lethal in Disguise 2 report outlines, medical research shows that not only do these bullets cause pain, but they can lead to serious injury, result in a permanent disability or even cause death on occasion.

Over the five years to 2021, 12 people were killed by kinetic impact projectiles, while 945 suffered permanent disabilities. Injuries relating to the eyes, including blindness, accounted for 1,575, or 65 percent of injuries, caused by these projectiles over that period. And it adds that from 2015, over 100,000 people have been harmed by chemical irritants, including 14 killed by the cannisters.

The enemy is the people

Wage Peace wrote on X on Thursday that climate defender Violet CoCo, who ended up in hospital after being shoved by a baton, had been assisting a 78-year-old protester along when set upon. And the antiwar group added that more than 150 protesters had been harmed by police and medics had treated 90 people, and as for protesters harming police, they’re unaware of this occurring.

The Disrupt Land Forces mobilisation has been extra charged this year due to the now 11-month-long genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza, and despite all the ceasefire rhetoric, the state of Israel is now escalating its military incursions into the West Bank, in a move that suggests the rogue nation is attempting to secure all the occupied Palestinian territories, as its own.

And representatives from weapons manufactures who’ve been supplying the arms to the Israeli military to perpetrate the greatest atrocity the world has seen since World War II, were able to continue to cut their deals safely within the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre over the three days of Land Forces, with an armed militia out the front to ward off any unarmed assailants.

Main image a still taken from footage Extinction Rebellion activist Jane Morton posted on X