Jan
30
At yesterday’s student protest in London, some of the protesters who had broken away from the main group at the easily-kettled Egyptian Embassy, arrived at Oxford Street in the early afternoon and immediately headed for the doors of Top Shop (owned by a tax ‘avoider’), which were being held closed by security.
As the police arrived in numbers, the crowd scattered and I watched as a man in civilian clothing appeared to inform uniformed officers of what had happened. He then returned to the pavement outside Top Shop, acknowledging a man wearing an ear piece.
Both men met up with a group of 4 others.
I took a couple of screen shots.
LikeTags: police, protest, surveillance, tuition fees
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Rooftop Jaxx, shiv malik. shiv malik said: Interesting footage on private security or undercover police? http://bit.ly/dVTp5t [...]
They may also have been private security for the stores, no? But still something to be very aware of, whichever they were.
Good point. Or they could have been there doing some routine undercover work looking for shoplifters or pickpockets.
These guys were also outside top shop on Jan 30th, during Uk uncut action. wearing different clothes.
Nicely picked up. Undercover store detectives or CID, they were up to no good. Get their faces out there. Name and shame. Just like the Daily Mail…
Fckng marvellous shots – undercover cops need to come out of the woodwork… genius, keep up the good work
I don’t know about the second round of folks (with the earpieces etc.) but I certainly can attest to seeing the guy in the first two photos a while later with us right at the front of the march as it went up Vauxhall Bridge Road; he drew my attention as he was rather conspicuously on his mobile muttering something about ‘our people’ ‘down at Millbank’ or some such.
I would say they are cops without question. But at least they seem to be looking and watching rather than trying to wind things up.
If they continue acting in the way they are in that footage the demonstrators should look at it as if the plain clothes police are actually protecting the peaceful protesters. It is in your interest that the police take out the real troublemakers before everyone else joins in the trouble.
I’ve been on a lot of demos in the last year and if you can keep the police sweet it really does make things a lot better.
I am told they are MI5
MI5 are on a different level. These are undercover.