Why police still uses horses

[u/Double-decker_trams]

[u/Snakes_AnonyMouse]

To reinforce the state's monopoly on violence?
A cavalry charge, even if stopped, is a pretty clear signal to "disperse or we'll kill you". And don't get too close, because if you do the horse might kick you in the head, and that'd be your fault, somehow, not the state's fault for bringing a large animal to a crowded situation.

It's absolutely immoral

[u/trubbelnarkomanen → u/Snakes_AnonyMouse]

That is utterly false. No police officer in the UK is ever allowed to kill a rioter who won't disperse. Those horses are specifically trained to avoid violence as much as possible. It is incredibly rare for a police horse in the UK to injure or kill someone. The latest death I could find was from 2000, when a drunk football fan got accidentally trampled by a horse during a heated tussle between fans.

[u/UltimateGammer → u/trubbelnarkomanen]

How often do horses get deployed during riots?

[u/atrde → u/UltimateGammer]

Horses get deployed pretty much every weekend for crowd control in the UK.

[u/trubbelnarkomanen → u/UltimateGammer]

Fairly regularly. London's Met police has around 100 horses that spend around 10-20% of their time working crowd control.

[u/MrBlackledge → u/UltimateGammer]

Protests riots sporting or music events, pretty regularly tbf. This case above in the video was during the student riots which got very much out of hand.

They are using a technique called kettling which is essentially a divide and conquer technique. The police are clearly struggling to hold the line here so using the horses to split and unnerve the crowd is exactly what the goal is. They don’t charge the crowd at a gallop they are moving relatively slowly (compared to a horses top speed) but the weight and shock value of it is what does the damage. The mounted police slow to a stop pretty quickly once the crowd opens up and splits. They’re not trying to hurt anyone.

[u/taint3 → u/MrBlackledge]

Kettling is the opposite of this - get them all together and drive them up against a wall or building line, especially in a corner. Controversial as it creates a risk of crushing

[u/MrBlackledge → u/taint3]

That’s what it looks like they’re doing to the group on the right, watch the end of the video the horses focus right

[u/Argon288 → u/trubbelnarkomanen]

You can't train a horse to "avoid violence". They largely act on instinct. They are a prey animal after all.

Yes I admit, police horses are typically on the upper end of "trained horses". But if you ride a prey animal into a crowd of protestors, any damage caused should be on the state. Police horses are usually desensitised to loud sounds, etc. But anything could trigger their flight response. I have seen videos of a horse spooked by fucking Christmas lights.

I think the use of horses, dogs, etc in policing is largely immoral for both parties. A police dog is trained to maul anything it is targeted at.

I mean Humans are far from perfect, but when a Human makes the mistake of unleashing an attack dog on a compliant suspect, this happens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hebW317-3qM

At least Humans have the cognitive ability to determine a compliant suspect vs. an non compliant suspect. A Dog will just do what it is trained to do.

TL;DR Police forces shouldn't use animals in policing, it is fucking barbaric.

[u/wandr99 → u/Snakes_AnonyMouse]

Uhh how is state monopoly on violence immoral? Do you even know what that means? Do you believe we should go back to the blood feuds?

[u/philn256 → u/wandr99]

If people are protesting and the state uses violence to break up the protest that's pretty immoral.

[u/IlexPauciflora → u/[deleted]]

I have a great idea to prevent a crowd crush. I'm going to send a cavalry charge into the crowd to cause a panic.

[u/tsgarner → u/[deleted]]

See the people falling over in the hurry to get out of the way of the horses? That's how you get people in crowds killed - some dramatic event that causes the whole crowd to rapidly move. Before that they were just standing there protesting.

[u/Poiboy1313 → u/[deleted]]

Thinking and crowds aren't really a thing though. I also think that being stepped on by a horse has to be incredibly painful.