Riot Prevention Quotes

A riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.

Stop the few from rioting on the labors of the many.

We hoped against hope that what we had been doing was enough to prevent a riot. It was not enough.

How do we stop violence, looting, and riots? The way that we stop that is by making sure that people have the things that they need to thrive.

I felt that if we, as the Met, were not intervening once one person starts digging up Parliament Square, then someone else is going to join in and you have a spiral.

I can see in your eyes, I can see in your faces, I can see you cry. But what I want to say, there's no reason to cry. Do not, in the name of peace, go in the streets and riot.

You can't just lecture the poor that they shouldn't riot or go to extremes. You have to make the means of legal redress available.

I am deeply worried because we are seeing an unleashing of violence by 2,000 to 3,000 thugs who come to smash and loot. My objective is to avoid mistakes by the police, so that people can protest in safety.

In preventing a riot and dispersing a crowd, the Crucifixion is an example of cathartic victimization.

We took an approach, supported by the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and the Mayor for London, that we had very real fears of violence and damage being caused across the streets of London.

I took over a city that had two riots in four years and I had none. And they knew they couldn't riot on me. And when I saw the people on the street in New York City, I said to myself, you're breaking Giuliani's rules. You don't take my streets. You can have my sidewalks, but you don't take my streets, because ambulances have to get through there, fire trucks have to get through there.

Reflection convinces [me] the more strongly of the inexpediency of attempting forcibly to prevent the meeting on Monday. Every discouragement and obstacle should be thrown in its way... [I have] no doubt that you will make arrangements for obtaining evidence of what passes; that if anything illegal is done or said, it may be the subject of prosecution. But even if they should utter sedition ... it will be the wisest course to abstain from any endeavor to disperse the mob, unless they should proceed to acts of felony or riot.

[…] it is as necessary for me to be as vigorous in condemning the conditions which cause persons to feel that they must engage in riotous activities as it is for me to condemn riots. I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation's summers of riots are caused by our nation's winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.