Riot control

[trebor8301]

hey they train you for riot control in the regular force do they also train you for riot control in the reserves. how was it hard or pretty simple? if any one has been called up let me know (G8 alberta-FTAA quebec)

thanks in advance

 

[KevinB]

We call them CCO's - Crowd Control Operations in the CF.

While individual militia units might attempt to train - they do not have  the benifits of the eg force having both CCO-SME's and courses for particular applications - nor the budget to acquire CCO muntions or equiptment.

 

[trebor8301]

so how long was the trainning for that , is it the same methods as the RCMP or is it more severe .
planing to join the reservres until my fiance finnishs school then go into the regs cause i might have to move from quebec cause there no engolish units apparently.

 

[Cdnrecon78]

I just got back from Haiti and I'll let you in on a little bit of advise about riot control, or control operations.  Before we deployed we were given a couple days of classes with some hands on, we did practise with the shiields, and the batons, and all of the other stuff but not for very long.  Mainly all we did was learn the basics of cco's.  The canadian military is not allowed to use cco's on canadian citizens like the RCMP do so for that very reason you wil not practice this type of training unless there is a mission coming up that calls for cco's in the force protection measures.  I hope this answered your question.

 

[trebor8301]

yeah that does thanks man, i apperciate it. 

nice to know are troops are comming back,

 

[pbi]

Actually, training for crowd confrontation operations is not a normal part of training for the Regular Army, because at the present time we do not imagine ourselves using it against Canadians. There are lots of   Canadian police forces trained in it, with better training and more modern equipment than we have. If they can't handle the crowd with CCO, then it is not likely we would be called on to apply more non-lethal CCO. If things degenerate that badly, then at present we intend to use up to lethal force if the situation demands it. The NDA authorizes us to use whatever measures are necessary to restore order in the situation, once requested to by the Solicitor General of a Province. But, things would have to get quite bad and out of hand for such a request to be made. The last time this happened was Oka in 1990, during which several CCOs actually took place (Mercier Bridge, etc...)

However, for some overseas operations in which we might need to use non-lethal methods against the locals, we do train in CCO. As another poster pointed out, we are not allowed to use these techniques in Canada.

There is an ongoing debate within the Army as to whether or not we should even do CCO trg, what sort of kit we should have, and whether we should apply non-lethal force or not. In Canada most jursidictions (and the Army itself) are not too keen to see troops on the streets using force against Canadians. I really don't like the idea myself, although personally I believe we have to be ready for it, and ready to use an appropriate range of force, not just go lethal the minute we get there. Killing fellow Canadians is probably not the best knee-jerk response.

As far as the Army Reserve is   concerned, while it is not illegal to train Resrvists for CCO, it is policy neither to train them nor to employ them for these ops. The reasons given in the past have generally been:

-CCO is very difficult and demands high levels of training, discipline and self-control. (My grandfather did CCO with the British Army in Ireland in 1920: he said CCO was as bad as going into battle during the First World War.)These ops are hard enough to achieve with Regular soldiers, but were considered to be far more difficult to achieve with Res soldierswho have only about one fifth of the training time available to them; and

-the use of Res soldiers in CCO in their own communities raised the spectre of revenge acts against local Reserve soldiers once the op was over and they returned to civilian life. This ocasionally happened to members of the Ulster Defence Regiment in Northern Ireland.

However, our whole attitude towards the employment of our Reserves in all types of operations has changed so much, in both deployed and domestic (ie: in Canada) operations, that we may one day see our Reserves assuming a CCO role. This role is carried out by the National Guard in the US, with selected battalions in each State receiving training amd equipment. In general terms ARNG soldiers are not as well trained as our Reservists, but this system seems to work for them: the US Regular Army has no desire to become involved in CCO at home. As well, the individual States are very reluctant to have the Regular Army used to maintain public order: they prefer to use their own ARNG units.

The USMC, on the other hand, has done alot of work on non-lethal systems for use in situations like Haiti, Bosnia, Iraq etc. when you want to disperse or neutralize a mob but you do not want to kill or cause serious injury. Cheers.

 

[trebor8301]

thanks for the answer man i never thought of that way , i sometimes wonder if Quebec were to seperate
from previous experience i could just imagine how they will react. the normal sepreatist drunk and yelling but the extremeists destroying anything that resambles canada ,espesially us anglophones stuck here.
i couldn't imagine having to arrest your nieghbors and so on. i just dont think the locl or provincial police could handle that worst case senario!

 

[pbi]

Trebor: Let's hope we never have to do it: it is the worst thing an Army can be asked to do. Still, it is a possibility:in Canadian history, the Army has been called onto the streets to maintain order about one hundred times, from Nanaimo to Cape Breton. And, since it is a possibility, in my opinion we have to be ready for it as we must be ready for any reasonable/possible threat.

One problem that confronts us (and our friends in the police services...) is that the nature of riots and rioters has changed greatly and dangerously over the last 30 years. Today police (or troops) may no longer be confronting a disorganized rabble just waving signs and singing, who will break up and run away at the first baton charge or wiff of teargas. Instead, we may confront situations like Queen's Park Homeless Action riot in 2000, or Quebec City, or other places in Canada and around the world, in which rioters show up armed, equipped and prepared for a fight with the police. Steel pipes, nail boards, incendiary devices, acid, ball bearings and human chains are all showing up in various situations. Riot leaders study police tactics and try to monitor police radios. How do we deal with this, if the old tactics don't work and the old equipment no longer affords us protection?

So, we still have to pay attention to this potential problem even if we don't like it, because the law of Canada (the NDA) requires us to be ready to intervene to support public order.

Cheers.

 

[Jarnhamar]

I never liked the reasons for not teaching CCO.

It's good training. Theres reasons that go far above my head but I personally think it's an over reaction.
I don't see it as Canadian soldiers being trained to stand off against Canadian civilians. I see it as Canadian soldiers who get deployed overseas being trained how to deal with riots and crowds.

Steping away from the political reasons, how often are we hearing American soldiers in Iraq saying "well i wasn't trained for that, i wasn't briefed on what to do"

Spending 2 or 3 days doing CCO training before going overseas (maybe once or twice when your over there for something to do) is not going to make our soldiers proficient in it.

CCO training was probably some of the best training I've done. It's loud, physical, scary at times, gets you and your buddies working closely together. It's a riot
I've heard guys in the battalions complain often enough that theirs not much to do during the day. Theres no money for exercises, no money for ammo.  Aside from some basic gear CCO training isn't that expensive. A helmet, baton, shield, shin guards, what more do you need?
Why not take a week or two and devote it to CCO training. Guys have a blast taking turns being the enemy force showing up to work in civies throwing crap at their buddies.

For the reserves it's even more of a problem getting equipment but would sending a driver up to petawawa, signing out some CCO stores then having a week-end ex doing CCO stuff be that hard to do? I guarantee it'll be cheaper than spending a week-end doing section attacks with all the pyro and blanks.

How I see it, train our soldiers on everything we possibly can. CCO, hand to hand combat, basic demolitions, intelligence gathering, security, maybe negotiating, anything we can throw at our guys.
Considering whats going on in the world today having the best trained soldiers (especially in CCO) seems like an ideal thing.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

While doing our ICIT training in Meaford over the last couple of years we had some young MP's play "offender" and they always said it was quite an eye-opener and nothing like what they were expecting to happen. 8)
I couldn't agree more now that I'm in this trade how enjoyable those "aid to the civil power" scenarios were.
And to think about it, how long before some "demonstration" maybe turns out to be far more than what it appears to be?
Bruce

 

[pbi]

Probably only a matter of time, I'd guess. We've already seen a few very violent episodes in Canada over the last few years. It's also dificult to predict because these disturbances do not necessarily reflect the broader political climate of the country. They tend instead to be the premise of a dedicated core of activists who are always looking for trouble, supported by a fluctuating rabble of the less fanatic, along with a scattering of the naive but well-intentioned (who usually do disappear when it goes bad...). They pick emotive causes such as homelessness or the (alleged) dangers of globalization so they can appear to be acting for the greater good of humanity.

Watching the Queen's Park Homeless Action riot in 2000 on the monitors in the LFCA Ops Centre, you could see that it was being run by a bunch of hard corps types who were looking for trouble and baited the police until they got the action they wanted. We'll see them again, no doubt.  Cheers.

 

[Slim]

Watching the Queen's Park Homeless Action riot in 2000 on the monitors in the LFCA Ops Centre, you could see that it was being run by a bunch of hard corps types who were looking for trouble and baited the police until they got the action they wanted. We'll see them again, no doubt.   Cheers.

40 chaqrges against 24 people, most of whom were from out of town.

Slim

 

[McMan]

See coming straight from someone who's really been on the "offender" side of things, most of the time the people who cause trouble at demonstrations and protests, are people who could really care less for the cause that is being protested. They are simply kids out looking for trouble. I've seen people throwing rocks where other protesters have taken them down. There's not really a way that people can stop a few unwanted people to show up to a public protest.

Now all that in mind, there are still some people with some very heavy sentiments on some of these issues that just take it too far...

 

[Ian_M]

I dont mean to sound too naive or anything, but what was the: Queen's Park Homeless Action riot?

 

[Spr.Earl]

hey they train you for riot control in the regular force do they also train you for riot control in the reserves. how was it hard or pretty simple? if any one has been called up let me know (G8 alberta-FTAA quebec)

thanks in advance

Treb,at one time they used to teach the Reserves but only in relation to Base,Armoury Defence etc.,but I have not seen it taught( in B.C. anyway) for years.

 

[Lance Wiebe]

We spent months training in crowd control before the '76 Olympics.  Eight hours a day, for days on end.  Practicing all aspects, up to and including using deadly force.  What the government was expecting, I don't know, but I do know wearing those old flak jackets, army hlmets with visors, shields and batons in the blazing sun or the rain was not my idea of fun. 

We did end up proficient enough, I guess, and the training did come in handy a couple of years later.  (outside of Canada).

 

[qjdb]

In Chilliwack, some of the RCMP Riot Squads train at the old base, which is now the training centre for the Pacific Region (or whatever the designation is).

I live in Chilliwack, so have been to and watched some of the stuff that they do.  One of the old members of the Interior Squad (based, I think, in Vernon or Kelowna) is also a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism (www.sca.org), and he arranged for SCA fighters to be used as a training aid.  The Riot Squad guys get to hit them as hard as they want, and the armour protects the SCA guys perfectly fine.

Then, the rest of the people there, who were not in armour, got to throw things at the trainees, like full water bottles, and stuff like that.  The trainees thought it was awesome, as they got to actually practice with live, thinking humans, instead of just on poles or training dummies.

And, I have to say that it is really imposing when you have a line of riot squad coming towards you, backed up by their 5 ton semi-armoured van, telling you to clear the way.

Some pictures are at:  http://tiarmour.com/Gallery%20tatonka%205%20RCMP%20riot%20squad.htm

A great time was had by all.  So, if your unit does try out some CCO, maybe suggest to the powers that be to use some SCA folks as the 'enemy'.  There are lots of other instance all across North America that do this, mostly, I think, police forces.  But there are lots of members of the military who are also SCA (especially in the US), so maybe they do utilize some live target practice too

 

[Shec]

Hey Lance,

I can't remember but were you still in the Garrys during the IS exercise at Tolstoi, MB where we got accused of just about everything except massacring the townspeople?    :warstory:      

 

[Lance Wiebe]

I actually had forgotten about Tolstoi.  Damn aluminum mess tins......

I think that was in 72 or 73, wasn't it?  We even made the papers, that's how famous we were. ;D

 

[Shec]

I think it was '73.   Not only we did we make the papers, we crazed and depraved killers were the subject of discussion on the open-line talk show programs for a solid week.   And I think that put an end to IS training.   Too bad we didn't get a campaign medal for that one.  

Aluminum mess-tins - we are showing our age my friend.