> #Police on riot training ‘got drunk, threw petrol bombs and torched car’
>
> POLICE got drunk on a riot training course, threw petrol bombs at each other and started a blaze that needed 150 fire extinguishers to put out, it has been claimed.
>
> A Scotland Yard officer is being investigated over the incident in which a pool car was destroyed at the Metropolitan Police tactical training centre in Gravesend, Kent.
>
> A source said five British officers, understood to be from various forces, and two Canadian officers went out drinking after a day of public order training, before returning to their accommodation at the centre. They allegedly took the petrol bombs used in riot training and began launching them at each other, until a pool car used for driving around the 100-acre site caught fire.
>
> The source said the drunk officers – five men and two women – refused to call the fire brigade so as to avoid the incident being officially logged
>
> They tried to tackle the blaze themselves but it required 150 fire extinguishers and the pool car was completely destroyed.
>
> The Metropolitan Police confirmed that one officer was under investigation for arson at the training facility on March 23 and said he had been placed on restricted duties.
>
> The training centre, which has accommodation for around 300 people, has a mock town for public order training where officers prepare for riots by facing violent mobs throwing bricks, glass bottles and even real petrol bombs.
>
> The £41million facility has mock shops, a bank, estate agent, flats and even a Tube station.
>
> The source said last night: ‘It is a miracle no one was killed or seriously injured. The stupidity and arrogance of these people is mind-boggling. Most people have done stupid things when drinking too much and showing off, but these are police officers at a training away trip who have accessed dangerous incendiary items and started chucking them about.
>
> ‘Throwing petrol bombs at each other, Molotov cocktails. These are the highly trained individuals who are supposed to be keeping us safe.’
>
> The shocking incident came two weeks before outgoing commissioner Dame Cressida Dick made a much-publicised visit to the centre on her last day in post.
>
> A Met police spokesman said that its internal professional standards department was investigating the training centre incident and a referral had been made to watchdogs at the Independent Office for Police Conduct.
>
> The spokesman said: ‘The Met’s directorate of professional standards is investigating an allegation that an officer attached to public order committed arson at a police training facility in Kent on Wednesday, 23 March, while he was off duty. A mandatory referral has been made to the Independent Office for Police Conduct. The officer has been placed on restricted duties.’
>
> A spokesman from the IOPC confirmed it had received a referral from the Met but had passed it back to be dealt with internally.
>
> They said: ‘Having carefully considered a mandatory conduct referral from the Metropolitan Police Service, received on 23 March 2022, we decided the matter did require investigation and it was appropriate for the force’s directorate of professional standards to carry it out.’
A source huh? A well placed source? A well payed source?
I think this is kind of hilarious and actually somehow quite humanising. If I was on a training course with my mates and got the opportunity to chuck a petrol bomb I definitely would. What a monumental fuckup though. I imagine there have been a few meetings without coffee scheduled…and I’m guessing they will be skipping the pub trip for candidates next time the course runs….
It’s a good thing they had those 150 fire extinguishers on hand.
Now that is what you call a good night out with the lads
We live in the US, our town was training new police officers how to do sobriety tests. They wanted volunteers to spend the afternoon at the police station, drinking free beer and eating pizza. Every 20-30 minutes they would get tested by a trainee, then get a ride home at the end.
Reading the headline I thought “It’s possible this could be fairly innocent” (maybe the fire bombs were provided as part of training and there was an old car lined up to be used as a prop, for example).
First sentence blows that positive interpretation out of the water…
> POLICE got drunk on a riot training course, threw petrol bombs ***at each other*** and started a blaze that needed 150 fire extinguishers to put out, it has been claimed.
And it was a site pool car they torched.
Ah more bad applies in the ever increasing rotten orchard.
Additionally I’ve lived in a hostel, these places have a reputation of being filled with bad applies. Whilst I was there not a single person, even the paranoid schizophreniac, would have been so dumb or out of control or off their heads to decide to trow petrol bombs at eachother. And I saw one of them inhale deodorant to get hight.
To understand the rioter, you must become the rioter.
Ah, I think I’ve found the problem here.
Next time send them on **anti-**riot training.
Easy mistake to make.
Riot police. The people who, when there’s a riot going down, are supposed to go in and sort it out. Forgive me for not wanting a bunch of pencil-pushing Nigel’s in a job like this. You’ve got to be a little bit crazy to sign up to a job where you have to stand up to people who literally want to throw bricks at you.
“Hey this is fun, I can see why they do it, I wonder if buckfast is good as well?”
I once got to be a ‘Rioter’ for Police training, my mates dad was an Inspector in the MOD Police so 20 of us got to go to an old Mental hospital to lob bricks at the trainee coppers for the day.
It was funny as fuck although they wouldn’t let us throw the petrol bombs unfortunately something about ‘elf an Safety.
Can’t imagine they’d be allowed to just recruit 20 sixth formers to do it these days.
Tbh, it’s a fuck up. But nobody got hurt.
They are probably the best trained riot officers we have now.
Believe the Gravesend site featured in r/TopGear recently. It’s a whole mock-up town:
16 comments
Sounds like they were successfully trained to riot
For those who are stuck behind the paywall.
[12ft link](https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mailplus.co.uk%2Fedition%2Fnews%2Fhome-affairs%2F258671%2Fpolice-on-riot-training-got-drunk-threw-petrol-bombs-and-torched-car)
> #Police on riot training ‘got drunk, threw petrol bombs and torched car’
>
> POLICE got drunk on a riot training course, threw petrol bombs at each other and started a blaze that needed 150 fire extinguishers to put out, it has been claimed.
>
> A Scotland Yard officer is being investigated over the incident in which a pool car was destroyed at the Metropolitan Police tactical training centre in Gravesend, Kent.
>
> A source said five British officers, understood to be from various forces, and two Canadian officers went out drinking after a day of public order training, before returning to their accommodation at the centre. They allegedly took the petrol bombs used in riot training and began launching them at each other, until a pool car used for driving around the 100-acre site caught fire.
>
> The source said the drunk officers – five men and two women – refused to call the fire brigade so as to avoid the incident being officially logged
>
> They tried to tackle the blaze themselves but it required 150 fire extinguishers and the pool car was completely destroyed.
>
> The Metropolitan Police confirmed that one officer was under investigation for arson at the training facility on March 23 and said he had been placed on restricted duties.
>
> The training centre, which has accommodation for around 300 people, has a mock town for public order training where officers prepare for riots by facing violent mobs throwing bricks, glass bottles and even real petrol bombs.
>
> The £41million facility has mock shops, a bank, estate agent, flats and even a Tube station.
>
> The source said last night: ‘It is a miracle no one was killed or seriously injured. The stupidity and arrogance of these people is mind-boggling. Most people have done stupid things when drinking too much and showing off, but these are police officers at a training away trip who have accessed dangerous incendiary items and started chucking them about.
>
> ‘Throwing petrol bombs at each other, Molotov cocktails. These are the highly trained individuals who are supposed to be keeping us safe.’
>
> The shocking incident came two weeks before outgoing commissioner Dame Cressida Dick made a much-publicised visit to the centre on her last day in post.
>
> A Met police spokesman said that its internal professional standards department was investigating the training centre incident and a referral had been made to watchdogs at the Independent Office for Police Conduct.
>
> The spokesman said: ‘The Met’s directorate of professional standards is investigating an allegation that an officer attached to public order committed arson at a police training facility in Kent on Wednesday, 23 March, while he was off duty. A mandatory referral has been made to the Independent Office for Police Conduct. The officer has been placed on restricted duties.’
>
> A spokesman from the IOPC confirmed it had received a referral from the Met but had passed it back to be dealt with internally.
>
> They said: ‘Having carefully considered a mandatory conduct referral from the Metropolitan Police Service, received on 23 March 2022, we decided the matter did require investigation and it was appropriate for the force’s directorate of professional standards to carry it out.’
A source huh? A well placed source? A well payed source?
I think this is kind of hilarious and actually somehow quite humanising. If I was on a training course with my mates and got the opportunity to chuck a petrol bomb I definitely would. What a monumental fuckup though. I imagine there have been a few meetings without coffee scheduled…and I’m guessing they will be skipping the pub trip for candidates next time the course runs….
It’s a good thing they had those 150 fire extinguishers on hand.
Now that is what you call a good night out with the lads
We live in the US, our town was training new police officers how to do sobriety tests. They wanted volunteers to spend the afternoon at the police station, drinking free beer and eating pizza. Every 20-30 minutes they would get tested by a trainee, then get a ride home at the end.
Reading the headline I thought “It’s possible this could be fairly innocent” (maybe the fire bombs were provided as part of training and there was an old car lined up to be used as a prop, for example).
First sentence blows that positive interpretation out of the water…
> POLICE got drunk on a riot training course, threw petrol bombs ***at each other*** and started a blaze that needed 150 fire extinguishers to put out, it has been claimed.
And it was a site pool car they torched.
Ah more bad applies in the ever increasing rotten orchard.
Additionally I’ve lived in a hostel, these places have a reputation of being filled with bad applies. Whilst I was there not a single person, even the paranoid schizophreniac, would have been so dumb or out of control or off their heads to decide to trow petrol bombs at eachother. And I saw one of them inhale deodorant to get hight.
To understand the rioter, you must become the rioter.
Ah, I think I’ve found the problem here.
Next time send them on **anti-**riot training.
Easy mistake to make.
Riot police. The people who, when there’s a riot going down, are supposed to go in and sort it out. Forgive me for not wanting a bunch of pencil-pushing Nigel’s in a job like this. You’ve got to be a little bit crazy to sign up to a job where you have to stand up to people who literally want to throw bricks at you.
“Hey this is fun, I can see why they do it, I wonder if buckfast is good as well?”
I once got to be a ‘Rioter’ for Police training, my mates dad was an Inspector in the MOD Police so 20 of us got to go to an old Mental hospital to lob bricks at the trainee coppers for the day.
It was funny as fuck although they wouldn’t let us throw the petrol bombs unfortunately something about ‘elf an Safety.
Can’t imagine they’d be allowed to just recruit 20 sixth formers to do it these days.
Tbh, it’s a fuck up. But nobody got hurt.
They are probably the best trained riot officers we have now.
Believe the Gravesend site featured in r/TopGear recently. It’s a whole mock-up town:
https://www.wired.com/2014/05/james-rawlings-architecture-of-conflict/