The Territorial Support Group’s map for policing the Olympics is doing the rounds on Twitter (thanks to Nina Power for the alert). This is an area I know quite well – when I had a visiting post at Queen Mary a few years ago I cycled a lot around this area. I could see the site under construction from my flat’s window too.
The TSG is a controversial police unit involved in large-scale policing operations in London, and providing “anti-terrorism and domestic extremism capability” – their official site is here. Disturbingly they trumpet that their officers can deploy the following ‘skills’
- Firearms
- Public Order Training
- Rapid entry
- Taser
- Plain clothes/Uniform tactics
- Providing tactical solutions and advice to borough and business group problems.
I know quite a bit has been written about paramilitary policing, but is there any literature examining the curious choice of name?
Reblogged this on search for the master copy.