Has anyone ever been in civil unrest?

[oh blanky]

Gasoline Tax Riots in Kingston Jamaica 00 or 01

As I got on the plane from Miami the headline on the Jamaican paper the handed out (Air Jamaica) was discussing a huge hike in gas taxes.

When I arrived the riots were just starting.

The guy that picked me up was ****ting bricks and all he had was a s and w 6 shot revolver. Of course he still took the "short cut" through the shanties, and as we moved forward the turn off streets were blocked with burning tires and crap.

We saw some soldiers in 2 door Pajeros get out to enter a "house", some had fals and some had old m16s and their rifles were shaking in their hands.

We managed to get out, but I was not amused.

Similar deal in Jakarta in the mid '90s, different catalyst.

Now I'm 42.

My advice?

Stay heavily armed and stay in the US. Do not pass go. Do not visit interesting places.

 

[Will Fennell]

HUGO

Hurrican Hugo here in South Carolina,
I got to a branch office of our business in Sumter, SC.... right before the looters arrived. My assistant manager/buddy and I had more firepower and seemed more willing to do violence than the crowd of 20 or so looters, so we kept the $$$$.

Shortly after, a deputy rolled up......we told him what happened.....he asked if we needed more buckshot....I told him we had plenty.....he left after the looters we had turned away. We heard him and other deputies as they fired on them as they looted the local strip mall. I'll never forget the sound of the report of the roit guns, and the rattle of the buckshot hitting various sheet metal around the mall.

It was hairy for a day or so....then it settled down quickly.

 

[Glockamolie]

Nothing like some of your experiences (!), but I was present for the pathetic excuse of an evacuation in the Houston area before Hurricane Rita. It was just a peek into how people will behave when they're scared and exhausted. It was a good drill to make me think about a real situation, and I've made some additions to the items I keep around the house. I didn't try to leave, but my NW location was near one of the few "approved" routes out of town. I went to the grocery store early that afternoon, and every one of the 20 or 25 registers had a line of about 30 people in them. They ran out of the most benign things; tub stoppers, manual can openers, etc. I could have sold my 2 gallon gas cans for $50. I picked the vehicles that had small children and/or elderly folks, and gave them away, full of gas. It probably didn't help much, but it was better than nothing. I refilled people's water from my big water cans. I live off of a rural two-lane blacktop that basically runs west about 5 miles from the highway. I saw people sit in the same basic spot for 6 or 8 hours in temps in the high 90s, and they were probably there longer than that. My plan in most circumstances is to get home and stay there. I'll NEVER be one of these guys:

 

[geekWithA.45]

A small riot that only made the local papers in the mid '80s.

The scene was "spring weekend", about 1500 people peacably hanging around a bonfire in an off campus apartment complex. I saw one cruiser roll in, the officer's face turned white, and he reversed out of there.

Nudging my friends, I'd told them what happened, and said "He's gone to get his friends. Probably all of them."

20 minutes later, we retreated to a treeline overlooking the scene, and sure enough, shortly after that, every cop from 50 miles around started showing up. We jetted when they started enveloping the area.

From talking to people the next day, they apparently waded in with truncheons and unleashed dogs, bashed in doors, and generally made a hash of the whole thing.

About 90 people were arrested, mostly townies. About 10 were students.

 

[Panthera Tigris]

So to proctect the representatives, senators, judges, etc., "we" were sent in.

Yeah, we need to protect those politicians, they're so much more important than the rest of us.

My parent's ex minister was at Kent State in 1970. He described the Natl Guard shootings to me in vivid detail.

 

[BullfrogKen]

January of '92, Guantanamo Bay. A contigent of the many thousand Haitian refugees there awaiting their decision for immigration, or repatriation, rioted after a Jesse Jackson speech.

peteinct said: what happened to you and how did you handle it?

We, meaning a few Marines, went in to get the INS counselors safely out of the camp.


A few days later a battalion . . . from 2/6 I think it was . . . came down and walked across camp with fixed bayonets.


Riots are frightening things to be in the midst of. I was too young and naive to realize how much danger we were in at the moment. But we had a job to do and we did it. We were unarmed. A single man with a gun can be quickly overwhelmed.

 

[enfield]

The State Police starting firing tear gas rounds into the crowd and I, being in the crowd, departed.

 

[ZeSpectre]

I live near DC, we have pockets of civil unrest here all the time, especially during "protest season".

Yes it happens so regularly here we call it a season, kinda like tourist season. I can think of at least three times when I've been going along on my own business, turned a street corner and WHAMMO I'm suddenly in the middle of a group of protesters. One time I found myself in that situation with the cops closing in from all directions. Fortunately they believed me that I was just trying to get back to work from lunch.

But the serious answer is I've been through three events so far in my life.

Hurricaine Hugo affected an area of southern VA where I was on vacation. There was an extended loss of power and some resulting civil unrest that mostly revolved around shopping centers where some people finally got hungry enough to break in for basic foodstuffs.

A series of back-to-back storms resulted in the temporary contamination of a city water supply where I was living. Didn't seem like that big of a deal to me (drink bottled, filter, or boil your water) but some people got a little crazy over it and there was some violence at a couple of grocery stores over supplies of bottled water.

9/11 Pentagon strike. I live very close. The next 48 hours weren't so much civil unrest as a "pregnant pause" where things could have either calmed down and stayed under control (which happened, thank God) or it could have exploded in panic. I was EXTREMELY happy for a plan that allowed me the relative safetly of "shelter in place" while things settled out.

 

[R.Edd]

Honeymooned in Paris France a long time ago. Was walking down one of the main avenues heading for some shop my wife wanted to go to but walked right into a student demonstration.

We walked up a block and were making our way along the north side of the protesters when the military trucks on the West side of the group let loose with tear gas. A LOT of tear gas.

We got out of the gas cloud easy enough, and waited out the stampede in a restaurant, but we did catch a few good whiffs.

Every anniversary, I remind my wife we got tear gassed in Paris.

 

[Saiga39]

Here's an intersting article I read a while back about what happend when Argentina's economy collapsed.

http://www.buildanark.net/survival_stories/ferfal1_1.html

 

[Moondoggie]

In 1973 there was a "race riot" aboard the USS Constellation when she was tied up in SDiego. Bunch of folks (approx 100) from one ethnic group stabbed one of the Master at Arms in the face with a fork and baricaded themselves on the mess deck.

I was one of the Marines that went in and "persuaded" them to surrender. It took quite a bit of "persuading". Many of "them" needed medical attention what with them being squids and all, and since "we" were toting the great big riot batons.

When we got into the mess deck, the Gunny in charge ordered them to surrender. One of the apparent ringleaders had some deragatory things to say about Marines and challenged us "What you Jarheads think ya'll gonna do with them there biga$$ sticks?" This was a serious mistake on his part.

Quite a few of them got injured by being dropped (repeatedly) whilst being carried ashore in handcuffs and "hogtied". As I recall, we weren't exercising an abundence of caution as we carried them through hatches and over knee-knockers, down a couple of ladderways, across the brow and down to the pier to be tossed into 6-by's. It was actually a lot of hard work for us.

These squids had a lot more respect (and a lot less love) for Marines when all was said and done.

Hey, it was a Saturday night, and these miscreants were screwing up our liberty! They started it, we finished it.

 

[Geronimo45]

"We heard him and other deputies as they fired on them as they looted the local strip mall."
Where was Gecko-45 when you needed him?

 

[bromdenlong]

Rodney King riots in L.A.

I didn't see any violence, but a liquor store a few hundred yards north of my house had the bars pulled off the windows and was completely gutted while I was at work.

I was driving to and from work with a pistol-gripped pump 12 gauge under a towel behind the passenger seat. I was furious at the outcome of that trial. At least 2 of those cops should have gone to prison. I expected trouble, but my name ain't Reginald Denny. If someone wanted to kill me for being white, they were going to have to work for it.

 

[roo_ster]

It is awfully considerate of the goblin population to concentrate for a righteous thumping. Too bad they usually cause so much damage in the congregating.

It was nice to see the Atlanta PD's patrol unit on horseback come down Peachtree St. 6 wide with batons swinging. That got the thugs and thieves motivated to move on very quickly.

Having lived in Atlanta for a while, I can visualize that one. In my mind, the dntn theater is in the background.

Shortly after, a deputy rolled up......we told him what happened.....he asked if we needed more buckshot....I told him we had plenty.....he left after the looters we had turned away. We heard him and other deputies as they fired on them as they looted the local strip mall. I'll never forget the sound of the report of the roit guns, and the rattle of the buckshot hitting various sheet metal around the mall.

You keep writing stuff like that, you're gonna make me all verklempft. An offer of buckshot to a man in need...looters eating more buckshot...I think I need a tissue.

The closest I have come to large-scale unrest was the pro-illegal alien marches & sudent walk-outs earlier this year. I was with my family & got outta dodge & dntn Dallas, ASAP. It is the kinda thing that makes one think, "If this turns ugly, I wonder how thick a crowd would have to be for my vehicle to be brought to a halt?" My appreciateion for human life in general is trumped by my appreciation for the human lives in my vehicle.

Smaller-scale unrest was more common in my younger days (or was I more likely to be in places prone to unrest?). Getting out of the area was the wise course of action.

 

[1911 guy]

Twice, both minor.

Hurricane George, Puerto Rico, 1998. Lots of damage, some minor looting going on. We Seabees were sent into the military housing areas to prevent it. No confrontations, our roving presence was enough to make people behave.

Labor dispute, Koper, Slovenia. I was there with the Navy in 1997 (beautiful country, great people) and happened to be on a liberty pass when a labor dispute broke out. It never got violent, but a large group of people shouting in a language you can't understand is not a comforting thing. I holed up in my hotel for the day, got the skinny from a local the next day.

 

[rwc]

Why is it always a labor dispute? A dozen years ago in Rome (socialists I think) and a couple years ago a general strike in Cuzco, Peru.

During WTO in Seattle I caught a bit of teargas drifitng in the window of the club some friends and I were at for the evening (I don't fiddle, but I can dance ). A few years after WTO there were the "anniversary" marches that didn't amount to much, but as my wife and I were living in Pioneer Square at the time we had a ring-side seat.

 

[Thin Black Line]

It seems like the gist of it is to recognize what is happening or going to happen and "get out of dodge". Or to stay bunkered up in a place that is somewhat defensible. That would mean having a food and water supply and some firepower. I think good neighbors are also a big plus.

That is about the gist of it. However, a clogged road is not place to be when
the riot reaches you.

 

[grampster]

Urban rioting in July of '67 when I was a LEO. Again, when MLK was assassinated. Very strange times.

 

[Raptor5191]

I worked the Rodney King-inspired riots in LA.

 

[mete]

In the race riots of the '60s we talked to and old German . He said this is just like the riots in Germany in the '20s. If you have a business and want to keep it you sit there with a gun to protect it !!!