Title:PUBLIC ORDER TRAINING, BEESTON VILLAGE, 30 MAY 2006 [Allocated Title]
Film Number:BFJ 185
Other titles:COLLECTION OF NORTHERN IRELAND TRAINING CENTRE VIDEOS [Allocated Series Title]
Summary: Monochrome, silent CCTV footage (from several different cameras) showing troops undergoing training in keeping public order at "Beeston Village" urban training area. The camera number appears in the top left-hand corner of the screen. Note that some of the cameras are black and white, and some colour. Sunny day.
Description: I. "Loyalist" march passes through streets. In village square, they encounter a vehicular roadblock, and are diverted along a street; adjacent streets have been barricaded by lorries. "Nationalist" protesters gather on the other side of a roadblock at the end of the street. Police in riot gear usher the Loyalists back the way they came to avoid a confrontation. Meanwhile, there is some unrest in the village; police drive the protesters back down a street using a rolling roadblock of police Land Rovers. Some protests take place outside police/army compound.
II. Camera pans across the village, nearly deserted in a lull between training exercises. Police vans deploy, and "wheelbarrow" bomb disposal robot is tested. Exercises recommence: protesters throw petrol bombs, barricades of wrecked cars are set up, one (in the compound) is set alight. Convoy of vehicles approaches the compound from the outskirts of the village; this includes heavy armoured digger which uses its blade to move burning vehicles out of the way. Soldiers deploy to seal off the compound. Fires blaze. Outside the compound, groups of protesters still linger. Bonfire burns inside the compound: vehicles (snatch Land Rovers, Saxon armoured car) are parked nearby. Protesters outside start throwing stones: Land Rover pulls back to allow soldiers in riot gear to advance and take on the protesters. Street fighting: fires from fresh petrol bombs blaze. Snatch Land Rovers advance behind the soldiers, and the rioters are pushed back. Extended scenes of the advance of soldiers and police as the violence spreads throughout the village (multiple camera angles). Soldiers attempt to push the rioters back using vehicular road blocks. The exercise ends and participants disperse.
III. Night scene: further barricade of blazing cars at the gate of the police/army compound Vehicles, including armoured digger, assemble outside: the digger is deployed to remove the burning wreckage. Troops advance from the compound into the village, pushing the rioters back (similar scenario to the earlier exercise, but taking place at night. Rioters move back and set up another barricade from wrecked cars; the digger is again deployed. Wide scale disturbances continue for some time as the soldiers slowly advance and the digger removes more wreckage. Land Rovers and Saxons move to seal off streets. More stone throwing. Land Rovers are petrol-bombed (fire extinguishers are rapidly used). Exercise ends with several streets being sealed off by Land Rovers.
Alternative Title:COLLECTION OF NORTHERN IRELAND TRAINING CENTRE VIDEOS [Allocated Series Title]
