Kelsey Holdway
Professor Martin
Reaction Paper #3
11/23/15
Police Force in Sports Riots vs Ferguson and Baltimore Protests
The shooting of an unarmed black teen in Ferguson, Missouri sparked nationwide protests. The death of Freddie Gray while in police custody in Baltimore, Maryland created national outrage. Both protests were held and turned violent when police started using force. The police prepared as if they were going to war, rather than defusing the protest. The overall concept of police response to riots can be related to the material from class. In class, police response to protests and riots of racial injustice have been talked about in depth but adifferent type of riot to look at would be sports riots.
In sports riots,crowd violence can be shown through the events that unfolded at Belgium’s Heysel Stadium in 1985. Police used the same methods of force rather than assessing the situation at hand, just like in the Ferguson and Baltimore protests. Today, another approach has been brought to attention on how to control a crowd such as protesters or “soccer hooligans”. Rather than using a forceful method, it has been suggested that police should hold back and give the people space. This type of police behavior sparked many to believe that riot police in the United States should use this type of solution in solving any type of community outrage.
Soccer hooligans have been used as an example for how police should react to crowd control. Mike Masterson, a 40-year old veteran of law enforcement, gave a conclusion based on worldwide research studies on how police should best handle a crowd that could become out of hand. The theory of crowd psychology was developed to study soccer hooliganism, which are usually intoxicated fans that are very loud and disruptive during and/or after matches (Millhiser, 2014).During the European Cup of 1985 Liverpool supporters were rowdy and in a crowded area of the stadium, the supporters broke the barriers separating them from the Juventus supporters. The soccer hooligans and the police were to blame for “exacerbating the violence”in the disaster that killed thirty-nine and injured hundreds(Schwartz, 2014). The article stated that, “In the years since, researchers have studied violent soccer matches and pinpointed how aggressive police behavior worsens crowd violence” (Schwartz, 2014).
One main point discussed is that police usually see a large crowd that will all become violent but it is really just a handful of rowdy people that are surrounding them. The article mentioned, “But because the police are the ones with batons and armor, they end up imposing their perception onto the crowd—quite literally, by advancing on the crowd, hooligans and peaceful fans alike. The crowd then unifies around their shared victimhood, turning some peaceful fans violent. The police’s perception of a crowd as violent mob becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy” (Schwartz, 2014). This sums up the idea of police clumping the good and bad into one group when it is really a small group of rowdy people with normal supporters around them. This can be shown in the Baltimore and Ferguson protests. The police saw a large crowd as “threatening” so they fought to keep them from advancing. They formed barriers and tried to keep them contained by pushing them back rather than letting them have more space on the streets.
In class it was talked about how police officers in Ferguson and Baltimore reacted in the riots. They came out in full riot gear rather than simply a standard uniform. The police seemed too eager to fight rather than look at the situation as a whole. One officer stated that they should not have worn riot gear if they wanted the crowd to be controlled. They did not show badges or their name, making the officers anonymous. Masterson stated that it created a negative crowd behavior, which possibly led to the protesters fighting the way they did (Millhiser, 2014). The idea of less officers and less riot gear was put into place during the 2004 European Championship. The statistics were recorded and overall there was less violence and less arrests during that match than previous ones (Schwartz, 2014). It makes it a curious thought as to if there would have been fewer arrests and violence during the Ferguson and Baltimore protests if the police had taken the same stance as police at the match did.
Sports riots and the protests discussed in class, such as Ferguson and Baltimore showed a similarity. The key findings are that police at sporting events have been trained not to react to a crowd, they do not heavily guard themselves because, to the crowd, it gives them a reason to fight. It shows the people that police want control of the power and with use violence to achieve that. One key idea that we have discussed in class is how police fight and what they used to protect themselves in riots. When police show up in riot gear it gives the protesters incentive to fight. By wearing the protective gear and advancing on a crowd people have to fight back and protect themselves or they could be killed. This causes the bystanders, as talked about previously, to be caught in the fight. There is nowhere for bystanders to go if police are advancing the only reasonable option is to stay in the crowd and move with them.
Police in the Baltimore and Ferguson race riots did just what the officers in sports riots are trained not to do. It has been suggested that the police should be trained the same way police are trained for sports riots. The key argument is that police should not show up in fully military gear, should not advance quickly on a crowd, and should not assume everyone in the crowd is going to fight. With the proper training police during the Ferguson and Baltimore riots could have prevented the massive amount of damage caused by upset protesters.
Work Cited
Millhiser, I. (2014). How Police In Ferguson Should Have Handled Crowd Control. ThinkProgress. Retrieved 23 November 2015, from
Schwartz, Y. (2014). The Police in Ferguson Could Learn a Lot From Europe's Handling of Soccer Hooligans. New Republic. Retrieved 23 November 2015, from