16.10.2007
At 4am Brighton police demanded squatters leave a new squat on Franklin road. Despite resistance by 5am the squatters had been evicted by the police, who were acting unlawfully without a court order.
The police refused to acknowledge the ‘Section 6’ notice and said they were ignorant of the law, even though the group of squatters had been previously evicted by the some of the same police recently.
There was a dog unit, 4 squad cars, drugs unit, and 2 undercover/civil cars (whose registration plates were noted), as well as a senior officer who was overheard saying that he would personally not tolerate squatting in Brighton. Not really a surprise there.
3 coppers kicked the door in, whilst 8 squatters resisted their efforts. Whilst this was happening the pigs laughed and joked about going holiday outside.
When the squatters were hauled out of the building they were threatened with arrest for not paying electricity or water bills. When the cops saw that there was 8 people, they couldn’t be bothered with the paper work and just took peoples names instead.
The squatters argued with the cops for half an hour until they were threatened with detention, as the squatters left the area with the few possessions they could manage to take from the disused building which had been empty for the last 3 years, they were followed and harrassed by undercover police for about an hour.
It comes as no surprise that the police don’t follow the law, they are an armed gang protecting what they think is normal society, but it is clear that if they think kicking young homeless people out into the rain at 4am is normal, they got a lot to learn.
Right now we are not going to give up squatting, because we have no choice, but organising ourselves against the pigs, landlords and politicians is the best adventure going right now – and we sure as hell ain’t going to work for a living!
We won’t stop squatting until the pigs fly off a cliff !
Squatters Association of Brighton