A police riot is a riot carried out by the police; a riot that the police are responsible for instigating, escalating or sustaining as a violent confrontation; an event characterised by widespread police brutality; a mass police action that is violently undertaken against members of the public for the purpose of political repression. The term "police riot" was first used in the Walker Report investigating the events surrounding the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago to describe the "unrestrained and indiscriminate" violence that the police "inflicted upon persons who had broken no law, disobeyed no order, made no threat." In this sense a police riot refers to rioting carried out by the police (or those acting in a police capacity) rather than a riot carried out by people who may be motivated to a greater or lesser degree by grievances with the police (see the 1981 Toxteth riots or the 1992 Los Angeles Riots for examples of riots over policing rather than police riots).
Famous quotes containing the words police and/or riot:
“Anarchism is a game at which the police can beat you.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“So when Pilate saw that he could do nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took some water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.””
—Bible: New Testament, Matthew 27:24.