In this video I think it’s demonstrated incredibly powerfully what importance needs to be placed upon anti-horse tools.
The horses do the bulk of the work in creating space that allows the police line to tighten the noose here. Without them they never would have controlled these crowds with people on multiple sides of them. They could not have maintained control.
There must be simply and effective methods to spook these horses without causing a danger to them. Something that could be deployed that would make the riders tell their superiors “we can’t deploy because the horses would be spooked by x”.
Anyway. What are other people’s thoughts here? Obviously this protest was unprepared for a fight (although several police have been hospitalised). What could small groups of 1-5 have done in the wider engagement to make things go differently?
Laser pointer and/or some sort of dispersible irritant would be my bet. Laser pointers to momentarily blind/spook charging horses and then something like those pepper-spray paintballs directed towards the line to further agitate (without doing any real harm) and get them to pull back. Honestly if you don’t want to do any harm to the horses and just want to scare them away/make them unfeasible to use in a protest, I’m sure filling a super soaker with wolf piss would work admirably since wolves prey on wild horses supposedly.
Nets, ropes, wire, something to fuck with horses’ long ass legs.
Alternatively, you could write off the horse because its a police animal and just point lasers in the eyes, or even better the cops eyes.
Heard a great story told by Maya Angelou of going to a parade or rally as a kid with her mother or grandmother (can’t remember exact details).
That she would, when the police would ride by on their horses to move people back, carry a pin with her with which to stick the horse.
Pricking the horse with a sharp sting sounds to me like it might do the trick.
