People in attendance at the most recent Anti-Austerity protest in Manchester were more than a little shocked and outraged when they noticed multiple police snipers atop the rooftops surrounding them outside the Conservative Party conference in the UK city.
Social media users, obviously, took to their favorite platforms to voice their concern over why armed policemen were deployed around thousands of UK citizens who were simply exercising their democratic right to protest.
The presence of the snipers could have been called for in terms of security, as the British Prime Minister was in town and terrorist threats are running rampant these days. However, the official reasoning behind the armed snipers was a bit odd, honestly.
A spokesperson for GMP said: “It is an ongoing observation of the biggest march that has ever been in Manchester because of the Tory Party conference. But they are there purely for observation and supporting the police at the march as it’s a major public event.
They are high up for that reason, to observe. And they [the guns] are used for their powerful sight, which is stronger than any pair of binoculars. They are not there to shoot people.”
If that was the case, then these officers could have just used binoculars or telescopes instead of fully-loaded rifles.
