Around 30 Royal Gibraltar Police officers have today completed a two-day Public Order refresher course at the Buffadero Training Centre.

During the intensive training course, officers donned full protective and fire-resistant gear for scenarios that simulated real life incidents of violent public disorder. 

The scenarios saw officers pelted with missiles and petrol bombs by other RGP officers who were involved in the training.

The College of Policing approved training is mandatory for all RGP officers up to the rank of Inspector.

Inspector James Rodriguez, who led the training, said: “It’s a very demanding two days, both physically and mentally for the officers. But it’s important that they do this training, as they need to know how to implement police cordons, respond to commands and how to respond safely to large scale violent disorder scenarios. 

“We rarely see public disorder on our streets to this scale, but, nevertheless, we have to be able to respond to it. And this training has become more important since Gibraltar joined UEFA in 2013, with the potential for large numbers of football fans travelling to the Rock. We need to be prepared for all possible eventualities.” 

RGP Instructor, Police Constable Callum Culross, explained that there are three main strands to the public order training: containing the disorder, protecting the public and protecting the officers themselves. The implementation of police cordons for a crowd control environment was also rehearsed.

He added: “It’s important that the officers get used to the specialist Personal Protection Equipment, which they have to wear when deployed to a public order incident. This includes fire resistant overalls, boots, protective gloves, helmets and face masks, which would shield officers from petrol bombs in a riot. They also have shields and batons, which would only be used as a last resort.”