‘Riot police stormed my student flat during raids on Old City squats’

Living on Bristol’s High Street over the past few weeks, I have become accustomed to the sight of police hanging around on my doorstep. It was one of the perks and joys of sharing your street with a community of squatters.

However, nothing could have prepared me for being woken up yesterday morning by the sound of riot police smashing down the door of my second-year student flat.

It was around 6.30am – a time of the morning I’m embarrassed to say I haven’t experienced for a very long time.

Dozens of officers with riot shields, helmets and batons burst into our home as part of a raid on the squats.

Despite acknowledging that we were students before they even got up the stairs, they proceeded to search our entire flat under a warrant that was spoken about, but never shown.

I just about managed to jump into a pair of jeans before I heard the footsteps outside my door. I was dazed but my heart was pounding fast.

“If I’d known I was having guests, I would have tidied up,” I said to one of the officers who had barged into my home.

I was surprisingly chatty for so early in the morning, but I think I was just trying to ease the tension and make the situation slightly less terrifying.

After showing him my tenancy agreement, I was escorted downstairs to join my flatmates. One of them asked what was going on, to which an officer replied something along the lines of: “I think it’s pretty clear isn’t it.”

Billy Stockwell and his flatmates live above Art Eternal – photo: Martin Booth

There must have been around a hundred police outside on the street, alongside bailiffs, specialist climbing teams and a handful of journalists.

Only weeks ago, similar scenes unfolded, after a ‘kill the bill’ protest in the city. Many of my flatmates were so used to the police presence and street noise by then that they slept through the confrontations unphased.

This time we weren’t so lucky.

Thankfully, the rest of the day wasn’t so eventful, aside from having many conversations with the council about who was going to fix our two chopped up doors.

But what actually led to this turn of events, with me and my university friends sat in our student flat, in our pyjamas, surrounded by riot police?

On Thursday, a closure order was put in place in response to reports of anti-social behaviour by the squatters, with some people calling High Street a ‘no go zone’.

The squatters had to pack up and vacate the occupied buildings within a matter of hours.

This order meant that the three squatted properties on my street were likely to be raided by the police, to ensure that no one was left in the buildings.

However, it wasn’t explained to us why this meant our flat was raided. I can only assume that it was a mistake, but that still doesn’t explain the hostility that we were faced with by some of the officers.

The aftermath of the raid on the High Street squats, in which police found nobody inside – photo: Martin Booth

We were all visibly shaken up by the whole experience. My hands were trembling all day. It’s sad to admit, but I feel glad that we are only renting our current flat, as suddenly it doesn’t feel as cosy and safe as it did before.

Walking back home on the afternoon after the raid and seeing the properties boarded up was a surreal experience.

There might have been three beautiful hot air balloons floating above the city to cheer me up, but the squatters’ absence was felt.

The sound of guitars being softly strummed at the roadside had gone and the previously squatted building closest to us was now – again – lifeless.

For just a few months, it seemed that High Street had burst into life, with banners dangling from the occupied buildings bringing a radical politics to one of Bristol’s original medieval roads.

The squatters’ presence was celebrated by some and condemned by others. But no one can deny that High Street feels like a much emptier place without them.

Billy Stockwell is a second-year student at the University of Bristol and the new investigations editor at Epigram

Main photo & video: Martin Booth

Read more: Sparks fly as police raid High Street squats