On 21 April a huge police operation aimed at a squat in the Stokes Croft area of Bristol provoked an angry response from local people. Barricades were set up and the heavily tooled-up police found themselves facing not just a handful of squatters but a long night of skirmishes with the hundreds who turned up spontaneously to join the protest. This is not the first time that a police raid has sparked off a street battle in Bristol. In 1980 a militaristic ‘anti-drugs’ bust on a West Indian owned café in the St Pauls area produced similar results.