Chris Cocking
chriscocking.bsky.social
Chris Cocking
@chriscocking.bsky.social
5.1K followers 6.3K following 78 posts
Social Psychologist interested in crowd behaviour, mass emergencies, pandemics, collective resilience, social influence, public messaging & media/social discourse. No unsolicited DMs please
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Seeing more eyewitness reports about #TrainAttack on the news provides further evidence of bystanders intervening in this incident. It seems that the actions of these “zero-responders” quite possibly saved lives last night
Eye-witness reports of extreme heroism in response to #TrainAttack in Cambridgeshire, UK last night. Man uses own head to protect woman from being stabbed. Evidence of concept of 'zero responders' & shows that people don't tend to 'panic' in emergencies. www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/...
'Run, there's a guy stabbing everyone' - eyewitnesses describe attack
Two passengers on the Doncaster-London train during Saturday's stabbing attack describe chaos as people scrambled for safety.
www.bbc.co.uk
Please don’t use the term ‘stampede’ to describe tragedies such as these @theguardian.com as it rarely matches up with what actually happens. This tragedy is more likely to have been a crowd crush or crowd collapse & it’s unlikely that people were trampled to death by other crowd members
Reposted by Chris Cocking
Next, @chriscocking.bsky.social presented his preliminary findings on his collective identity research concerning the right-wing protests in the UK since the August 24 riots by exploring using visual and audio data collection methods 🧵3/5
There was no 'riot' at Mo Chara's court appearance in London today, which reinforces my previous point below that charging him with incitement to riot after Kneecap's Glastonbury set would have been ridiculous @kneecapceol.bsky.social
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
So this is where I’ll be laying my head this evening in mid Wales. That works for me!
The Press often say ‘riot Police are on alert’ for a demo, but it’s utterly meaningless. There will always be riot police on alert (that’s inherent within their role!). I only saw 2 officers from the TSG (MPS public order unit) in Parliament Square at the protest & they were deployed as advisors
As usual, the Sunday Express attempts to incite violence.

There was no “riot”. There will be no “riot”. We are a peaceful movement who are actively opposed to violence - we silently hold cardboard signs.

Join us: wedonotcomply.org
I was interviewed on @bbc5live.bsky.social this morning about the possibility of riots this summer & my clip is from 49.00-51.00 minutes into the following link;
www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
Briefer interaction than anticipated, so a lot of what I'd intended to say didn't get covered
Nicky Campbell - 23/07/2025 - BBC Sounds
Nicky Campbell takes your calls on the day's talking points.
www.bbc.co.uk
An article I wrote in 2014 highlighted the Battle of #Orgreave during the UK miners' strike was the 1st large scale example of the British Police adopting tactics used by the colonial Police force in Hong Kong
theconversation.com/how-the-uk-i...
Irrespective of Kneecap's stated political views, it would have been ridiculous to have charged them with incitement to riot after their Glastonbury performance. I explored this further in thread below that I posted previously #Kneecap
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
I was interviewed for BBC Radio Sussex today about the 20th anniversary of 7/7 to talk about the research I did with @profjohndrury.bsky.social into the collective resilience of those affected by the explosions. My bit starts at 1.13.30 in link below
www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
Danny Pike - 07/07/2025 - BBC Sounds
Danny brings you the perfect start to your day in Sussex.
www.bbc.co.uk
Reposted by Chris Cocking
1/10 On this day 20 years ago, I was with @chriscocking.bsky.social and Steve Reicher at the Royal Society summer exhibition in London, presenting our work on how people behave in emergency evacuations. As I tried to travel to the exhibition venue, I was part of a crowd of
Reposted by Chris Cocking
'Adrian applied a tourniquet and pinched shut the artery in Dan's thigh to stop him bleeding to death.'

@chriscocking.bsky.social and I found many other examples like this of mutual aid among survivors in our research on this major incident.

@ukri.org funded

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
London bombings: I survived 7/7, but still see the suicide bomber everywhere
Dan Biddle recalls a bright, white flash as a bomb was detonated just metres away from him on a London Underground train.
www.bbc.co.uk
1) It's nonsense to claim that something said on stage at a festival could incite a riot nearly 2 months later at an entirely different event

2) Riots are complex events that involve escalating group interactions & don't usually start because 1 individual has 'incited' others to start rioting
During Kneecap's set, they called for a riot outside the court on 20/8 when Mo Chara is due to appear, but later said they didn't want people to riot. It would be ridiculous for the Police investigation to conclude that this amounts to incitement to riot for 2 main reasons as follows
The decision to investigate these acts illustrates some potentially concerning issues with what Avon & Somerset Police have recorded as a 'public order incident'. I'll stick to what I saw of the Kneecap set via BBC iPlayer, as I didn't see the Bob Vylan set
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Glastonbury: Police launch investigation into Bob Vylan and Kneecap sets
It follows performances from both bands on Saturday at the Glastonbury music festival in Somerset.
www.bbc.co.uk