The Kidotai

By: Hon. Robert Y. Torton

THE KIDOTAI (also referred to as Keisatsu Butai) are the special police units charged with the responsibility of controlling civil disturbances in Japan. The term "KIDOTAI" may be translated as "Mobile Task Forces."

Often described as the world’s most experienced anti- riot police, the KIDOTAI are divided into two separate categories:

The regular KIDOTAI. These are units established in Tokyo and certain prefectures after the violent May Day 1952 riot in front of the Imperial Palace. ( a prefecture is roughly equivalent to a state in the United States.) the regular KIDOTAI has a present strength in Japan of 9,700 members. There are 5,300 regular KIDOTAI within the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department (Keishicho). The latter are under the command of the superintendent General of the Tokyo metropolitan police department (MPD). The Director is in turn appointed by a civilian body, the National Public Safety Commission, with the consent of the Tokyo Public Safety Commission and the approval of the prime minister.
The so-called Kanku or regional KIDOTAI. Regional KIDOTAI are assigned to a larger geographical area consisting of several prefectures, and may be dispatched wherever their assistance is required, these units were established commencing in April 1969, and have a total strength of 4,200 members.

In any major disturbance, the following types of police may be employed: (1) Regular KIDOTAI, (2) Kanku KIDOTAI, and (3) Riot trained regular police officers. All the foregoing types of units will serve under the command of a single anti- riot commander.

Recruitment and Selection

All kidotai are volunteers and are carefully selected from among the applicants who are successful in the kidotai entrance examination. Usually there are twice as many applicants as there are positions to be filled.

The first requirement is that the applicant must be a duly qualified regular police officer who has completed the standard one- year training and orientation course for all police officers. In addition, he must have thereafter served a full year as a regular police officer. Applicants must be under 30 years of age, in good physical condition and must be above average intelligence.

Minimum physical requirements for the entrance into Japan’s national police force are 5 feet 2 ½ inches in height, and 110 pounds in weight. Kidotai police appear considerably taller, although they are not as large as American police.

After service in kidotai for two or three years, members usually return to their former units and continue their careers as law enforcement officers. Service in the riot police usually leads to more rapid promotion. It is interesting to note that more than half of kidotai members attend night classes to study for promotion examinations. One man in seven is already a college graduate.

Pay and Allowances

Kidotai receive the same basic pay and allowances as other police with equivalent training and experience. This is apporximatley $120 per month, after deductions. While this is only a fraction of the pay of the united states police, it its comparable to pay scales in private employment in japan. Kidotai receive certain special allowances because of their duties as do regular police officers of equivalent training and experience.

Organization

The kidotai is organized into what are termed “Mobile Units.” (There are ten Mobile Units in the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department.) A Mobile unit consists of four companies and a headquarters company. The strength of a regular company is 79-80 men. The headquarters company has a strength of 120 men. A regular company is comprised of three platoons. The platoon consists of three squads plus the platoon leader (lieutenant). A squad consists of ten members plus the squad leader (sergeant).

Personal Equipment

Personal equipment of riot police includes the following: a specially designed field uniform of gray twill ( Shutsudo juku), navy blue plastic riot helmet, movable protective face mask (plexiglass), neck protector, body protector, specially designed gloves and elbow- length ghuntlets, shin guards, and protective shoes with metal toe caps. Most important is the convex duralumin body shield, approximately 4 ½’ high and 2 ½’ wide. Introduced in 1967, this shield has a slit at one end to allow for observation of the riot scene, and two sturdy perpendicular holding bars on the inside. The first bar is in the left-center, which the officer grasps with his left hand when carrying the shield. The second bar is smaller and is located at the top right of the shield. This is grasped with the right hand when required by the circumstances. In addition to the above, each officer carries, attached to his belt, a standard police nightstick,

which is slightly longer but smaller in diameter than the United States model. It is not drawn or used except upon command. Platoon and company commanders and certain others carry portable loudspeakers for issuing commands an also for incidental crowd control.
Japanese anti-riot police never carry or use sidearms.

Special Vehicles

The KIDOTAI have some 25 different types of special vehicles. Most of these are assigned to and operated by the Special Mobile Unit in Tokyo (Tokka Sharyo Tai). This unit is the only one of its kind in the entire country. These special vehicles, all but one of which were design and built in Japan to the specifications of the National Police Agency (NPA), include the following:

REINFORCED PERSONNEL CARRIER (Keibisha), which carries 37 men. There are several types. One type can be used as a street barricade. Another has been designed with flat ends and doors front and rear so that the buses can be placed end to end to from a protective tunnel. Thus these vehicles may be driven in tandem up to the doors of a building in which rioters have barricaded themselves, and used as a tunnel to allow KIDOTAI to effect and entry to a building, even though demonstratoras may be bombing them with rocks, Molotov cocktails and other missles from above.
WATER CANNON-EQUIPPED TRUCKS, of which there are actually severl variations in use, with varying water-pressure capabilities. Both marking dye and tear gas may be used in the water. Of importance is the snorkel water-cannon truck. This truck has a retractable "snorkel" which can be raised at the scenc to permit delivery pf powerful streama of water at high elevations and variable angles, hten retracted for movement to another location or travel to and from the barracks. Special pumper trucks provide a re-supply of water or specially prepared chemicals.
SPECIAL FLOOD-LIGHTING TRUCKS are specially designed to provide adequate floodlighting of a night riot scene. The lighting panel is affixed to the top of the vehicle and is fully retractable while not needed or in transit. When raised, the light panel can be rotated easily to a full 360 degrees to assure complete lighting of any riot scene or part thereof.
SPECIAL IDENTIFICATION VEHICLES are manned by personnel to take live TV pictures of the riot scene which are transmitted instantaneously to MPD and National Police Agency headquarters to enable higher headquarters to monitor, and if necessary direct, the progress of a particular operation. Personnel also take video-tape mothion pictures as well as still pictures for possible use as evidence in any subsequent prosequtions.
MOBILE HEADQUARTERS TRUCK is a fully equipped, mobile command post, and serves as a field headquarters for the commanding officer at the scene.

In addition to the foregoing, the Special Mobile Unit has mobile wireless telephone trucks, barricade-removing scoopmobiles, mobile shield vehicles, small transportation cars (Jeeps), medium personnel cars, standard personnel transportation trucks (Yusosha), transportation and guard cars (diesel powered to avoid flammability of gasoline powered vehicles, since a favorite device of rioters is to try to set fire to KIDOTAI vehicles). Others include foam-discharger trucks, high-powerd public address trucks for crowd control, and special wrecker vehicles which are available to haul away any KIDOTAI or other vehicles that may become disabled or used by rioters as obstacles, barricades, etc.

The KIDOTAI do not have their own helicopters. When the occasion arises they borrow helicopters from the regular police. The theory behind the specifically designed vehicles is that the riot police feel that it is very important to get as close as possible to the demonstrators. Therefore specifically designed vehicles are required to accomplish this.

Use of Movie Film and Still Pictures

KIDOTAI have found that 8mm film is usually best for their purposes; 16mm is four times as expensive and it is more conspicuous when used by plainclothes officers filming the riot scene. It was pointed out that the Japanese were inveterate photographers, and it was not at all uncommon to see many private citizens taking films of the riot scene. Thus, if a plainclothesman uses 8mm he is not so apt to attract the attention of the vengeance-minded rioters. They find that the plainclothesmen often have taken the best pictures of the riot scene.

Student Disorders

KIDOTAI have standing orders not to intervene in campus disorders, no matter how severe the disturbance may be, without the request of university authorities. Asked if there was anything different about operations in campus situations, Superintendent Nakamura of the Special Mobile Unit said that there were important differences in the tactics of dealing with a campus situation as compared with a street riot. He pointed out that a campus building very often is converted into a fort, with the dissident students holding possession of building several stories hig. It tis necessary to uase special tactics and equipment (specially designed mobile tunnel) to gain entry and evict these students. In some way this type of opertauion is considered easier than street demonstrations, where a major problem is always to separate and seal off the spectaors from the rioters. He felt that campus sieges were really more easy to handle that street riots, because once you’ve gained entry to the building, evicting the rioting students is simply a matter of technique to avoid injuring any of the students who are about to be evicted.