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What is "riot police"

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
riot police
noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ As more than 300 people took to the streets, a police helicopter and eight vans carrying riot police were brought in.
▪ Five hundred riot police now patrol the streets.
▪ Four made a phalanx before the booth, tapping their lead truncheons, their feet splayed like a squad of riot police.
▪ He manages a hotel unhappily located across from the cathedral where workers and riot police have staged nightly confrontations.
▪ Hundreds of riot police on Nov. 2 clashed with students in Dhaka protesting against recent legislation to curb cheating in final exams.
▪ The catalyst for the demonstrations was the beating to death of a student demonstrator by riot police.
▪ Three school buses unload riot police.
▪ With students and riot police headed for a major confrontation, Seoul was once again a boiling cauldron.
Wiktionary
riot police

n. A unit of the police specifically trained to deal with riot#Verbing crowds. They use special equipment for personal defense as well as for crowd control and dispersal.

Wikipedia
Riot police

Riot police are police who are organized, deployed, trained or equipped to confront crowds, protests or riots.

Riot police may be regular police who act in the role of riot police in particular situations or they may be separate units organized within or in parallel to regular police forces. Riot police are used in a variety of different situations and for a variety of different purposes. They may be employed to control riots as their name suggests, to disperse or control crowds, to maintain public order or discourage criminality, or to protect people or property. In some cases, riot police may function as a tool of political repression by violently breaking up protests and suppressing dissent or civil disobedience. In recent decades, observers have noted the increasing militarization of riot and protest policing, with police deploying snipers, flashbang grenades and guns with plastic bullets.