I disagree with “why are we even surprised”. Of course, it is appropriate to be surprised by this evidence, as many people undoubtedly are (even if others are more cynical and are not).

I also think there is a danger here of lapsing into a kneejerk “what do you expect? Its the police” which somehow seems to regard this as inevitably in the nature of policing. That risks undermining pressure for what is needed – legitimate, effective and accountable policing within the rule of law- by implying that you can never have it. For that reason, I think there is a risk that this rather too much mirrors the kneejerk “I wasn’t there but I am sure the police must be right” response you criticise.

I thought Matt Wardman’s comments in the previous thread demonstrated the sort of forensic approach that is needed. (And it would be interesting to know more about what the protest about this is calling for)
https://liberalconspiracy.org/2009/04/07/3870/#comment-40565

I also expect we will hear bloggers from the right write about this today. It only broke during the evening. I know the blogosphere is v.instant. If none of the right write about the video, or if they all say ‘why are you all getting excited about nothing’ then I think you will have a stronger case. (I agree that you have a point about the blogging of the last week; I think the new video seems to me to some extent to be of a different order).

In any event, I am not sure liberal-left’s first instinct should be to want to have a general pro-police/anti-police argument in principle. It ought to be possible in a case like this one to establish a broader consensus for investigating the specific case properly, and realising that it has broader implications, in a way which could and should bring on broad several of those who tend to have an instinctive trust for the police and not only those who are instinctively suspicious of it.

It is also possible for more than one thing to be true at the same time. My sense was that on some issues (eg race) there was some significant effort and good if incomplete progress on policing in the last 10-15 years, while I think we have clearly seen in the last week that these events should serve as a wake-up call for clearer scrutiny of policing policies of demonstrations. Clearly, the actions of an individual officer or group of officers can demonstrate much broader questions of organisational policy and culture, but again it seems too much to say that all police officers stand indicted as a result.

Perhaps this will be unpopular, but it seems to me a more effective approach

The Guardian editorial strikes me as getting both the specific and broader issues right
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/08/ian-tomlinson-police-g20-protests

“Deaths of this kind may be rare. But they are always exceptionally serious. They should never be a cause for complacency or cover-up by the authorities. Any such incident should always be treated with rigorous seriousness. Of course, the policing of protest is never easy. Officers are occasionally placed in real danger and sometimes subjected to great provocation. But the use of force by police against demonstrators and bystanders must always be appropriately authorised and be the absolute minimum necessary – as the Tamil protest in Westminster yesterday again underlined. Any death that occurs at the place where state power and public protest collide is always a profound test for the rule of law.

….

The oral, photographic and video evidence now with the IPCC paints a very different picture of events on the ground on 1 April from the one that the police gave to the media at the time. The echoes of the premature official version issued in the very different circumstances of the Jean Charles de Menezes shooting in 2005 are strong. As in the shooting case, the police seem to have briefed the media before they had taken witness statements and to have made allegations to the media which simply do not stand up as a true or responsible version of what took place. Though much has changed for the better in the police since the 1970s, too much remains the same. In 1974 a Labour home secretary set up a judicial inquiry (under Lord Scarman) into the disorders that led to Mr Gately’s death. Today it is time for the current home secretary to do exactly the same”.

Complete silence?

Here’s my response.

And, to be fair, this story broke after most people had gone home from work, so I would wait to see what appears throughout the day before attacking other blogs.

Funny how the rightist scum and Tory flag-waving arseholes are clambering up to praise the brave police for their despicable murder of a complete bystander. Except of course, what they are actually thinking is that the police should’ve got a protester instead, and this is just bad PR for “our boys in blue”. Fuck off.

So much for not living in a police state: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/27/freedom-of-information-straw

http://www.anenglishmanscastle.com/archives/007240.html was my comment last night, whilst I see myself as libertarian rather than right wing others might differ.

And many “right wingers” remember the police action against hunt supporters in Parliament Square, and who excused police brutality then?

From Letters from a Tory Murder-Excuser’s blog:

“This was nothing more than a deliberate attempt to portray Ian as an innocent bystander when in reality he was very much part of the protest.”

“he was physically facing the opposite direction but if you watch the video carefully you will see that he is deliberately antagonising the police by walking slowly right in front of them as the cordon tries to move people down the street. He was clearly antagonising them with his hands nonchallantly in his pockets, wandering around just a few steps ahead of them. I’m also tempted to use the word ‘provocation’, such was his obvious willingness and intention to disrupt the police’s movements.”

Are you fucking kidding me? Are you fucking kidding me? Deliberately antagonising the police? Part of the protest? Nonchalantly? Are you really that fucking desperate to excuse the police?

Maybe you were among the Tory/rightwing scum who said the cops were right to shoot De Menezes so many times “just to make sure”. That as a dark skinned man he was being “deliberately provocative”. You make me sick, you fucking scum.

I blogged it the day after the protests:
http://www.twodoctors.org/2009/04/paint-it-black.html

And again yesterday:
http://www.twodoctors.org/2009/04/the-death-of-ian-tomlinson.html

It’s on MetaFilter here, with an interesting discussion:
http://www.metafilter.com/80656/Keeping-the-peace

Like Del Boy, I cannot see how anyone should ever be hurled to the ground like that and hit with a baton, no matter what they were doing, but especially someone merely walking away slowly with their hands in their pockets.

It’s also revolting to say that one police-caused death shouldn’t be compared to what may be another police-caused death.

I blogged it the day after the protests:
http://www.twodoctors.org/2009/04/paint-it-black.html

And again yesterday:
http://www.twodoctors.org/2009/04/the-death-of-ian-tomlinson.html

It’s on MetaFilter here, with an interesting discussion:
http://www.metafilter.com/80656/Keeping-the-peace

Like Del Boy, I cannot see how anyone should ever be hurled to the ground like that and hit with a baton, no matter what they were doing, but especially someone merely walking away slowly with their hands in their pockets.

It’s also revolting to say that one police-caused death shouldn’t be compared to what may be another police-caused death. The Met Police Federaton spokesman just described this as “one very small incident” on Today. WTF?

My own views are also up

I actually agree with LfaT that it appeared Ian Tomlinson wasn’t acting seriously in front of the police, however whereas he feels this seems to be justification for his assault I believe it is only indicative of the belief we all need to be woken up from, this idea that the police only target those that are actually criminals, and that they’d never act disproportionately. Unfortunately Ian didn’t live long enough to also be enlightened on the other lessons we’re learning.

Letters from a Tory says that all of the left blogs he mentions (including Next Left) were immediately “all venting their anger”.

Perhaps he could define where the anger vented was in that post
http://www.nextleft.org/2009/04/death-of-ian-tomlinson-guardian-release.html

“Duncan Campbell writes about the dossier here. As he suggests, this will raise many questions about Tomlinson’s death, and the policing in London on April 1st more generally. It also seems probable that this will become a watershed moment in capturing the consequences of recent shifts in the changing media landscape for public accountability … Finkelstein’s comments did reflect the endurance of an instinctive trust in the police which may well be shaken by this case”.

I think it is rather important to be careful not to claim what we do not know, and that was very much in my mind when writing a post to flag up the publication of the video to our readers, since there had been a lot of (rather rational and moderate) discussion of the policing, led by Stuart White.

But that is a trap you strike me as having fallen very much into. You say ” in reality he was very much part of the protest”. You seem very sure of this. I don’t know what the basis for that is. I am not saying he definitely was not protesting, (though I don’t see why you think that should make the ethical difference you clearly ascribe to it). I am surprised that you know that he was. Again, perhaps the eye-witness accounts and inquiry might clarify this point by investigating it. At present, the balance of credible evidence suggests to me that he was not, but the main difference is that you already know exactly what happened and I don’t.

I am a “right winger” – in economic matters anyway – and am disgusted by what was clearly gratuitous violence. If we condemn the window smashers (as I do) despite “provocation” then we should condemn police behaviour here, despite possible “provocation”.

Letters from a Tory – weak, weak, weak I’m afraid.

Though I will say that (mis)using the word murder is probably OTT.

What happened was serious enough.

Call for a peaceful vigil outside your local police station.

The last thing that we want as a country is for a restless minority to bring the capital to a stand still again, and perhaps cause more bystanders to get injured or even killed in the process.

How about a call for people up and down the country to form small peaceful vigils outside their local stations to show their discomfort with this?

Yes this is a “bit English”, tea and cake on the green but there are far more radical calls appearing for direct action and the local vigils would prevent another mass gathering?

“Funny how the rightist scum and Tory flag-waving arseholes are clambering up to praise the brave police for their despicable murder of a complete bystander”

As I posted on PP earlier, I heard Iain Dale of all people taking a carefully anti-police line on the radio this morning. No fan of his usually, but facts are facts. This isn’t a left/right divide – there’ll be a section of the ‘right’ who back the police because the left aren’t, but there’ll be a section of the right who see this for what it is, and that’s to be welcomed.

I have posted on this today here.

I just read LFAT’s contribution, and it made my skin crawl. I’m not sure ‘Tory’ is the correct noun at all.

I see that Sunder’s got in early with his “Rapid Rebuttal” LOL

How’s things going on Derek Drapers personal whinge blog – known to the rest of us as ‘LabourLost’?

Still trying to defend the indefensible I see.

Shame on you and shame on this Corrupt, Authoritarian and Repressive Labour Government.

You Labour supporters are going to SO deserve the absolute kicking you’re going to get at the general Election – election night coverage will be even better than in 1997 watching all those corrupt Tories being flung out on their ear…….Only this time it will be worse and it will be L A B O U R who will be crucified, and rightly so for the complete bloody mess they have left behind them.

@ Letters from a Tory – Shocking to see the depths some people will sink to to justify violence by the state. Disgraceful comments.

It’s amazing how the readers of my blog, many of who are libertarians rather than Conservatives, can see what the Left refuse to acknowledge – the eyewitness accounts and the video footage shows that Ian Tomlinson was deliberately obstructing the police, he was deliberately winding them up (possibly for several minutes) and was completely disobeying what they were saying. Why do you think Ian was the only one within 20 yards of the police?

All this talk of murder and gratuitous violence is disgraceful. At no point in my post today did I say that the police were completely justified – in fact, if anyone bothers to read what I actually said then you’ll see that I supported calls for a full investigation and criticised the police for discussing the situation before they had even collected the evidence.

@8 Sunder, my apologies. I did read your post and your comments here as well. You seem to be a beacon of sanity on this issue.

The interesting question is of course about police accountability.

Now the Tories I believe are suggesting – whether they go through with it is another matter – elected police chiefs, along US lines.

The problem – if it is one – is that the majority of the electorate is probably (I would bet certainly) of the “protestors deserve all they get” persausion.

Ironically greater democratic control of the police would thus result in “tougher” policing – and not alwyas in a good way.

LFAT – I find myself wound up quite frequently.

So far it has never resulted in violence.

What happened to discipline?

Come on.
Murder – no.
Gratuitous violence – unfortunately yes.

When one finds oneself in a hole, LFAT…

I don’t think antagonising the police is an excuse for violence. One would hope they would exercise some self-control.

“In any event, I am not sure liberal-left’s first instinct should be to want to have a general pro-police/anti-police argument in principle. It ought to be possible in a case like this one to establish a broader consensus for investigating the specific case properly, and realising that it has broader implications, in a way which could and should bring on broad several of those who tend to have an instinctive trust for the police and not only those who are instinctively suspicious of it.”

The focus of any energy from this should clearly be directed at the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice. These are the bodies that have enabled the police the powers to abuse, and have failed to make powers to curtail disproportionate action.

The police are ultimately a tool of the state, and do whatever they are allowed to do within their masters will. If people die at police hands because of questionable police actions, because of rash decisions, and if people are imprisoned, have their lives ruined, despite being innocent in a country where being innocent is no longer a considered possibility, then it is the fault of our government primarily, the police chiefs secondarily, and only then the fault of individuals.

Let’s start at the right end of the chain and save time.

@8 Sunder, your point about whether he was part of the protest or not is well expressed but I fail to see how anyone can reach any other conclusion than he was part of the protest – even if it was an on-the-spot decision on his part.

If he was NOT part of the protest, he would have either (a) been walking quickly away from the police to avoid the oncoming police cordon, (b) been facing the police and calmly explaining to them that he had just left work and was moving on quickly, or (c) not been anywhere near the whole situation.

Shorter LFAT: Protestors are fair game.

Could you explain the significance of being “part of the protest” or not?

And even if he had been “goading” the police, surely they should have enough discipline to restrain themselves.

They did it because they thought they could get away with it.

And if Cressida Dick can get away with gross incompetence, I’m sure they will get away with this incident too.

But I don’t like it – or defend it – and nor should you.

Another one to add to your list of blog comments:
http://www.mentalnurse.org.uk/index.php/2009/04/08/the-death-of-ian-tomlinson/

“If he was NOT part of the protest, he would have either (a) been walking quickly away from the police to avoid the oncoming police cordon, (b) been facing the police and calmly explaining to them that he had just left work and was moving on quickly, or (c) not been anywhere near the whole situation.”

What utter rubbish. I suppose a rings true if you’re conforming to what the police want you to do, to be far away from them regardless of your right to be in an area whether a protest is happening to them (in terms of a)) if you believe that you should have to explain to the police why you as a non-protestor walking home are…walking home…and that the police should expect you to be doing something wrong as standard (in terms of b)) and if you believe that people should have to accept being treated like a protester just for WALKING HOME (in terms of c)).

I posted about this before the video had hit on my blog

Sunny, you can fuck right of mate. Labour have politicised the police as a deliberate policy. Kettling was devised by Blair and Livingstone. As a Millwall fan I’ve seen this kind of policing from way back when. Where were you and your sanctimonious whinging when football fans were being kettled 15 years ago.

Britain certainly does have a policing problem, but don’t ask the government, they will just bleat about operational independence and the rights and privileges of ACPO.

Cameron has suggested directly elected police chiefs. I disagree with this, but it shows that even the tory leader sees a problem. Your attempt to turn this into a left/right issue does a disservice to this sight, particularly as there was a good post on the subject last night on this very blog.

As to LFaT, you’re right, the police officer was wrong. But you’re also wrong, Ian Tomlinson was under no obligation to run just because a copper says so. If the police don’t like it, tough, it’s not there road, it’s a public highway. The policeman will not be charged with murder, as that will need either an intent to kill or cause very serious harm. Without further evidence I can’t see either being established. Manslaughter is another matter, at a very minimum, common assault seems to me a prima facie case.

@Sunder,
Another important point, which I don’t think the Guardian covered, is that the police now routinely lie in statements, in court and the aftermath of this incident now looks like a blatant cover up.

Oh, and one more reason why Sunny can fuck of, it was a tory government that introduced PACE. It was also a tory government that introduced the CJPOA. It’s not a left/right issue, authoritarians are everywhere.

Hmm, maybe I should have taken a breath before posting that. The grammar and spelling is awful.

Its not shocking to anyone who’s had close encounters with the Police. That is how a lot of them behave in dealing with crowds, where there is a perception that a minority are out to cause trouble. If you regularly attend football matches, you will not be surprised. As I’ve already told you, “kettling” are normal Police tactics used to deal with large crowds where a minority pose a threat to people and property. It is hypocritical to not to complain when other less fashionable people are victims of such tactics.

The victim, I read, has had a long term problem with alcohol and other illnesses. The Police probably mistook him for a protester, due to his dishevelled look.

The Policeman that shoves him should lose his job and be prosecuted for assault at least, but he’s a State employee and they seem to act with impunity. Its also outrageous that the Police should again leak misleading info to the press, just like Hillsborough and Stockwell. I also think that the organisers of the protests should share guilt for coordinating a protest in such a confined area on a working day. It was their intention to disrupt the City in a self-indulgent and militant political act. They were well aware that a hardcore minority would attack Police and property. The protest achieved nothing; it just allows all the middle-class protesters to claim they are victims.

It should not lost on these left-wing protesters, that for all their clichés about rich bankers, it was a poor and vulnerable working-class man walking home work that got caught up in their pathetic protests and died as a result.

Its disgraceful that you should seek to hijack his unfortunate death to further your goals. You are only interested in his plight because you can link it to your own perceived injustice. If it happened anywhere else, say at a football match or on a Friday night, you wouldn’t give a monkey’s,(unless he was the right colour.)

As said above – this guy was coming home from work but even if a part of the protest that does not give the police a right to clobber him from behind. As also said above – the police hit him to the ground knowing they could get away with it, but even more disturbing is this is what they did to him knowing they were being filmed – they showed no concern for his welfare and probably would have beat him on the ground with no cameras around. Perhaps they did do this further on.

People involved in drunken fights have got 4 years in jail for less than this. The police were hopefully sober but clearly drunk on their own power.

I have commented on this video on my blog – http://neilharding.blogspot.com/2009/04/police-finally-caught-on-camera-lying.html

LFAT

Thanks for the apology. like others, I can not see why whether he is “protesting” or not is central to the determination of whether or not an assault has taken place or whether the police action is lawful in this case.

The Guardian report may cast some light on this, The newspaper and the family have evidently been trying to piece together a clear timeline and to fill in the gaps.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/08/ian-tomlinson-family-police-assault

It is reported that he had left work 20 minutes before the video; that he was having to take a different route because of police cordons, etc and it is reported that there is CCTV footage of his being refused access to cross these.

That might or might not be a reason why he is walking slowly or why he has his hands in his pockets. He may be disgruntled about the disruption. He may have had a bad day. He may be a great fan of the police in general, or he might not like them much. He may agree with the protestors or think they are scruffy oiks who are responsible for having a longer walk home. We don’t know but these circumstantial facts do not seem to be central questions in the legitimacy of the police action (unless the police wish to say that it is important to be able to assault people who have their hands in their pockets; or if they wish to how how and why his walking in front of them was impeding their policing in a way which made this response legitimate and proportionate).

If Tomlinson were to have hit a policeman because he is frustrated that he can’t walk home in the way he wants, it would not excuse it and he might well face charges. If I had rushed up behind him and hit him or knocked him over, it would quite possibly be assault. If a police officer does so, perhaps out of frustration or something similar, it would also quite possibly be common assault, unless there was some legitimate policing reason to constrain him and to use reasonable force in a lawful manner.

It is not apparent what this legitimate reason would be on the basis of what we know and can see, in particular the absence of other bystanders or protestors as the apparent assault takes place. Presumably it would be for the police officers concerned to explain that to an inquiry or trial if that is the defence they wish to make.

Of course, it is tragic that Tomlinson died minutes later. Whether or not there is a connection between the assault and the heart attack is another question to be investigated in an inquiry or inquest. But if the assault was wrong or unlawful, it was so regardless of the particularly tragic consequences.

This is more complicated than being simply a left-right issue, although Sunny has a point that the instinct of most left-wingers was to be sceptical of police accounts from the word go, whereas initially most right-wingers seemed to be trusting of police accounts and sceptical of protesters’ accounts. Most people (even people like cjcjc who I’d disagree with on just about everything else) have condemned the police action once they saw the footage, though.

I think the distinction is less left-right, and more “have you experienced confrontational policing repeatedly”. It is probably true that left-wingers are more likely to have taken part in enough demonstrations to know how the police often act in these situations. But some right-wingers (especially any who aren’t football hooligans but have been treated as such by the police) will have experienced this too. After all, even Tory front-benchers come out against police tactics when they have their offices searched.

#32 – shame on you. I actually agree with much of that comment, but your claim that Ian Tomlinson “got caught up in their pathetic protests and died as a result” brings the rest of your comment into disrepute. Protesters are not responsible for the death of Ian Tomlinson.

If you hadn’t made that bizarre and disgusting claim (which is falling into the trap of using his death to score political points), you would’ve had a point.

There are some points of similarity with how the police treat protesters and football fans, and some differences with the situation that require different kinds of policing. A discussion on that would be useful and appropriate and perhaps help build a larger alliance on this issue, but I for one am not going to have it with you if you insist on holding protesters responsible for Ian Tomlinson’s death.

I do wish Sunny had not tried to use this to score points off “the right”.

Here’s one righty, writing thoughtfully on this topic

http://mreugenides.blogspot.com/

(he doesn’t fit Sunny’s story)

Sunny is very tribal.

Mr Eugenides post is excellent.

Yes, it could have been me. It could have been anyone. In the event, it was Ian Tomlinson; and now he is dead. He deserves, and we should demand, a full inquiry into the circumstances of his death, and we need to have it now. And no-one should ignore it, whatever side of the spectrum they write from; because if the state can beat one man to the ground for being in the wrong place, and do it with impunity, then we are all in the wrong place, and we are all on our knees already.

I live 500m away from that road. It could also have been me.

Tim #36. Fair point and accepted. Unfortunately, I find Sunny’s childish arguments and point scoring exercise brings out my latent aggression, which I can sometimes see as over the top on reflection.

LFAT – You’re missing something in your ‘he was asking for it’ scenario. The guy died of heart failure minutes after this. His slow walking may have been the result of him beginning to display these symptoms, you don’t know. And neither did the policeman who knocked him down.

Councilhousetory “It’s not a left/right issue, authoritarians are everywhere.”

Hear hear. The online fall-out from this incident seems to me to illustrate a lot of people struggling to redefine themselves into the now more relevant authoritarian-liberal axis.

My post is here

As for right-wing silence, it’s worth noticing that — for once — the Mail have taken the right side on this (
Damning video of police hitting G20 victim with baton sparks call for criminal inquiry)

LFAT: ‘And, to be fair, this story broke after most people had gone home from work, so I would wait to see what appears throughout the day before attacking other blogs.’

It broke a week ago.

“I also think that the organisers of the protests should share guilt for coordinating a protest in such a confined area on a working day. It was their intention to disrupt the City in a self-indulgent and militant political act.”

Well, the militant bit is highly subjective given the vast majority of protesters were peaceful in the highest, the rest of it describes….A PROTEST.

God forbid a protest is held on a day that gains best coverage of the issue, in the place that will gain the best coverage. Perhaps the crusties should all be protesting in their living room instead where it’s more civilised and out of your face?

That’s what the authorities and our government want too, you’re not helping.

I think he is referring to the fresh video evidence.

I must admit, I was spun over the weekend and thought the heart attack was unrelated to police activity. More fool me, but I think it is a pity the tone of this post has lurched right back into the usual partisan attack. Why try and make political capital out of a man’s death? At least give us a chance to form a view on what happened, particularly after such bi-partisan things like the Convention on Liberty appear to be so productive. This isn’t a left or right thing, but a statist versus individual freedom thing.

Nick: I agree with you…but then barely any of the right wing bloggers are actually coming out and proving Sunny wrong either are they? Isn’t it sad that they too see this as party political enough to keep quiet?

What’s with the petty point scoring and the development of culture wars?

I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer it if the country didn’t descend into pointless bickering over Right V Left.

Mr. Tomlinson’s death was a disgrace and I don’t see how anyone can justify it. I also don’t see why it’s the fault of the left or the right. Both parties have justified (or at least been silent about) ‘kettling’ before, so it’s hypocritical to blame either.

@34 My god Sunder, how do you do it? How can see the reality of this video footage so clearly yet the crazed Lefties on here start accusing the police of murder or killing this man and several other things?

I couldn’t agree with you more about the issue of questions. There are so many questions that we don’t have answers to, yet apparently my interpretation of what happened is labelled as ‘wrong’ and Lib Con readers are ‘right’ – how childish. As I’ve said goodness knows how many times today, at no point have I excused the police for their actions nor have I blamed it all on Ian Tomlinson. What I have done is point out that this incident is far from clear cut and the tribal attitude of many lefties on this site towards the police is extremely unhelpful. No-one, not me nor anyone else, can “prove” what happened, why it happened, why Ian and the police behaved exactly as they did. However, when it comes to interpreting a short video clip and some eyewitness testimony it appears as though many on the Left close ranks, declare themselves victorious and righteous and then start blogging accordingly without bothering to ask whether there might be another explanation – unlike Sunder, who can see how desperately complicated this all is.

A genuine hat-tip and a bow to Sunder. Your stance sets you way above anyone else on this site and indeed the rest of the lefty blogosphere.

Council house Tory: no, it is you who should fuck right off. When Sunny says rightwing, he includes this bastard Labour government.

I no longer give a shit who wins the next general election, either the people re-elect Labour and we get more of this shit, or we elect the Tories and we get more of this shit.

Fuck Tories, fuck Labour, fuck the police – and oh yeah, fuck you too.

The point is firstly about how we saw and commented on the original protests. LFAT was among the many Tories who poured scorn on the fact that most demonstrators were treated quite badly by the police. Not only that – many even tried to blame us!

By last night, many leftwing blogs had written on this while none of the rightwing ones had – so I think the distinction can be made.

But my main point was about how the Tories would react now. Kudos to the ones that have not excused the police’s actions but frankly the attitude of ppl like LFAT doesn’t surprise me in the least. These people don’t care about civil liberties. Only for themselves.

Vigil @11:

The last thing that we want as a country is for a restless minority to bring the capital to a stand still again, and perhaps cause more bystanders to get injured or even killed in the process.

By which you seem to mean that the protesters caused Ian Tomlinson’s death? I do so very much hope I’m misinterpreting you.

How about a call for people up and down the country to form small peaceful vigils outside their local stations to show their discomfort with this?

Yes this is a “bit English”, tea and cake on the green but there are far more radical calls appearing for direct action and the local vigils would prevent another mass gathering?

Why would we want to avoid another mass gathering? Your idea, while picturesque, would have the effect of allowing officialdom to ignore the protest. You only get heard if you a) demonstrate you have numbers and b) disrupt business as usual. That’s why strikes work, that’s what protests are for. The government will ignore you if it can; so you have to get on the news. Vigils at local police stations will not garner the kind of coverage that bleeding girls in the Square Mile get. The whole point is to make people who don’t want to hear, listen. Being less noticeable will not achieve this.

Tom @12:

Yes, please. Being not a member of the right or the left, I’d like to number myself among those who are sane as opposed to those who aren’t.

cjcjc @19 and others:

Nice to find us in agreement.

Lee Griffin @23:

The police are ultimately a tool of the state, and do whatever they are allowed to do within their masters will. If people die at police hands because of questionable police actions, because of rash decisions, and if people are imprisoned, have their lives ruined, despite being innocent in a country where being innocent is no longer a considered possibility, then it is the fault of our government primarily, the police chiefs secondarily, and only then the fault of individuals.

Hear, hear. The hired men and troopers are just that; hired men. Some sign up because they like breaking heads, some because their gran got burgled, but they’re still hired men. The political masters set the tone, determine the rules of engagement, and set up situations (like this one) where they are using the tactics of kettling to make their own men as prone to over-reaction as they wish to make the protesters.

CouncilhouseTory @30:

Sunny, you can fuck right of mate. Labour have politicised the police as a deliberate policy. Kettling was devised by Blair and Livingstone. As a Millwall fan I’ve seen this kind of policing from way back when. Where were you and your sanctimonious whinging when football fans were being kettled 15 years ago

And here we go again. Please explain to the audience in what way police tactics used against football hooligans are in any way relevant to police tactics used against political protests? Any political protests: though there are still matters of degree, such as the distinction between blocking a mostly pedestrian street after mid-day versus blocking Westminster Bridge before the morning rush-hour.

Also: you’re simply wrong, here. The kettling strategy was being used as early as 1994: and even if it wasn’t, it was being used in 1819 at the Peterloo Massacre. The Police, and particularly the Met, have been polticised since 1888 (the Whitechapel Murders) at the very latest. Why do people think Thatcher’s sin was creating a new police state? She just put back in place the one that existed before 1945, which various administrations in the 50s and 60s had carefully been dismantling.

As to LFaT, you’re right, the police officer was wrong. But you’re also wrong, Ian Tomlinson was under no obligation to run just because a copper says so. If the police don’t like it, tough, it’s not there road, it’s a public highway […]

the police now routinely lie in statements, in court and the aftermath of this incident now looks like a blatant cover up. […]

It was also a tory government that introduced the CJPOA. It’s not a left/right issue, authoritarians are everywhere.

On these three clauses, though, I agree with you pretty much entirely. One I’m particularly interested in is the second; one of the things that’s changed since Gleneagles is that the mobile internet revolution and the growth of camera-phones that actually work have made it very, very hard to manage information flow from a public event. Tactics the police settled on in Brixton in the 70s, which they have been using with remarkable effectiveness ever since Thatcher unleashed them on the miners and the hippys in the early 80s, depended on the ability of the authorities to ensure no proof of the other side’s version could be obtained. It left just enough grey area that much of middle- and working- (as opposed to lower) -class England would buy the official line out of principle; the cops are less likely to lie.

We know now that this isn’t true and wasn’t then; but the difference is, now we can prove it. They authorities didn’t quite adjust to this new world in time, though trying to ban the photographing of police officers in uniform was a good start on their part.

Chavscum @32:

The victim, I read, has had a long term problem with alcohol and other illnesses. The Police probably mistook him for a protester, due to his dishevelled look.

Er, no. Eyewitness reports combined with CCTV footage indicate he approached police lines and was refused passage, apparently identifying himself as a local going home. He eventually found the route which led to his assault and death. They knew he wasn’t a protester; they just didn’t care.

I also think that the organisers of the protests should share guilt for coordinating a protest in such a confined area on a working day. It was their intention to disrupt the City in a self-indulgent and militant political act.

At which point you have set yourself outside the bounds of reasoned debate. Police actions killed Ian Tomlinson. Protesters tried to help him.

‘Militant’ means armed, armoured, organised, riding horses, with dogs. Out of the two available sides at Climate Camp, which fits that description?

On the ‘disruption’ argument, again: do you support strike action as a bargaining tactic in industrial disputes? The only reason it works is disruption. Any protest which can be ignored, will be.

You are only interested in his plight because you can link it to your own perceived injustice. If it happened anywhere else, say at a football match or on a Friday night, you wouldn’t give a monkey’s,(unless he was the right colour.)

Actually, I think you’re wrong. If a newspaper vendor had been caught by police action against football hooligans and killed, I’d have been incensed. If the hooligans had been depicted trying to help him while police shouted at them to stop doing so, I’d have highlighted that as significant, and so on.

The main difference in the two situations is that football violence is organised, launched, executed and boasted of for one reason and one reason only: precisely the violence itself. Political protests, including some direct action protests, have an ethical and philosophical rationale which exists regardless of the precise tactics, and which demands (even if it does not receive) a different response from authority.

Luis Enrique @37:

I do wish Sunny had not tried to use this to score points off “the right”.

I do wish the right, by which I mean the Evening Standard, the London free papers and the police spokesmen, hadn’t tried to use this to score points off the left; by blaming Tomlinson’s death on the protest, and by explicitly fabricating stories of brave police battling to save his life being pelted with missiles and bottles.

The right lied. If you’re going to respond by saying ‘But the government is Labour’, so what? Labour haven’t spoken for the left since John Smith died. I stand by my comment. The right lied.

Post Scriptum: I should repeat that I don’t identify with the right or the left of the traditional political spectrum. I have thoughts on issues; sometimes my thoughts lead me to positions which people identify as left- or right-wing; but I don’t see myself as part of either, and therefore I am inclined to criticise whichever is fucking up right now. In this instance, to avoid left-right partisanship, let us say that the reactionaries lied.

‘crazed lefties’? From the guy who wrote a post saying ‘sunny hundal is responsiblefor the g20 riots’? Your sanctimonious rubbish is laughable.

No surprise to see New Labour Apologist Sunder “Gimme a safe seat” Katwala defending his government’s record on policing.

This is a bit like when Ed Husain reverted from type to actually criticise the government for doing jack-all about Gaza. He realised he needed at least a bit of credibility with his constituency, i.e. the Muslims who he claims to want to help.

Now Sunder has seen the line drawn in the sand, and has lined up to let the police off – it’s clear he’s realised he can’t push the boat out too much on this one, or risk causing the Fabians to come into disrepute with Labour Central Command.

Have they promised you a safe seat, Sunder? Looks like you’ve earnt the plaudits of Toryboy here, perhaps if Labour can’t sort you out I’m sure the other buggers will?

Councilhousetory “It’s not a left/right issue, authoritarians are everywhere.”

Damn straight. Sounds like some of you have no experience of police bully boy tactics other than from the confines of your party political minds. Shit like this goes on all over, just that they don’t result in a death, and trust me, they (five o) don’t check to see who is the government at the time.

Pretty repulsed by the party politricking.

LFAT, speaking with a legal hat on, what the video shows is the police hitting and then shoving Ian Tomlinson to the floor. Minutes later he died of a heart attack. There is good clear precedent to the effect that a) the time between the policeman’s assault and the heart attack is prima facie evidence of causation; b) that it is irrelevant whether Mr Tomlinson had a predisposition to heart trouble; and c) that you ‘take your victim as you find him’.

There is a perfectly reasonable case to make that this was murder. There is an ostensibly illegal act, which ’causes’ a death. The whole question of whether Tomlinson was a protestor or not is only relevant in the circumstances that his actions were a legal provocation to the police, and that would be a hard argument to maintain.

Personally I doubt that anyone will be charged with murder – in fact even a manslaughter charge is unlikely. But I’m not sure that’s really the point here.

A Tory.

You have written a post in which you have argued that “[Tomlinson] was very much part of the protest”, and pouring scorn on the suggestion that he was “innocent bystander” or “attempting to get home from work”.

Your evidence for these assertions consist solely of things you have misunderstood (his highly suspicious “plain clothes”) or invented (the outright lie that Tomlinson was “was doing everything in [his] power to infuriate the police”). Furthermore it runs against the established facts: he had indeed been at work, and he was indeed on his way home.

I accept that there are some lefties round and about who are getting a bit hysterical about “murder”, which this is not.

But that doesn’t mean that your clownish intervention should be treated with anything other than finger-pointing and laughing.

Tim J:

My point, precisely…

https://liberalconspiracy.org/2009/04/08/spot-the-difference/

@John Q Publican

Good post, but when you say:

‘Please explain to the audience in what way police tactics used against football hooligans are in any way relevant to police tactics used against political protests?’

I never said hooligans. I said fans. Do fans not have a right to assembly, freedom to go about their business, etc? It is relevant because the restriction of the liberty of one, leads to the loss of liberty for the other. First they came for…

@Delboy
touche!

cjcjc @39:

One of the problems a lot of lefties have with people on the right is that they only shout about such things when ‘it could have been them’. As long whites in the 70s could be sure the police would only strong-arm blacks, they were fine with it; when the same tactics were used on white miners, suddenly police brutality became a major issue for the whites. It could happen to them.

Most people on the left seem to have an attitude that it doesn’t matter whether it could happen to me; it shouldn’t happen at all.

Alix @42:

Hear, hear (again).

LFAT:

To expand. slightly, on Larry’s point, even if one accepts the view that Tomlinson was behaving in a uncooperative and surly manner prior to this incident, that amounts only to an act of non-violent disobedience, in response to which the officer in question committed an assault using unwarranted, disproportionate force.

Is that really what we expect from the police?

To be physically assaulted for answering back and not follwing their instructions to the letter?

Not, as far as I’m concerned, if we have any pretensions of living in a free society.

CouncilhouseTory @60:

Thank you.

<em.‘Please explain to the audience in what way police tactics used against football hooligans are in any way relevant to police tactics used against political protests?’

I never said hooligans. I said fans. Do fans not have a right to assembly, freedom to go about their business, etc? It is relevant because the restriction of the liberty of one, leads to the loss of liberty for the other. First they came for…

I know; it was me that said hooligans. I was involved in this issue politically as well as personally; football violence trashed the bar I ran in 1996 when three England fans kicked off because we’d beaten the Spaniards in the quarter-finals (if I recall correctly). So; they trashed an English bar, in England, because England won a football match. The bar wasn’t showing the football (they’d watched it elsewhere). Can you justify that behaviour politically or ethically? What protest were they making against my bar? What underlying wrong had been done to them? (they hadn’t even lost the damn game…)

The fans of British football clubs were organising, traveling, co-ordinating for violence alone; not football, not politics, not even genuine grievances such as existed in the midlands towns where organised football violence got started in the 70s.

I know men who’d been taken to football matches in the 50s by their dads when they were five or six years old who refused to take their kid to a match, and tried to discourage the kid from watching football at all, because of the dreadful images of beer-bellied, shirtless lager lads screaming in St. George’s name. I know families who’ve switched allegiance from football to rugby because you can take the kids to a rugby match. And that’s not about police tactics, or the quality of sport; it’s about the fact that between the 1970s and the 1990s football violence spread from outside the pub at chucking-out time on Saturday to organised buses of hundreds of fans travelling to European cities without match tickets specifically to organise riots.

The two situations are not equivalent. Yes, there is some superficial similarity; some people at a Milwall match are going to be real fans, some are violent thugs. The Climate Campers were peaceful, some of those at the Bank were not. Fine, I get that, but at a Milwall match the supporters are mixed in together. Climate Camp and the hooliganism at RBS etc. were separated by several streets of ground and about 7 – 9 hours of time from each other. There is absolutely no way that the police were confused about identity or trying to separate the violent from the peaceful; they were squeezing Climate Camp because they had the license to break heads and had no intention of leaving peaceful heads unbroken.

@62 Unity

You, like so many others here, are automatically assuming that the few seconds of video footage was the start and end of Ian’s actions, whereas my conclusion (which, like yours, is merely an interpretation) is that this had been going on for quite some time. Indeed, one of the eyewitnesses that I mentioned in my post suggested that Ian had come into contact with the police before this and had behaved in exactly the same ‘uncooperative’, ‘surly’ manner.

Without the full context, your use of the words “unwarranted” and “disproportionate” are…. well….. unwarranted.

“You, like so many others here, are automatically assuming that the few seconds of video footage was the start and end of Ian’s actions”

Absolute nonsense yet again. We just happen to believe the variety of eyewitness accounts that corroborate each other rather than you seeming to believe the police line that everyone there was probably causing trouble. You’re no better than those you’re vilifying.

The police actions were a disgrace (and, as you know, I’m not their greatest fan…) but it was not murder. But plain for all to see now (from Left to Right) is that there is a problem with policing in this country. For want of a better expression here, this could be an opportunity to press for serious reform of the police that could be agreed upon by a wider range of political opinion than normal. Any ideas?

LFAT is the new Praguetory. There I said it…

@57

Under common law, it’s called the eggshell skull rule I believe.

Since when has surliness been a crime?

LFAT – you are parodying yourself now!

So Letter from a Tory has decided Tomlinson was “winded the police up”.
Thank you, Letter from a Tory.
You’ve inspired this piece on
Hagley Road to Ladywood

Tim J:

My point, precisely…

Finally I get to be on the same side as Unity…

#66 This is a big story because its become a cause celebre for Left activists. As I said, and nobody has denied, aggressive policing of crowds, Friday night drinkers, etc happens every week. Just watch any of them police with cameras programmes, FFS.

To be fair, these activists should be commended for highlighting the Police attack on this man, but remember it is only because they are overly represented in the Media and public life and it can back up their claims to victimisation. In any other instance, they could not give a monkey’s, unless the victim fits their agenda. Just look at the case of Harry Stanley, which was widely ignored by the Left, and only received minimal coverage, due to the campaigning of his family.

To the vast majority, this is an unsavoury incident, but so are the weekly revelations of Police incompetence, CPS incompetence, failings in the justice system, the release of violent prisoners on bail, their insufficient sentencing and the manipulation of crime statistics under this Govt.

It should not be ignored that Britain suffers from one of the highest violent crime records in the Developed World.

To be fair, these activists should be commended for highlighting the Police attack on this man, but remember it is only because they are overly represented in the Media and public life and it can back up their claims to victimisation.

What bollocks. It’s taken a week for any media outlet other than the Guardian to even sniff at this story and only then when the video emerged. If ‘these activists’ were ‘overly represented in the Media and public life’ they wouldn’t be on the streets in the first place.

What bollocks. It’s taken a week for any media outlet other than the Guardian to even sniff at this story and only then when the video emerged.

Well yes, but “man dies of heart attack, no-one knows why” is much less of a story than “man dies of heart attack after assault by police”.

#72 I agree with all of that (although wouldn’t put alleged manipulation of crime statistics on the same level as releasing violent prisoners on bail or causing a man’s death).

I’m also happy to admit that for me I notice poor policing of protests more often, because I don’t go to away games, and I tend to go to rock gigs rather than clubs that play commercial pop. I do think there are some important differences between policing of (say) a football game, policing outside a club at 2am and policing of a protest, though, which I may get into later tonight when I have time for a more considered comment.

But my main point is that protest groups tend to have (through necessity) found ways of resisting heavy-handed policing, documenting it and fighting back when it happens. Not perfect means, but (in part because eg policing outside clubs happens on a more sporadic basis) a start. Wouldn’t it be great if all these groups could co-operate to expand on that and to hold police accountable, instead of deriding each other?

@74 This story *has* been “man dies of heart attack after assault by police” since at least Sunday.

“What bollocks. It’s taken a week for any media outlet other than the Guardian to even sniff at this story and only then when the video emerged. If ‘these activists’ were ‘overly represented in the Media and public life’ they wouldn’t be on the streets in the first place.”

So are you saying that this is the first innocent man to get a whack from a Policeman? If not, where have the Guardian, commentators and bloggers been?

Dear old chavscum. Trust that pillock to line up with Authority and preferably the non elected kind with titles. But let’s be fair, lads. That police guy was getting a bit bored, felt like handing out a bit of a hammering to liven things up and belts that poor man from the back and across his legs. Be reasonable. he didn’t mean to kill him, just knock him about a bit, soften him up, and he certainly didn’t expect some idiot to photograph the incident.

The cops, of course, immedisately start toi lie; then they have to pull back as evidence comes in and soon we have they “Very difficult circumstances’ 99.999 per cent of police doing a wonderful job, musn’t blame them all because of a few bad apples and all the rest of the bollocks. This country is turning more fascist by the day and the Met are part of the problem. Guess which force will investigate this? The Met. And butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths.

“So are you saying that this is the first innocent man to get a whack from a Policeman? If not, where have the Guardian, commentators and bloggers been?”

Justin’s point still applies does it not? If there were videos in any of those incidents they didn’t come forward, and it seems without something that visceral they aren’t willing to go with the story.

How do you factor in how the media reacted to the death of Andy Miller for his heart attack after being hounded by Bailiffs?

Without the full context, your use of the words “unwarranted” and “disproportionate” are…. well….. unwarranted.

My use of the word ‘unwarranted’ and ‘disproportionate’ are based on having worked in enough night clubs in my time to have received a significant amount of training in dealing with ‘difficult’ customers, none of which ever covered shoving a man in the back so hard that he falls to the floor and [appears to] hit his head.

Show me the Police training manual in which that particular practice appears as an approved technique and you may have a point.

Posted here: http://ecomonkey.blogspot.com/2009/04/evidence.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1168315/Newspaper-seller-died-G20-protests-attacked-TWICE-riot-police.html

I feel both sad and happy that the mail seems to be pushing harder on this story now too.

“The newspaper seller was manhandled by an officer 15 minutes before a colleague was videoed striking the 47-year-old with his baton before shoving him to the ground, it was alleged.”

If what the mail says is true it certainly explains why he would be shuffling and moving slowly in this video. Also, another reason perhaps…

“A third-year medical student who gave first aid to Ian Tomlinson after he collapsed [..] said: ‘It was almost as if he was clowning around. He smelt of alcohol and seemed happy not distressed, but as we were talking he just stopped responding.””

The real key here is in reading the comments…you have people clearly happy with a paramilitary style policing against “criminals” starting to realise that perhaps all isn’t rosy with that world view. When you have people that normally make excuses for the police saying they’re bullies and cowards you have to feel slightly hopeful.

TimF @75:

I do think there are some important differences between policing of (say) a football game, policing outside a club at 2am and policing of a protest

This is where I’ve been at since the whole “Where were you when they beat up the football hooligans in the 90s” canard was introduced to this debate. Policing is contextual; intrinsically. So is professional access security (which I’ve done): in fact the two jobs are remarkably similar in terms of the tactics which work without resulting in violence. To the extent that the training officers for doormen are often ex-coppers.

Broga @78:

This country is turning more fascist by the day and the Met are part of the problem. Guess which force will investigate this? The Met.

Hrm, as I understand it the IPCC has asked the City of London police to investigate the issue. Not only are they not the Metropolitan Police, they can’t stand each other. Again, 1888 in Whitechapel is worth remembering.

Can we put the claim that liberals and lefties have ignored UK police tactics against football supporters to bed, please. If you want to argue the point, read this first:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/18/civilliberties-humanrights

Yet another irresponsible act by the Metropolitan Police. Will someone please give the City Police Westminster and Tower Hamlets, create North and South forces for the remainder of inner London, and transfer outer boroughs to Surrey, Kent, Essex, and Herts?

http://willrhodesportmanteau.com/2009/04/08/a-conservative-view-wearing-plain-clothes-antagonised-the-police/

After waiting and seeing.

I blogged about it here

http://harpymarx.wordpress.com/2009/04/08/cops-reaction-making-the-usual-excuses/

As the Police Fed Chair’s reaction was unbelievable….“Sometimes it isn’t clear, as a police officer, who is a protester and who is not.”

So there you have protesters are fair game for a whack, and what was Ian Tomlinson… collateral damage?

my contribution to the debate is here.

Hi,

Thought you might like to know that a Lancashire Policeman is currently under investigation for allegedly acting in a similar fashion to the guy who felled Mr Tomlinson. PC Paul Carbery (see Blackburn ‘CCTV Cities’) is accused of suddenly and violently throwing a 65 year old disabled man to the ground from behind. Two further Officers are under investigation for deliberately failing to retrieve the video footage that would have provided evidence of the assault.

#85
That article is barely 4mths old. It happened to me in 1995. It has been a lot worse abroad. In 1990 the Govt and the Italian authorities conspired to deport 300 hundred England supporters from Rimini, to make an example. They randomly rounded up the fans as they sat in bars or walked the streets and flew them out, without their belongings. It transpired they had chartered the plane before the arrests. A friend was one of them. Some of them fought a long battle to get compensation and their belongings returned. There was little ‘liberal’ sympathy.

You can also see some ‘kettling’ here.

http://www.mefeedia.com/entry/english-hooligans-italy-world-cup-1990/14662982