It is noteworthy that this press release, while it makes good points about the theoretical status of the police as a consent organisation, also (I suspect inadvertantly) underlines exactly why the IPCC have issued this statement at this time: they want to stop the woman talking to the media. They’d also quite like her sister to stop talking to them, from what I see here.

That’s worrying.

I read it that while the woman and her sister had been talking to the media, they hadn’t yet been in touch with the IPCC, and the IPCC would like them to.

We had two minutes of silence in my office this afternoon in memory of those who died at Hillsborough, a sobering reminder (if such was needed) about just how badly police mismanagement of crowds can get and the disgusting depths the media will sink to to blame the victims.

The police service operates by consent and it is important that the public can be confident that the complaints system is robust and proportionate in dealing with incidents that threaten public confidence.

*Snigger*

#3 Will you be having a silence for the Heysel disaster next year? What about the Bradford Fire?

Jono @2:

Yes, that’s what they said. I am adding an interpretation based on a broad-spectrum observation of policing in the UK. We don’t want people to talk to the media, because that way, we can’t control the story…

Shatterface @3:

Alan Hansen linked his memories of Hillsborough to the policing of the G20, which I thought was quite astute for a professional football pundit.

John Q (6): I’m worried about kettling leading to another crushing incident more than batton attacks on individuals – though I suppose that could lead to stampedes as well. Is this what Hansen meant?

And Chavscum (5): When all is said and done, you’re a bit of a cunt aren’t you?

Shatterface @7:

Hmm. I do not distinguish kettling from baton charges, because the one guarantees the police will get an excuse to do the other, and that’s why they do the one.

The only reason to kettle a street full of people who are sitting down is to deliberately create a confrontational environment, and to raise the tempers of all on both sides by stopping two thousand people (including the police) from going to the loo in a reasonable fashion.

The baton charges are what they want to do: the kettling is how they arrange it.

The thing we should be arguing about is when are these tactics reasonable? Because if what the right-wingers think happened actually had, i.e. every single protester on all the marches and Climate Camp was a violent anarchist bent on mass-scale property destruction and the lynchings of actual bankers, then there is a realistic argument to be made for containment strategies that are equally militant.

This is the same argument we were having in the 70s about brutality in the cells. When I was in custody last year, the police treated me physically with considerable care and clearly routine checks including seeing a doctor on site and feeding me [1], although I was only there between 1700 and 0300. The only reason for this is public opinion deciding that once someone was cuffed, hitting them again was going too far: and that was predicated on the idea that once cuffed, they no longer represent a probable threat to the physical safety of the officer. There’s never been much pressure from the public to suggest that a copper who is about to be glassed by a screaming woman in a Romford pub can’t physically prevent her from attacking him. I used to be a bouncer: I have considerable experience of making high-pressure, instantaneous decisions about when to use force while under serious physical threat, and I was taught the job by an ex-cop. [2] One of the things they had to teach me was how the law responds to assaults, even if they are in self-defense. Restraint was ok, actual bodily harm was not.

From the pov of Chavscum and LfaT, the protesters are intrinsically wrong. They are violent (because “maybe <10 drunk people were shouting obscenities at the police”), they are wrong (because they don’t agree with chavscum and LfaT), they are therefore legitimate targets for violence.

From the my point of view, the explicit non-violent intent and execution of the Climate Camp protest, combined with the clear political goals and the effective self-policing (they had parliamentary observers and their own medical teams present in advance, etc.) puts them on the side of ‘not a threat to public order’. Therefore, from my perspective, any police violence, or indeed any police obstruction, of their entirely lawful protest becomes wrong. Kettling it until they get just enough finger-waving from the long-haired louts that they feel excused for going in heavy is active incitement to riot on the part of the police.

Somewhere between these views is a common-ground argument that needs to be implemented in law. We, and Parliament, and the GLA, and the IPCC all need to be talking about that middle ground and how we both legislate and then administrate it; how do we get rid of the culture of Thatcherite policing? Labour won’t do it. The Conservatives certainly won’t.

[1] A school dinner. As such, it worked, in that it made me feel full, and it made me feel as though I was under official censure in a very direct way; you don’t inflict that kind of food on anyone who isn’t a naughty child.

[2] And a family of six semi-pro (unlicensed) boxers. Whose advice was more aggressive, more violent, and was precisely the kind of thing that drove the requirement that the access security profession be centrally licensed.

Shatterface you didn’t answer my question.

John the Pub, why was the “I’m a woman” pushing the copper (as she admitted), carrying a camera and a carton of orange juice. She’s now touting her story to the press, via max Clifford. Ever feel like you’ve been taken for a mug?

#9 actually made me laugh out loud. But let me try and answer your question seriously.

Why was she carrying a carton of orange juice?

I sometimes carry around a carton of orange juice, or a bottle of another drink-type substance. I usually do it because I think I might get thirsty, or need an energy hit if I’m likely to be out for a while.

Why was she carrying a camera?

Perhaps to take pictures of the demonstration. Perhaps to protect herself against the police in case things got nasty. I’ve frequently taken cameras with me and opened them when police are being intimidating, to dissuade them from trying anything on the basis there’ll be evidence if they do. That’s one reason why even Conservatives are now calling for photographing a police officer not to be a criminal offence.

chavscum, can you justify the (prima facie unlawful) use of force by the officer against the woman?

I’m not sure a camera, or carton of juice, could sufficiently drive me to do the same.

ZOMFG, A CARTON OF ORANGE JUICE!?!?!?

Chavscum @9:

Funny you should pick on that.

If you read my comments on a different thread you’ll see that I already noticed the possibility for the right wing to try and undermine the real points here by suggesting the victim is a money-grubber. You’ll also see that I’m not terribly impressed by her taking a real grievance and turning it into a Goody-style celebrity bid.

However, she’s still right; she was still mistreated by a ‘guardian of the peace’, she was still assaulted on camera and to date the assaulting officer has not been charged with a crime. He hasn’t even lost his job, merely been temporarily suspended.

Her choice of a publicist with a bad reputation doesn’t undermine the reality of her cause: particularly since he’s very effective.

Chavscum (9): the reason I ignored your comment was because I assumed it was rhetorical as well as cretinous, but no, we didn’t have a two minutes silence for those who died at Heysel or Bradford yesterday because (a) it was not the anniversary of those disasters, and (b) I work in Liverpool with people who lost family and friends at Hillsborough.

Presumably you think we should have devoted some of that silence to those who died at Heysel because Scousers are collectively guilty of that tragedy and somehow guilty of Bradford too?

As to your arse-dribbling about the orange juice perhaps that should be banned from football grounds too?

Personally I prefer to take milk to wash the pepper spray from my eyes if a uniformed thug thinks I’m looking at him funny. p

Actually, it looks like tomato juice. Hmm….which she threws in the general direction of the copper as he strikes her. I’ve no sympathy for her, as has virtually everyone else bar the usual lefties. As for Ian tomlinson, I have complete sympathy for his family and I hope they getsjustice. I’v,e been consistent, you look like mugs now she has shown her true principles.

Shatterface, fair enough, if you work in Liverpool. Personally, I can’t stand all that shared public mourning stuff.

Ah, well – if it’s tomato juice that’s different.

From the point of view of the police that probably doesn’t count as a fruit based drink.

Chavscum, regardless of your lack of sympathy for her, do you think her actions justify the (prima facie unlawful) use of force by the officer?

Why was she carrying a camera?

Answer: does Nokia even make a mobile phone that doesn’t have an integrated camera any more?