G20 death

[tamaranth]

scene-by-scene analysis of the video showing Ian Tomlinson being attacked.

What's struck me in several photographs and videos is the expressions on the faces of individual policemen: anger, contempt, rage. It's as though they're classing the protestors -- and by extension the public -- as The Enemy. Yes, some of the protestors were looking for a fight, and some individuals may well have been there just to stir up trouble: the majority weren't. (Though I've been on the wrong end of excessive policing (Welling, 1993) and remember how easy it is to join in with the 'us vs. them' mob mentality.)

I am deeply uncomfortable with the idea that a peaceful demonstration is something to be avoided because of the risk of violence -- from police as well as demonstrators.

Comments

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

It was clear from early on that the government and senior police officers were setting things up in the expectation of violence and were briefing against the protests on the basis that they would be violent with no evidence for this. I'm sure this was a tactic to reduce the number of protesters and the 'kettle' approach whereby protesters are bottled up for hours on end by police is another method to punish those who do things the powers that be find inconvenient. That some individual policemen respond to the demonization of protesters this brings and that people are hurt and, in this case, die as a result is a logical and predictable consequence of all this.

Not only should the individual policeman who hit and pushed Mr Tomlinson be charged but so should those who set up the environment that made this inevitable. And yes, that goes all the way to Wacky Jacqui and Gordon Brown.

[brisingamen.livejournal.com]

the expressions on the faces of individual policemen: anger, contempt, rage.

If you look back at photos and footage of policing during the miners' strikes in 1984, it is all there too. In so far as I was paying political attention then, I was really shocked at the way in which a) the police were behaving towards the miners, and b) the fact that Thatcher was clearly using them as a a militia force.

I have been intensely disturbed at police behaviour covering big demonstrations over the last few years, and extremely worried by reports coming out of this most recent one. I was just so pleased when I got back last night to learn that there is video footage of this business, because it has sounded all wrong from the beginning. Goodness knows whether anything will happen, but at least it's out there now where people can see it.

[akicif.livejournal.com]

Such a change from the last demonstrations I was involved in. For the anti-war stuff, the police were great, more or less explicitly on our side.

The G8 stuff in Edinburgh was a little different, but it depended on which Police you got to interact with: they were almost all great, except for the Manchester and London lots (the Cardiff crowd were especially okay, almost treating the trip up as a holiday, and one or two at least were quite friendly when we ran across them in a pub later).

The London lot, however.... It was said that when the London bombings happened and many of the Met were recalled, two cities felt safer.

(Very odd thing, btw: I linked to the Guardian piece from Twitter last night and it seems to have been deleted just after it got copied across to LJ)

[incy.livejournal.com]

In fairness there was that lecturer going around saying people should hang bankers. I did think he was a bit of a lone voice, but apparently use facilities at his university as some sort of marshalling point. I can also say that certainly say that some of the protesters were looking for a bit of violence. Plus the guys who turned up with an armoured car and police uniforms.

The problem is you expect the police to be a bit more professional and disciplined

[gummitch.livejournal.com]

One thing that really bothers me is that this was not just random thuggishness on the part of a policeman. Give a hefty push to anyone with their hands in their pockets and they're almost certainly going to go down. They simply won't have time to get their arms out to keep their balance and/or get their hands into a position to break their fall. The push was intended to hurt. Tomlinson will have (justifiably) interpreted this as an attack, and his blood was likely flooded with adrenalin in a fight-or flight reflex. Which probably triggered the heart attack. It's almost exactly the same sort of thing as a mugged person having a heart attack, which I imagine would result in at least a charge of manslaughter for the mugger. (Coincidentally, my partner was mugged in exactly this way. Someone rushed him from behind and pushed him over while he was carrying shopping, and grabbed his wallet while he was on the ground.)

The other police officers spend several moments looking at Tomlinson on the ground. I can't believe that none of them remembers his face. Let's see whether any of them come forward.

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

[the following is purposefully NOT about the shoving incident)

There is an argument that there wasn't violence to the extent expected because the level of funnelling of protestors made it less easy for such things to occur. Or that those looking for trouble saw how many police there were, how much CCTV there was and how many potential escape routes ahd been selaed off, and thought "OK, let's not do that then".

Once a protest moves from marching into wilful destruction, then it's time to stop it before it escalates (see poll tax riots). Vandalism is relatively minor, but once such things start there's a snowball effect. So once the windoews were smashed at the HSBC, sorry but it's time to move in and clear it away as it's no longer a peaceful protest. You have a right to demonstrate, but not to indulge in criminal damage.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

My reading of the sequence of events was that the HSBC damage occurred after that particular group was bottled up and was an expression of frustration on the part of some that the police were not letting protestors peacefully disperse. I know that I'd want to hit/smash/break something if I'd been shut inside for hours for no good reason with no food, toilet, water. medical or legal aid etc..

[the-gardener.livejournal.com]

...and wasn't it strange that the RBS windows had not been boarded up in advance, even though it was obvious that RBS would be a target.

But then if they'd been boarded up the police officer inside with the video camera wouldn't have been able to film the demonstrators, would he?