Mumsnet Talk

I don't think this was strictly necessary by the police, he was walking away with his hands in his pockets:

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7988828.stm

Oh my word, from the footage that does look totally uncalled for.

What a hideous thing for his family to see of his last day alive.

No. From that clip alone, it does not seem necessary. I suppose the police will argue that he was verbally abusive or threatening or something.

They will no doubt also say the heart attack was unrelated since he got up afterwards, albeit briefly.

uncalled for? unnecessary? IT'S FUCKING BRUTALITY!

IMO. Brutality would be beating him, kicking him in the head, dragging him down the street by his hair. A shove is not, in itself, brutality.

this does not mean it is acceptable in any way of course, but I would disagree that it is 'brutality'.

A gratuitous shove.

There seemed to be no reason for it.

i heard Mr Tomlinson distraught son on radio4 appealing for footage-i was really moved by his anguish

oh how very sad.a family man dead only 47.the devastated family

suppose now they have to investigate whether the MI was directly attributable to the fall

Not brutality. But definitely unacceptable and inappropriate, from what we can see on the video footage.

Sadly there are people who will resort to aggression and overuse of their power in all professions.

Hopefully the investigations will get to the bottom of this and the policeman, if found to have done this unprovoked and without just cause, will face discipinary action as a result.

I can almost predict what they'll say - that they were forced to physically move him away from the police line, that he was uncooperative, that they told him to move away several times, that he was verbally abusive and not moving away.....

Heard it all before.

oh gosh, that's awful. his poor family.

Interestingly, as much as we are captured by cameras all over the place (not always a bad thing), we also have them to hand now for capturing incidents like this.

ScottishMummy - why do you have full stops all over your posts? (I take it they are not deliberate)

Yes, I too can predict a whitewash.

full stops-umm dont know!technical glitch.how odd.on my screen looks ok

You can't see what is happening, you can't hear what was said. One alternative interpretation is that he is making no effort whatsoever to move as the police requested him to do and is wandering slowly and taunting them. You can't see so it is impossible top make a judgement. For someone being ushered along by police, he certainly isn't moving briskly. It is impossible to tell from that footage.

It's certainly not brutality though. If you think that is brutality, you have clearly lived a very sheltered life.

Take a look at it on a PC it's quite distinctive!

Also, the shover was holding a truncheon which you can see at the end of the shot.

Quite interesting that the Guardian footage shown was taken by a non UK national. THere is a discussion about the legality or otherwise of taking pics of the police in this piece also in the Guardian.

true, soupy. although if you were ambling home after a millwall match and the police started shouting at you to do x or y then a bit of obstinacy is hardly worth someone apparently randomly coming up and pushing you right in th kidneys.

"and is wandering slowly and taunting them."

ermm and that makes it ok to shove him with such force he falls over?

definition of police brutality is actually 'excessive use of force' so IMO it IS brutal.

Soupdragon, ive had first hand experience of casual police brutality on several occassions and I hold a criminal record. I haven't lived a sheltered life by any stretch of the imagination. Unfortuantely.

and taunting them with his back to them and hands in pockets... he nearly didn't gethis hands out in time to get them onto the ground first. emotions must have been running high, but the policeman made the wrong judgement i think.

In fact it's the bloody idiots who come on here justifying the police's actions who are living the sheltered lives.

What interests me is that the policeman who pushes him isn't directly behind him for most of the time. he seems to come up round the outside and rushes round to push the man. If the man was dawdling and being offensive, why isn't he dealt with by the policemen nearest to him?

This is of course all speculation. I realise we can only see some of it, and we can't hear it all. But it does seem like a very odd thing for the policeman concerned to have done.

and if he was wandering and collapsed so soon after could he already have been feeling unwell at the point he was pushed (hence walking slowly??)

I am justifying nothing and I am on no side. I am merely pointing out that you can see absolutely nothing concrete from that footage.

But hey, a criminal record, well, clearly you are far more impartial than me

That was not brutality. It was a single push. He didn't kick him to the ground, he didn't whack him with his truncheon, he didn't launch in whilst the man was on the ground. It was stupid and perhaps unnecessary (we don't know, we weren't there and have only a short silent snapshot to judge by) but it certainly wasn't brutality. The video footage shown is far from conclusive.

It's interesting how people always believe that the police will have covered it up if they come out of any investigation like this as "innocent".

this footage isn't silent here - although there's so much background noise it's hard to know who's saying what.

oh, im not impartial at all.

And there will be a cover up.

Are you sure about the truncheon thing Soup?

No hitting at the back of the legs at all?

Maybe take a look at the Guardian version on FAQ's post rather than the BBC version in the OP.

It's at about 1min 30 to 1min 40. Have a look at the left hand.

Well I found that shocking. It is an unwarrented attack as far as I can see. He was moving out of the way - no reason at all to push him to the ground.

There's a scene-by-scene set of pics here

And there are some witness testimonies here that he had already been hit & knocked down by police blocking his way earlier, so yes he may have been feeling uncooperative & walking slowly but that still doesn't justify the shove.

Putting someone in a position where they can hit their head with force and therefore sustain a brain injury, does qualify as brutality in my book.

I don't suppose the officer concerned will be sacked though.

I didn't realise walking slowly away from the police was now somehow deemed an act of aggression. Only aggression I can see in that clip between Mr Tomlinson and the cops is by the one who felled him.

Seems merely being a member of the public in the vicinity of a protest is now a capital offence, to add to 'being swarthy in a public place' (de Menezes).

Can't tell from that clip but I wouldn't be surprised if they'd taken their badges off and then claim that there's no way of identifying the thug officer responsible. Then they'll prosecute people for taking footage of the demonstrations...

This was totally uncalled for IMHO. Admittedly we don't get a full story from this but what was the worst that this poor man could have done to warrant such a reaction?
A friend of a friend works for the Met and was on duty that day. He was told that if someone doesn't get out of your way when asked, you are to use whatever force you need to.
How can that be right??! Surely it is possible therefore, that this man was asked to move out of the way to one side and - because he was infront of the police - didn't hear properly or had no reason to think they were talking to him?

"A shove is not, in itself, brutality" if you read the report it says there are witnesses to the fact that he was thrown to the ground and hit with a baton more than once before this footage was taken.

Hopefully the appeal for people who may have footage of this will be successful.

Actually I realise that I wouldn't go to a demonstration anymore.

Call me a coward but I'm too scared to go and risk being killed or injured by the police. I wonder if this is deliberate, to put people off from exercising their democratic right to demonstrate. The way the police have been policing demonstrations in recent years is really frightening. There's no point having a theoretical right to demonstrate, if in practice you fear the consequences. Not just this incident or Kingsnorth, but things like being cordoned off for 8 hours not being able to go to the loo, are bound to ensure that lazy arses like me who are out of the habit of demonstrating, are put off going.

I really think we should be asking some very serious questions about the way demos are policed now.

its awful just seen it the poor family having to see that

Agree with Littlebella.

It was totally uncalled for. The poor guy was only in the area because he had been trying to get home and all the streets were blocked off.

There are some great police men but there are some terrible ones too.And, hate to say it, but they tend not to be the brightest either. The cleverer ones tend to get promoted quickly leaving the rest on the beat.

This happens time and time again - there are too many thick, aggressive and racist coppers being employed. There was a case last week of one of them thumping some black guy on the tube. Funny how when the man's death was first announced the police issued a statement saying there had been no contact with him at all - when several of their officers knew otherwise.

Very often the police are bigger crooks than the people they are meant to be policing.

I can't believe anyone thinks it's defensible.

If one of my kids pushes a sibling to the floor with some force, telling me "Well, she said something nasty and she wasn't doing what I wanted quick enough!" isn't going to be a mitigating factor at all.

How much less for a grown man charged with maintaining public safety.

"He told Radio 4's Today programme: "On a day like that, where there are some protesters who are quite clearly hell-bent on causing as much trouble as they can, there is inevitably going to be some physical confrontation."

He added: "Sometimes it isn't clear, as a police officer, who is a protester and who is not.

"I know it's a generalisation but anybody in that part of the town at that time, the assumption would be that they are part of the protest.

"I accept that's perhaps not a clever assumption but it's a natural one."

Quote from the article, surely if police officers fear someone is a protester and a danger to them or others they pull them to the ground or they pull them out of the space they dont want them in, tbh the footage looks like an officer simply losing his temper and pushing someone like a child in a playground would!!! I actually know someone who got in an argument and pushed someone away who was abusing his wife, the man hit his head on the curb and died and the person I know went to jail for manslaughter, whos guessing that the police man in question doesnt!

Im sorry to anyone whos in the police or who's dh is in in the police but until they come down on incidents like this and the hundreds of others that happen they wont be respected and trusted in communities as they should be.

and if he had already been hit on the head maybe he was feeling unwell or concussed hence the slow walking??

I heard that too - about how it was hard to tell who was a protestor or not. But what on earth had that got to do with hitting someone on the back of the legs with a baton and knocking them over? Why would you need to do that to someone walking away, protestor or not?

I am not happy about the way the police appear to have responded to this incident so far.

I heard last night on Sky News when the video came out that the police did not know if it was a City of London or a Met Police officer that hit the man.

That would make a robust legal defence arguments along the lines of "there is no reliable evidence of who hit him".

I know there is an enquiry going on so I hope we properly get to the bottom of who hit the man and whether it was justified.

The hitter had MP on his helmet according to the Guardian.

They should be able to trace him. It was witnessed by a number of other officers!

A very very sad event.

The officer in question should be identified immediately and face whatever discipline or punishment is apropriate. The shove was uncalled for and heavy handed regardless of what other factors may have been surrounding it.

However, having made my thoughts clear on this isolated incident, I would like to stand up for the police and say yes you will always get a few bad apples, and some police shock horror God forbid make mistakes like we all do. The majority of officers are hard working and very fair, they put up with torrents of abuse from the general public day in day out both verbal and physical. They see and deal with things we can only imagine, things that would disturb and shock the majority of us to the core.

Yes this act was disgraceful but can we please hold off from all the general police bitching it's just stupid.

so, we have no knowledge of the events leading up to this incident, no knowledge of what was being said, no account from the officer responsible as to why he acted as he did, and no evidence as yet linking the man's fall with his fatal heart attack.
Yet we all rush to judgement. innocent til proven guilty, unless you're a copper of course. Fascist pigs, right?
And as for the person who made the remark about police officers being "not the brightest" - well I suppose you're in a position to know, aren't you?

I saw the footage on the BBC news channel just now and was quite shocked.
I had expected to see a clip of a mob attacking the police as they tried to assist someone having a heart attack.
Instead I saw an unprovoked attack by a police officer on a man who was casually strolling away from them.

However I am not bitching about the police in general, and I don't know what the larger picture was at the time, I've only seen one tiny clip. The man might have been part of a crowd who had been told not to move forward or something.

I'm not judging the police as a whole, and I don't call them pigs and find it obnoxious when others do.

But what this one individual did is without excuse, uniform or not.

you cannot possibly know if he has an excuse or not until you know (a) what his account of events is and (b) what lead up to the incident - as a bare minimum. I do believe an inherent bias is operating here - people would be far more willing to wait for all the evidence if it were not a police officer being accused.

smallwhitecat - I agree. That is why, as I said, we have a proper enquiry so we can get to the bottom of it.

well, yes I agree about the inquiry, but I'm afraid I completely disagree that shoving an individual to the floor is going to be 'justified' to my satisfaction. I'm not suggesting it had anything to do with the subsequent death, but it's still assault.

what about if the unfortunate man was about to commit an assault or other offence? or resisting arrest? or walking into danger? Lot of sanctimonious wnak on this thread IMHO

You can't assault somebody for what they might be about to do!

The camera does pan out in some footage and he wasn't about to walk into danger.

It was me that said that some police aren't the brightest and, yes, I have dealt with many in the course of my work and speak from experience.

smallwhitecat in those circumstances (in danger or going to assault) you drag someone away from the situation and in the case of going to assault handcuff them or if they are resisting arrest you drag them to the floor if needs be so that you can handcuff them. I can not see in any circumstance why you would push someone in that manner unless a car was hurtling towards you both and you pushed someone clear of it which we know wasnt the case. And thats coming from someone whos exh, uncle and neighbour are all police.

Message deleted

Yes, of course, if the policemen fancied himself as Tom Cruise and could read the mind of the man ambling along with his hands in his pockets and knew he was going to commit serious assault and had to be stopped that second, then maybe it was justified.

Given that the usual procedure for someone resisting arrest usually concludes with that person being arrested, not with them being shoved aggressively to the floor and then allowed to walk away, I'm going to go out on a limb and dismiss 'resisting arrest'.

But naturally, if the policeman in question could see the man was about to wander into an invisible wormhole and be sucked into an alternate dimension, then pushing him to safety was a wise course of action.

Otherwise, colour me sanctimonious, it's wrong to shove people to the ground like that.

the Police Officer in question has his face covered. With his riot visor up it you can't see his face at all. This for me is crucial for all sorts of reasons.

When my friend's dad was beaten up by police officers at the Wapping dispute in the late 80s the police officers had removed their epaulette I.D. numbers.

FWIW I do think the Police have a very very tough job to do - especially in situations such as this one - but this thing is not going to go away.

so, to summarise:
1. What this officer did cannot plausibly be justified no matter what the circumstances were.
2. nevertheless, there must be an inquiry.
3. but if the inquiry doesn't agree with the conclusion already arrived at (see point 1 above) it's bollocks and a cover up and a national disgrace.

I am starting to sympathise with those old misogynists who think women are incapavble of logical thought

I dont think there is a need for an enquiry to be honest as I dont believe they will take any action rightly or wrongly, I think that in light of several recent incidences such as this there should be blanket re-training of how you deal with members of the public. It is the polices job among other things to prevent and protect the public against violence escalating not to incite it.

I would have no faith in an enquiry either. I remember the enquiry into Jean Charles de Menezes when it was revealed that the police had manipualted his photo to make him look more 'Asian' and therefore their mistake more understandable.

Alright, we won't call it an inquiry, we'll call it 'an investigation which finds out who the officer is and re-educates him'.

(and maybe we'll say 'fuck off' to those who like to bring up the gender of people who disagree with them as a disparagement)

Smallwhitecat: what is pretty clear is that regardless of what the man was or wasn't doing, the police behaved wrongly under the law which they're obliged to uphold - there is absolutely no question of that.

Obviously if he was doing nothing at all then they have behaved wrongly but even if he was committing some sort of offence (hard to say what, but let's say some sort of public order offence) then there are pretty strict regulations under PACE and subsequent legislation about stopping, searching, arresting and detention procedures.

If you care to review PACE, you'll probably find that amongst the procedures which they're required to follow is not one which knocks people to the ground as a starting point of making an arrest or caution (um, particularly if they then don't arrest or caution him).

So yes, there absolutely should be an investigation but equally I find it very hard to see how the investigation will not find the individual responsible guilty, at the very least, of common assault. Clearly, if the investigation produces some startling evidence then I'd change my mind, but otherwise, if the investigation turns up nothing, it would be logical to question why.

Not sure where the illogical part is in that (but then I'm a guy so maybe I'm not as illogical as the women you refer to...)

There was an interesting piece on this on the ITN lunch news, the journalist who was there said that preceeding the incident 4 officers had become surrounded by protesters and it was 'very tense' he went onto say that a member of the production team tried to assist Tomlinson and was forcefully shoved out of the way by police.
No excuse for shoving a man walking away from you with hands in pockets imo. Yes stressful situation but police trained to deal with this surely? Also on The Wright Stuff this morning (must get out more) Wright said he had been told that protesters taking photos and videos had equipment removed under anti-terrorism laws! This government has taken away too much civil liberty imo.

I agree that the tactic of cordoning people into a space for long periods of time is dangerous and puts people off protesting, which is awful and is going to mean that only those after a fight will protest, which will justify aggressive policing of protests.

"was about to commit an assault or other offence? or resisting arrest? or walking into danger? "

ok - as someone else has said you can't arrest someone who is "about" to commit an asault. and lets face it - watch the guadrian footage, he doesn't look particuarly threatening to me - ambling along, hands in pockets.

resisting arrest - think we can rule that one out given that the police officers didn't approach him once on the ground and he was allowed to walk away

Walking into danger........as someone else mention the shots panned out - there was no obvious danger. And surely if you do end up pushing someone over in a bid to get them out of dangers way you don't just leave them lying on the ground wondering what the hell just happened!

"people would be far more willing to wait for all the evidence if it were not a police officer being accused. "

ermm no I wouldn't not based on the video I've seen - obviously I don't know the events leading up to that - but if it had been a member of the public that did that I'd be thinking WTF too.

"you can't arrest someone who is about to commit an assault." In fact the officer would be perfectly entitled to use reasonable force to prevent the commission of an offence such as an assault. So would you or I, come to that. Whether such considerations applied in this case, and whether, if they did, the force the officer used was reasonable should be a matter for - yes, you guessed it - an enquiry which looks at all the relevant evidence and circumstances. Personally I think it's quite likely on the basis of what I've seen that the officer was acting unreasonably - but I think it has to be recognised that these judgements arrived at without full knowledge do often turn out to be wrong. And it's the almost total failure to understand that here that is so very very worrying. I really hope none of you lot ever end up on a jury.

yes but surely if they thought he was about commit assault they wouldn't push him over and then just let him walk off?????

and if they did push him over because they believe he posed some type of threat then I'd be more concerned about their lack of judgement in letting him walk away than the actual pushing over tbh.

Can you imagine being sat on the Jury

"well yes I pushed him over because I believe he was about to do x/y/z"

so why did you let him walk away after.......

"erm............because I changed my mind?????"

That's just one example of a reason why the officer might have acted as he did. there are numerous other possible reasons, some benign, some not. We don't know why he did it because we don't have all the evidence as yet. That's exactly the point - you can't make a judgement without all the evidence - and surely the person concerned should be offered the chance to give his own account of why he acted as he did before he is judged? What he did looks bad, I agree - but at least let's have the humility to acknowlegde that without all the facts our judgement could be flawed.

and who was he going to assault? when the camera pans round there is no one near him other than the police officers who he is walking away from! and like FAQ said they wouldnt let him just sit there then walk away if that had been the case and then why if they had done nothing wrong would they confiscate evidence of the attack using the terrorism law as an escuse if they didnt think they had done something wrong!!

I find it hard to understand how you are trying to justify violence to a person walking away with his hands in his pockets? No police person I know would arrest someone by pushing them in that manner.

Message deleted

LOL Fio. Can you imagine?! If it was all above board I'm sure he has already come forward and spoken to the nice IPCC people to clear the whole thing up

FFS. I am not trying to justify violence. I am suggesting that perhaps, just perhaps, we ought to countenance the possibility that in the absence of all the fact our judgement about this incident might be wrong. It's not that hartd to grasp, is it?

I honestly cannot think of any situation other than the one i said before about a car hurtling towards them both him pushing him clear of the car, why an officer would be entitled to push a person in that manner no matter what may or may not have happened out of the cameras view, that is NOT how you arrest people in ANY circumstance, it was an act of unwarranted violence on behalf of the very people who are supposed to protect us against such incidences.

I've been at many protests. The police are always brutal and heavy handed. I used to be shocked but not any more.

Journalists always go on about arrests and the 0.001% of the protesters who throw missiles, but actually the vast majority of protesters are peaceful and police use deliberate tactics to try to make protests 'kick off'. (Kettling - forcing us into small areas with no drink or toilet facilities so that the mood becomes heated and tense.)

It's an absolute disgrace. We are not nearly so democratic as we're led to believe.

Ian Tomlinson wasn't even a protester. Just a man walking home from work with his hands in his pockets and his back to the police. How DARE they push him like that?

Tush, Spidermama, hold your opinion back until our sainted authorities have run through the proper channels to get to the bottom of this. I'm sure they will be concientious in the matter, as their main concern is the safety and freedoms of all of us.

smallwhitecat people are just rightly outraged at what they have seen and can't see any reason for this agression by the police. If there is evidence to suggest that he was acting appropriatly then opinions may change, but it seems unlikely. But that is why there will be an enquiry, I don't understand why you are getting upset??

Oh yes. Thanks for reminding me Kay.
<Warm glow of comfort from democratic living engulfs spidermama>

We ARE in possession of the facts though:

He wasn't a protestor

He was trying to get home but couldn't take his usual route because of road closures

A police officer attacked him from behind so that he fell heavily to the ground

A few minutes later he died.

"there are numerous other possible reasons,"

well come on lets have some of them then???

I think we can safely assume given that he wasn't arrested or at least handcuffed and questioned/searched etc that they didn't consider him a major threat or that he'd committed a crime (otherwise there are serious questions to be asked as to why he was allowed to walk away)(

I'm intrigued as to what some of these other reasons for a policeman to push a man walking away from him, with hands in pockets, over onto the ground.........

smallwhitecat: what I am saying is that it is very, very difficult to see how the police officer behaved appropriately.

Either the man was innocent, in which case he clearly behaved inappropriately.

Or he was doing something which should have lead to him being cautioned or arrested under a specific set of procedures.

There are no procedures which allow a police officer to assault someone and walk away, taking no further action. None. Please correct me though if you can think of any. On that basis, I cannot see the police officer's actions can be justified under any circumstances - can you?

I think the fact that (accprding to the BBC) he hasn't yet come forward speaks volumes.

If there was an innocent explanation he would have come forward - there were more than enough wirnesses to validate his account.

I remember bumping into some officers in the corner shop opposite work on the day of the G8 protests a few years ago. They were sniggering about "democratic" protest and happy to talk, in public, about their plans to "rough up" demonstrators. I interrupted them and said, hang on, surely you aren't going out to cause trouble and they grinned at me and said 'what do YOU think?'. Sods.

(I knew the truthful answer would be 'yes', was a little surprised that they were so up front about it. Chilling.)

The police have been way out of order with demonstrations recently.
They seem to see the demonstrators as criminals, whereas in fact, they are simply exercising their rights in a so-called democracy. Democracy isn't just about putting an X in a box once every five years to choose between Tories and Clone Tories - there are many legitimate forms of democracy, and peaceful protest is one of them. If the governement doesnt like it, then they should come out openly and make it illegal. And if peaceful protest is OK, then they should make that clear to the police.

I walked with the anti-Iraq demonstrations a few years ago, and was appalled to see how the metropolitan police treated demonstrators. Middle aged women up from the shires, peacefully walking along the pavement, were treated as criminals, and shouted at like scum - I saw it. When I asked a policeman politely if I was allowed go through a certain path (before someone leaps to his defence, the march hadnt even started, and he was not in any way under pressure), his reply was so aggressive and unpleasant, followed by laughing in my face, that even I could see that he was looking for an excuse to provoke me. It doesnt stretch my imagination much to believe that a similar policeman lashed out with a baton at a man walking home from work.

Bad apples - support the police - blah, blah - actually I dont blame the police. I blame the establishment for using the police as a sort of repressive civil army. Miners giving trouble? send the police in to squash the mob rule. The situation's moved on since then, but unfortunately the official attitudes at the top havent, as far as I can see.

took too long writing my essay and Xed posts with some far more graphic illustrations of the point.

Nighbynight good post. The long one that is.

apparently he has come forward now?

before he was shopped, presumably

The Channel 4 footage 'the missing piece of the jigsaw' is even more shocking. The masked policeman lunges forward giving him a very severe whack on the back or back of the legs or something before he falls.

Surely a post mortem would clearly show this injury. Another PM has been ordered by the IPCC. At least they're acting quickly.

Chilling it is indeed edam.

Oh but Edam, they were just a few bad apples, not representative of a whole culture or policy, doncha know.

Just like the police officers who investigated Stephen Lawrence's murder. Oh er, no, um, their attitudes were described as "institutional" weren't they.

Do you think someone should tell the cops that (from the BBC link) " says "Under European human rights' laws the police are required to actively protect the public's right to peaceful protest"?

Because I doubt anyone, from the top of the Met to the lowliest PC in the tiniest village gives a flying toss.

Ponders - he will have taken advice from his union prior to coming forward. I know I would.

It does make me absolutely ill when I read all the sniveling justifications for why thugs can do what they like as long as they're wearing police uniforms.

I bet the officer in question is very happy about this resignation in the counter terrorism office, takes the heat off him a bit!

Further proof that this isn't just 'one bad apple. Peter Smyth, chair of the Metropolitan Police Federation said about Mr Tomlinson's death: 'I don't think you can judge a tactic on one small incident.'

Nice.

To be honest someone in the polioe once said to me that the police were just an organised violent but legal gang, I have seen several examples of this, like the time they beat the crap out of an older man at the train station because they thought he was someone else who had smashed a ticket office window

It's one of the (rather important) foundations of a "free" society: we empower the police to be the only legitimate users of force in our civil lives, and in return they respect the social contract (ie only use force on people who are dangerous and forceful themselves). As soon as that agreement is broken, it undermines the reason for having a police force instead of everyone just packing around their own means of self-defense.

Unfortunately, there are people who are attracted to policing precisely because they are attracted to the idea of having permission to use force. They are actually very harmful to the police as an organization because if they're not adequately controlled (and punished, when required) they undermine the force's raison d'etre.

Sadly I don't think anyone at the top cares about the social contract, let alone the other ranks.

I realise that, Edam - it's just that it's really short-sighted. It's actually a rare and wonderful thing to live in a relatively stable and peaceful society, and the conduct of the police is central to the population accepting the rule of law over the rule of force.

I admit I was probably aiming my post more at the smallwhitecats of this world who prefer no thought/analysis of these types of incidents. And it's also quite nice to dust off my political theory degree out every once and a while.

What strikes me, looking at the footage is that the police officer who assaulted Tomlinson, did so while surrounded by his colleagues.

Those individuals were eyewitnesses of an unprovoked assualt and apparant manslaughter. They did nothing to intervene, did nothing to initially help Tomlinson after he fell to the ground, and did nothing to correct the lies that were told at first - that the police had been bombarded with missiles from protestors while trying to help a dying man.

Surely they broke the law? Could they be subject to any charges?

given that he was re-routed by the cops several times on the way home from work, DH reckons that he had already had a raised BP and an adrenaline surge. More asdrenaline after he was pushed and shouted at the cops. Bang, the lesion in his LAD artery ruptures, blocks artery - the worst artery to get a blkockage.

DH reckons that any stressful event could have caused it, but the police actions were totally uncalled for.

can't believe the cop bystanders though.

"and did nothing to correct the lies that were told at first - that the police had been bombarded with missiles from protestors while trying to help a dying man"

to be fair I think this is said to have happened a few minutes later when he collapsed after having the heart attack rather than at the time the footage was shot.

Very true, Sprogger.

Highlander, that's quite eery - think your dh has just described the set of circumstances that led to my FIL's death. (Not on a demo, but coming back from shopping to find drive blocked by builders and having a row.)

beanieb - yes but it was only minutes later, and it wasn't true, they were not bombarded with missiles.

That scares me.

yeah - wasn't trying to defend them BTW, I think the whole thing is awful

edam, I'm sorry. I hope I haven't stirred too many horrible memories

I don't know about anyone else but I've had a knot in the pit of my stomach over this story.

I don't think it's being given enough prominence in the news agenda either.

Oh no, not at all Highlander, was just interesting! (Am a health journo so was being curious rather than sensitive - as it happens I've never done an article on this kind of topic so no very little about it.)

I do usually remember how to write 'know' as well... oops.

police officer suspended

My bet is on the guy being reinstated with, at best, a slap on the wrist. And NOTHING changing.

the police aren't coming across great are they in demonstrations. the sri lanka demo doesn't exactly put the police in the best light does it

The Times says not only has the officer responsible been suspended but witnesses have come forward with evidence about the cops confronting Mr Tomlinson an hour before he died.

A photographer says a police van 'gently nudged' Mr Tomlinson out of the way. How on earth is driving a van into someone 'gentle'? Reminds me of the claim below that a PC hitting someone with a baton then shoving them over is not brutality...

paramedic gets fresh with a baton!

What worries me is if he was a protester, would this incident be dismissed? The way the media carries on, protesters are all violent trouble making hippies.

If he was a protester, he would probably have been "threatening" the police.
Also, he would have been a quarter of a person, not a whole person, so that they could report the "correct" number of protesters.

tiredsville - yes, the police attack and injure protesters all the time and get away with it. Sadly.

Nothing changes. I was involved in the Poll Tax Demo in 1990 - one of the most terrifying experiences of my life and I have never really trusted the police since.

The problem is that these 'bad apples' are protected and covered for by their colleagues and the system. Look at the de Menezes case. And that wasn't an isolated incident - time and again they get away with assaults/deaths that would have Joe Public banged up faster than they could catch breath.

It stinks.

Agree with LittleBella. Very very worrying, the behaviour of the police nowdays, and the seeming unaccountability.

omg
totally out of order.

if the cop is found to have caused gthe heart attack and killed the bloke, will he go to prison for man slaughter?

beanieb - thats a shocking photo. The more I look at, the more angry I get. Yes, there have always been a few thugs in the police but their behaviour now seems almost state sanctioned.

Always has been, badkitten - I was a teenager in Yorkshire during the miners' strike and we knew people who called the local traffic police out to protect them against the Met. Who had been given the nod to go out and beat up any locals they found. And break any laws they fancied - it was real police state stuff, stopping people on the M1 and turning them back for the crime of being male and working class. We knew one man who missed his own father's funeral because he was stopped at the Notts border.

A century ago, when people were trying to set up the Labour movement and form a political party, the police used to break up meetings with their truncheons. And it's continued from there.

The police have ALWAYS been used to oppress the working classes and anyone who dares to stand up to the government of the day.

I didn't know that about the Labour movement - thanks

Yes, if police violence wasn't state sanctioned, there simply wouldn't be any. The "bad apples" would be sacked.

Good article here by Marina Hyde:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/11/police-surveillance-marina-hyde