75 year old man seriously injured by police

[backtrack]

www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-us-canada-52932611

I feel truly sick at the world we live in today. I don’t know what the answer is. The police are wrong to act with brutality, the protesters are wrong to act with violence, to loot and destroy property. This is not positive.

• [Please note, title edited as it originally stated that the man had died]

He must have wondered ‘should I push him off?’ He words sounded as if he had had training and was concerned about the hold but wasn’t confident in asserting this. Sorry I can’t find the exact quote but he did question the officer (senior to him).

My niece is a firefighter and she said that they are drilled that you do as directed by a the guy in charge - you don’t argue or question. This has meant that she has been in situations where she felt directions were incorrect but had to follow them anyway. In in one instance she was ordered to access one part of a burning building and did ask for another point to be used, as it was more reasonable to expect people to be in the part of the building. She was told to follow the order and the bodies of a man and his daughter were later found in the area she indicated. They may have already been dead but she won’t ever know.

@incrediblysad I agree- I'm just reading their faces and behaviour. There's no justification from me, I'm trying to work out what's going on in their heads. If they really do spend their time on the streets in that heightened state of arousal, it's not good for them either.

I wonder how the stats are on police dying on duty compares with U.K.

It's horrifying. I was so upset about George Floyd too. I hadn't seen the Breonna Taylor case before but that is horrifying. When will it end?

Breonna Taylor is another horrific case. However again does it all go back to guns? Taylor’s partner opened fire on the police because they didn’t announce themselves and he thought he was being burgled, they returned fire.

The one that stuck with me is Atatiana Jefferson.

Police should not be going to none emergency reports for welfare with fucking guns.

The police are awful, and they’re liars - they said initially that the man tripped.
Apparently they’re all thick too and don’t seem to realise that all this is being filmed. Any lie they tell will be immediately contradicted by the footage.

@thenamesarealltaken - your whatifery totally astounds me.

Seen the video of the NYPD cop who walks up to a protestor, pulls down the protesters mask to pepper spray him in the face?
Or the NYPD officer walking up a street who hurls a woman to the kerb then walks off? Not trying to arrest her or anything m, just shoves her because he can.

I wonder how the stats are on police dying on duty compares with U.K
Just googled - they are WAY higher in the US. 147 deaths on duty in the US in 2019, 5 in the UK, of which only one (PC Andrew Harper, murdered by being deliberately run over) was directly related to his duties.

www.odmp.org/search/year?year=2019

www.policememorial.org.uk/rollofhonour.php#

So much hand wringing.

You have no idea OP.

Here is something I saw:

“Instead if saying “it’s terrible that an innocent black man was killed but destroying property had to stop”
Try thinking:
“It’s bad that property is being damaged but killing innocent black men has to stop”.
You are prioritising the wrong thing.

Black people living in the US have their entire lives shaped by fear of the police and systemic racism. Those videos of how parents have to teach their children to live? Black people here have lived through numerous unexplained deaths in police custody, the scandal of the Windrush deportations, continual demonstrations of inequality and racism. Two people interviewed on TV: on the banner of one, the white male Prof gets his full title. On the banner if the other, a Dame AND a Prof, just first name and surname. Guess which person is black???

So please stop this being ‘stumped’ by the Uk community reacting with pain and anger at this murderous onslaught of people with the same history as then.

And stop the whataboutery; none of this negates horror at other atrocities.

Do something about it.

God I am so sick of white hand wringing and worse on MN.

• I wonder how the stats are on police dying on duty compares with U.K Just googled - they are WAY higher in the US. 147 deaths on duty in the US in 2019, 5 in the UK, of which only one (PC Andrew Harper, murdered by being deliberately run over) was directly related to his duties.*

The USA has far more police than the U.K. You can't baldly compare the stats like that. You need a per capita comparison.

The USA has far more police than the U.K. You can't baldly compare the stats like that. You need a per capita comparison.

Exactly.
Us has according to google around 800,000 officers
Uk has 123,000

So US still has more death per capita, but it's not as simple as 5 vs 147

So please stop this being ‘stumped’ by the Uk community reacting with pain and anger at this murderous onslaught of people with the same history as then

I don’t think you read my comment as intended. No one is stumped as to why people are reacting with pain and anger, I feel the same. My last line “not instead of, as well as”.

The USA has just under 300 police per 100,000 of the population, the UK has just over 200. So given that the US has a population roughly 5 times the size of the UKs, we would expect them to have 7.5 times more police deaths than us if all things were equal. 147 is way higher than 7.5x1, or even 7.5x5.

UK Police are trained to peacefully stand back at protests and only intervene if it gets out of control

The police are much better than they used to be. There have been massive changes in the way the police manage public order during my lifetime. It was very different 30-40 years ago, and it's as a result of public outcry that things changed.

I have witnessed appalling treatment at demonstrations during the 70s and 80s. At Wapping in 1987, police with batons made a mounted charge into a very crowded rally in a park. The side roads were barricaded off and the march was much bigger than anticipated. People couldn't get out of the way. There were women, and people with children in pushchairs, who had come to hear the speakers. It was absolutely terrifying, the most frightening situation I have ever been in and I had nightmares for years afterwards. I still get panicky if I'm caught in a crowd, and it was 16 years before I went on another march.

Footage of anti-Vietnam war demos in London and dispersing pickets during the miners' strike shows really brutal behaviour. A teacher called Blair Peach was killed by police at an anti-racist march in Southall. Even at the peaceful protest at Greenham, I witnessed an officer grab hold of a woman who was trying to attach a ribbon to the fence and just hurl her backwards to the ground. She had to go to hospital with a broken wrist, I dread to think what injuries she might have sustained had her head hit the ground first.

Policing in the UK changed because of media and public outcry. We can only hope that the same happens in the US, and other countries where they seem to get away with killing and injuring people.

The UK changed the way

This is really interesting thread with the info and personal experiences. I had no idea how police was in UK before!

@thenamesarealltaken, your attempts at justifying police violence are both laughable and sickening.

America just seems to be descending into the wild west at the moment.

I've been watching videos on SM where people are calling for everyone to avail themselves of the 2nd Amendment, shop keepers are shooting looters, looters are shooting police, houses have been set on fire with children in them.

It's a very different climate to here in the UK and I hope protesters here recognise that.

ACAB

They really aren't, adding something like that to a sensible post is ridiculous and totally devalues anything of any relevance.

It's the language of 1980s skinheads.

@FeministAF

Wow. There are really people who can watch that video and try and justify what the police did. Unbelievable.

ACAB

How can you think it's ok to say ACAB?

How?

This week.is the anniversary of a terrorist attack on London. The police risking their lives to protect people weren't ACAB then we're they?

My brother in law who tackled a man rampaging with a shorn off shotgun when he was just a bobby on patrol, unarmed, isn't ACAB.

How is MN allowing these things to be said?

Yup, I saw that yesterday, absolutely dispicable. He looked so frail

Backtrack: apologies.

How is MN allowing these things to be said?

Report it. It looks like they delete anything that's reported (even if it is really NOT against guidelines...) so they should deal with something what IS against guidelines

Gosh the amount of mental gymnastics people are doing trying to rationalise this behaviour from the police. If this had been an elderly Black gentleman, no doubt it would have been fully justified.

Tupac Shakur (RIP) stated that the biggest gang in the USA is the LAPD.

While this happened elsewhere in the country, it seems that the police in the US seem to operate within completely different boundaries of normality to any reasonable person. Pack mentality at its finest.

Maybe if every man and his dog wasn't allowed to carry a gun then they could have more of a police service than a police force.

Does the prevalence of guns affect the type of police force they have and the way they operate?

What is ACAB ?

It's an acronym being used in America that's now being used by some protesters here - it means all cops are bastards.

Thankfully MN have deleted the comment.