To be angry at the frenzy caused by others last night

[BarometerTV]

I think it was utterly disrespectful. We are in lockdown and it was not the right time for a protest. I agree with a quiet, respectful, socially distanced space to grieve - which is what appeared to happen during the day.

Despite the obvious all round tragedy, distrust and despair this whole awful incident has raised, the irony on some platforms of women telling other women that unless they were there they are "not allowed" to have an opinion. That's not progress. Totally understand the anger and frustration but I hope, I really really hope, that something positive must come from this.
All police cannot be grouped as the enemy, the same way women who were there cannot all be classed as unreasonable agitators by some.
It would be particularly useful to have conversations with police IRL regarding the reality of their working life, and views on training and commands given from superiors. something most of us are naturally unaware of.

The legality of the police conduct is doubtful, let alone the protestors.

The police demonstrated that they could handle these vigils and protests all over the country. Someone at Clapham in the police force made a bad decision, and that needs to be looked at.

@Pipepans

Despite the obvious all round tragedy, distrust and despair this whole awful incident has raised, the irony on some platforms of women telling other women that unless they were there they are "not allowed" to have an opinion. That's not progress. Totally understand the anger and frustration but I hope, I really really hope, that something positive must come from this. All police cannot be grouped as the enemy, the same way women who were there cannot all be classed as unreasonable agitators by some. It would be particularly useful to have conversations with police IRL regarding the reality of their working life, and views on training and commands given from superiors. something most of us are naturally unaware of.

I agree with all of this.

@LexMitior

It’s bad policing; whoever decided that kettling was the right tactic should be fired. It was that decision which was disproportionate and possibly unlawful.

I'm struggling to think of a situation where kettling is the right tactic, tbh.

A young colleague was "kettled" at some march or something a few years ago. She was terrified, just wanted to leave, couldn't get out and had a full-on panic attack.

My DSS was "kettled" too, at an anti-capitalist thing. He managed to get out by telling a police officer that he was diabetic (true) and that he was at risk of having a hypo if he didn't get out and get something to eat (not true - he manages his diabetes really well).

@Flaxmeadow

Christ where do you live??

With the working class in the north of England. Where people, even hardened criminals, do not scream "ACAB" at police officers. Strange how it's only the entitled middle class at protests who seem to do that

The ACAB ink was quite popular among the working class crims of the part of Croydon where I grew up. Most of the teen boys on our estate came back from borstal with one. And I heard it chanted by football fans a lot when I had the misfortune to live near a ground.

I don't think it's a middle-class thing at all.

@Flaxmeadow

I just can't get worked up about some posh people, protesting in a posh park, getting arrested when they refuse to go home. They weren't even thrown in the cells, they only got an on the spot fine

Was anyone injured?

I don't know where you get the notion that they were "posh". Is it just because they have the standard, south of England, RP accent?

Even Kate Cambridge isn't proper posh, her parents were in trade, you know.

@Flaxmeadow

I just can't get worked up about some posh people, protesting in a posh park, getting arrested when they refuse to go home. They weren't even thrown in the cells, they only got an on the spot fine

Was anyone injured?

The fact that they weren't taken into custody seems to imply that they weren't doing anything very wrong imo.

Were the penalty notices issued for public order offences or for breaching covid rules, does anyone know?

@Flaxmeadow

The photo on the front of all the papers shows a 5ft 2in woman flat on the ground with three coppers on top of her. Looks pretty damn brutal to me.

If you've led a very sheltered life maybe

I live in a northern city and used to see people, including young women, arrested like this all the time when the pubs and clubs emptied. It's no big deal.

She was probably, foolishly, resisting arrest. What did she think the police would do, let her go? They are not "on top of her" in the photo, they are probably picking her up off the floor, where she had thrown herself for the benefit of a photo opportunity and she certainly didn't look brutalised in the video interview she gave after she had been fined on the spot. Infact she seemed to be revelling in it

She also called the event a "protest" in the same interview

I haven’t led any kind of sheltered life. I was at Greenham and I’ve seen how the police treat women. The police were on top of that woman, there was a boot next to her head. Why did it take three people to “pick up” - ffs - a tiny woman? Jesus, the bloody evidence is there and some people are so biased they try and deny what’s right in their face.

@rosetylersbiggun

I'm one of the women on the bandstand who were manhandled by police. Some actual facts, to combat all the lies, assumptions and falsehoods:

The vast majority were women, were peaceful, and were just attending a vigil.

A small number of both men and women were there with an agenda, or were acting in an aggressive manner or giving speeches. Most of the people acting aggressively or speechifying were men.

The majority of police were professional but a significant minority of officers arrived with a hostile and combative attitude, and started making unprovoked nasty comments including during the one minute silence. The behaviour of that minority, which went unchecked by other officers, was incendiary and caused other women who had no intention of doing anything but lighting a candle and leave, to respond verbally.

The Sisters Uncut protestors (the ones giving speeches) were removed by police very near the start. I don't know what happened to them, they were marched away by police and I didn't see them come back. No one made any speeches after that. There were speeches only at the very start. The extreme police presence and violence did not start until after the Sisters Uncut women had been removed and the speeches finished.

The red haired girl didn't give any speeches (as far as I saw) and was sitting silently on the ground when the police picked her up and threw her to the ground. She was not resisting arrest that is simply a lie.

Only women were arrested or treated violently, including women who were sitting silently and not engaging in any protest. I did not see a single man arrested. The men who were giving speeches with loudhailers, and the male anti-mask protestors, were ignored by police.

There were absolutely working class women there, there was one young girl who was street homeless there who the press found and interviewed, there were disabled women, middle aged women, elderly women, women who had never attended a protest, and many women who lived locally and had walked in.

No one was seriously injured but some women suffered minor injuries. A disabled middle aged woman on crutches fell to the ground because police were chivving her along too fast while she was verbally saying "I'm disabled, you need to let me walk at my own pace" and then screamed at her while she was lying on the floor, other women had to rescue her.

Thank you for sharing, @rosetylersbiggun.

It's good to hear a first hand account.

Thanks for that @rosetylersbiggun

It's pretty much exactly whay I have seen and heard on various SM, from all those involved - well, the ones I could find!

@Flaxmeadow

I get your attitude, but it seems orientated about class.

Yes it is, it's what most of my posts are about. Class perspective as opposed to an identity based perspective

That’s not what this is about.

Welcome to my northern perspective on the safety of women and girls

Are you a Trot, @Flaxmeadow? This is starting to sound like the SWP/Militant line on women's rights, ie "When we win the class war, women will be equal."

It was never true, middle-class women suffer the same issues when it comes to equal rights, sexism and personal safety as working class women. And I don't know any, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if upper-class women did, too.

I am an older mumsnetter and, perhaps do not have the same thoughts as the younger ones. I am nowhere near London and held my own vigil at home (no one else in) with a candle and quiet time. I don't understand why it was necessary , in lockdown, for people to ignore the law and have a mass gathering. Having never met Sarah but reading about her, she seemed to be a thoughtful girl who would not have wanted a mass gathering because of Covid?

I would also like to say that because a Met Officer is charged with her murder it does not make the Police en masse, horrible brutes. I am sure that the Met "family" is horrified by what their rogue officer has done. I have a daughter with a disability and praise the Police highly for what they have done to help protect and guide her.

If the SWP were going to be decisive in the field of women’s empowerment then they have had their time.

I don’t agree with Flax, but I thought it worth exposing the views she does have.

Raising a point about class at a point when women can exert political pressure is not sensible. I guarantee this morning there is a lot of Whitehall debating what has gone wrong and the relevant responsibility, along with new laws to protect women. It’s one thing that is good about what has been a series of failures by the Met.

@percheron67 - would you change your mind if, to take a hypothetical example, it emerged that this suspect had a long history of inappropriate behaviour to women and the Met had not taken action?

Were the penalty notices issued for public order offences or for breaching covid rules, does anyone know?

Four arrests were made for public order offences according to statement by met police.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/video/2021/mar/14/met-police-defends-handling-of-sarah-everard-vigil-in-london-as-necessary-video

I haven’t led any kind of sheltered life. I was at Greenham and I’ve seen how the police treat women. The police were on top of that woman, there was a boot next to her head. Why did it take three people to “pick up” - ffs - a tiny woman? Jesus, the bloody evidence is there and some people are so biased they try and deny what’s right in their face

The police at Greenham were a disgrace. I'd seen police get rough with protestors before, and had been on the receiving end of it at other protests, but I'd never seen anything like the level of brutality that I did at Greenham. The fact that this was at a women-only protest made me think that there was an element of misogyny involved.

This weekend's events made me think that little has changed since then.

@rosetylersbiggun It must have been scary.
From the footage online one lady with blonde hair was pushed and flung between officers several times.

I would also like to say that because a Met Officer is charged with her murder it does not make the Police en masse, horrible brutes. I am sure that the Met "family" is horrified by what their rogue officer has done. I have a daughter with a disability and praise the Police highly for what they have done to help protect and guide her.

Agreed. Nor does it make the charged person guilty at this point, until (and of course if) he's convicted. And I too have found the police to be extremely helpful and supportive on the (thankfully) few occasions I've needed them in my life.

@LucieStar agree.

@Flaxmeadow

Did the street homeless woman who was interviewed on the news talking about her own fears and sense of being extremely vulnerable appear "posh" to you?

I haven't seen it

What you actually said:
"For all we know the protestors in the park could have been pissed out of their brains and up for fight, drunk and disorderly even."

They could have been drinking all day. Who knows but my point was no one would accuse them of it would they?

Not a single word about class or how middle class women are treated differently from working class women.

Read it again

That's massive revisionism. Some of your earlier rants did not mention one word about the North, class or geographic disparity, or working class women. It was just nasty, dishonest rants aimed at attacking the women attending the vigil who you've decided are in the wrong and deserve violence because you've decided they're "poshos

I have not said they deserved violence. I said they did not receive any violence.

They were protesting. They have said themselves they were "protesting"

I find it hard to summon up any sympathy for organised womens groups who have consistently ignored what's happening to women and girls in the north. Girls, tens of thousands of them, tortured, gang raped, trafficked for prostitution and in some cases murdered. WHERE WERE YOUR VIGILS AMD PROTESTS THEN?

You know there were grooming gangs in the south too, for example in Oxford. But clearly that doesn't fit the agenda of the poster who seems to think the issues are mutually exclusive and if you support the vigil in London you cannot be supporting action against violence against women in the north. Ffs stop trying to polarise the issue, we should be supporting all women, not have an agenda to turn the issue into a class or geographic war.

I have found the police to be extremely helpful with a problem I had. I was for a long time very good friends with the wife of a police officer.

That however does not negate what happened on Saturday

I have also seen the police look on while several women were harassed by a large group of football fans and when i later complained to the relevant force i got an acknowledgment email and nothing else.

I have also listened to a police officer recount comitting an albeit fairly minor assault on a member of the public (who was being an absolute pain in the neck but not doing actually anything illegal) and there was no awareness by the officer that they were at all in the wrong

I agree that it is shocking that there wasn't more of an outcry about the grooming/trafficking cases at the time, especially as they involved children.

But there wasn't an immediate focus for them, iyswim, there were lots of cases, in lots of different areas, spread out over quite a time period. That sort of series of events is never going to have the impact of the one-off, shocking crime.

I'm not sure why there's an assumption by some that people are only actively campaigning about one thing at a time or ever? Actively passionate about one thing at a time or ever?

Many of us worked hard to campaign re the grooming scandal which let down so many girls and feel strongly about the events of the past week and feel disgusted that a number of murdered or missing women and girls who aren't white have had much less media coverage.

The common denominator is women. I am a feminist. I actively want to support women's rights and safety. It's so tiring when people assume that everyone is on a sort of one off bandwagon.

Whataboutery isn't appropriate - for some people the last week will have ignited their resolve to get involved, educated them about the worrying statistics or been a tipping point for them where they feel they cannot stay silent any more.

Saying well what did you do about xyz in the past or currently is a strange angle to take in a debate that is so nuanced.

To be clear, I believe all women who are missing and / or murdered should be given the media coverage we have seen over the last week in efforts to find them and their abductor or killer.

I don't mean there should have been less for Sarah, I mean that it's terrible that girls and women who aren't white get much less press coverage when missing and / or murdered.

Just wanted to be clear that I don't think there should have been any less coverage in efforts to find Sarah. I just believe there should be as much publicity to help find any missing / murdered woman - not different levels based on social class or race. Which at the moment sadly there absolutely is.