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.

@Alsohuman it is different perspectives, but I can see a vigil would be appropriate, and that positive change should be the result. They also expressed their gratitude to the police during the investigation.

@rippledegg

It can certainly be a tactic to push or otherwise aggravate protestors

Can someone explain why do you think the police would want to aggravate protestors on purpose? What would be their aim?

I'd be interested to know this, too. Especially with such a public spotlight on the police at the moment (due to the suspect being connected to them). Why would they do this and further draw negative attention to themselves?

@Sparechange - similarly you can’t dismiss @Dorsetdays feelings or views. She is allowed her view, based on what she’s seen, heard and read.

From what I witnessed, the police intentionally rounded up some of the women (all physically small and young and/or disabled, in other words women who didn't pose any physical threat to them), kettled them, then arrested them for "refusing" to leave when they couldn't safely leave. All the while ignoring and refusing to arrest the men who were engaged in violence and aggressive protesting.

IMO it was pure theatre. They thought if they picked out a few women at random to make an example of, they'd be able to show the crowd they meant business and would intimidate the crowd into going home.

It was a tactic, and a tactic that didn't work.

There's also the fact a minority of officers clearly had undisguised strong personal feelings of contempt towards everyone present, even the women who wanted to light a candle and then leave and had no intention of turning a peaceful vigil into a protest.

It's also telling that once they'd made a show of arresting a few women and dragging them off, nearly all the officers and the police vans left, yet the vigil wasn't over. The vigil continued peacefully with almost no police presence afterwards. If it was about Covid restrictions and shutting down the vigil, how come the police were happy to leave and permit the vigil to continue, once they'd made a show of strength and sent a message to the world "WOMEN, do as you're told or we'll sort you out"?

Why would they do this and further draw negative attention to themselves

Exactly, and also the high probability of being injured themselves too as a result. It makes no sense at all

There's also the fact a minority of officers clearly had undisguised strong personal feelings of contempt towards everyone present,

Equally it was evident from the placards and chanting that some of the protesters felt very strong contempt for the police, which they were making quite apparent.

I mean some of the police were hassling and shoving and threatening to arrest the Independent Observers (highly identifiable due to their high-vis jackets). IOs are literally employed by Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner!

How can anyone look at those facts, and still think the police acted in good faith.

@LucieStar - I agree with that! @rosetylersbiggun - there was fault on both sides - surely?

@FerrisWheelTrain

I'm sorry, but we've had the mother of all drip feeds from Dorset on this.

She started off claiming she had an account from her niece who was there and had seen it turn 'nasty', and that was the basis for her wholesale support of what the police did.

Any differing accounts were shut down with 'well that isn't what my niece saw, so yours is only one version of the truth'

It now transpires that not only was her niece possibly at an entirely different location, but she left before most of the other detailed accounts begin.

So it is totally disingenuous for Dorset to compare the accounts side by side and imply posters here are lying when their accounts don't fit that of her niece.

Furthermore, she is deliberately choosing to ignore key facts, like there being 2 locations of protests, one with video evidence of damage to police vans and men being aggressive to the police and zero arrests
And another, showing zero aggression to the police, women being pushed over and arrested using force.

She continually refuses to acknowledge those are 2 different locations and is deliberately conflating them.

Why? What is the agenda here?

Equally it was evident from the placards and chanting that some of the protesters felt very strong contempt for the police, which they were making quite apparent.

Why are you choosing to ignore the fact the hostile comments from police started long before the protest began, when it was just women peacefully coming forward, lighting a candle and laying some flowers down, and leaving? The chanting and placards didn't start until far later.

Besides Police who are on duty have legal and ethical responsibilities to behave in a professional manner, and not actively incite and try to infame tensions.

Members of the public attending a vigil in a completely unofficial capacity as free citizens of what is supposed to be a democratic society, do not.

Ridiculous to imply that just because a member of the public says an opinion an individual police officer disagrees with, it's fine for that officer to lash out in rage.

Sparechange. You’ve quoted totally out of context. My comment on the fact that my nieces version holds more store than a strangers is absolutely valid. It holds more weight with ME because of course I will believe someone I have known all their life, who I know is a sensible adult and who has no reason to lie or embellish something she is telling me over a complete random posting on here. Surely you understand that.

Well to be clear I saw some officers push protestors at XR protests. There was no reason of course to do that, unless it was to antagonise. It stopped very quickly as the crowd turned the cameras they had on them.

This cuts both ways, of course. Not all police are noble people. Some step outside what their actual duties are; and take their personal views into account. Really anyone in public service should put those aside or not join.

My niece want at a completely different location, don’t be silly. She wasn’t directly on the bandstand, she was at the vigil and was nearby.

That doesn’t mean she couldn’t see or hear what she did.

She left after 6pm. I mean, its not entirely unreasonable that, gosh, she might have actually seen the people who were there with their placards, chanting etc at 6.15 is it because clearly they arrived effort then and she didn’t leg it out of the area.

Your attempt to try and undermine any account that doesn’t entirely agree with yours is frankly dull. Just accept that yours isn’t the only view, as I said up thread.

but the account from your niece, and all the accounts on here of what happened up to about 6pm are about identical.

However, when several people went on to describe what happened after 6pm, you shut them down and cast doubt on them by repeatedly posting that they didn't tally with what your niece had said and therefore were wrong.

When you should have said 'this all happened after my niece left, and for what its worth, I don't even know which location she was at, so that could account for why she saw men with placards that others didn't see'

But instead you've dug your heels in and continued to lash out at posters giving their accounts.

Again, why? Why are you so unable to believe what several women saw?

@rosetylersbiggun - why - are people carrying placards to a vigil, if they didn’t intend to protest?

Surely a placard would have been made prior to attending the event the police began to get hostile?

Sorry - before the police got hostile

A placard is not necessarily hostile, nor was it legally clear that protest was banned.

What is telling is that it happened after dark, and there was kettling by the police. If anyone has been in London in the last ten years then they would be familiar with the public order problems with kettling and that it seems to prompt people to react very badly. It may also not have been lawfully done.

why - are people carrying placards to a vigil, if they didn’t intend to protest?

The placards had statements against male violence, things like "SHE WAS JUST WALKING HOME" written on them, which imo are completely appropriate for a vigil honouring a woman murdered by male violence.

None of the ACAB placards turned up till hours later.

Besides there's nothing actually wrong with protesting against male violence. It worries me that so many posters are making arguments along the lines of, "but those awful women exploited a woman's murder to state they're against male violence, burn the witch!!"

There's clearly a huge difference between going to a vigil for a woman murdered by male violence with a "stop violence against women" placard, and anti-maskers/Covid-deniers hijacking the vigil for their own completely unrelated agenda.

Sarah was murdered. She wasn't hit by a car. She didn't die of cancer. She's dead because of male violence, and a culture of patriarchy which allows male violence to flow unchecked. I'm not going to say anything which might prejudice a trial but if you've followed the news at all, there are two specific reasons why this murder has made so many women scared and angry.

And the person standing accused of her murder is a Metropolitan police officer. Police protect their own, and the police as a whole.

It also really worries me how much women's behaviour is being policed based on how much we conform to the ideal of the good and silent and submissive and pliant Good Little Girl we are. And acting like not being a Good Little Girl justifies violence.

Women have spent many generations being told, we'll just be Good Little Girls and we won't have to hurt you, rape you, beat you, murder you, deny you rights. It's all your fault, you make us treat you this way!

A lot of posts here have attempted to create a binary: the Good Little Girls who just wanted to silently light a candle and leave (so quiet! so good! taking up so little space!), and the Nasty Women who had the audacity to have small signs with "stop male violence" on them, or to talk back when police made aggressive comments, or who refused to do as they're told by men, and therefore deserve everything that's coming to them.

Where do you draw the line between a Good Little Girl, and a Nasty Woman? Obviously holding a placard puts you in the latter category. Apparently reading poetry does too. Telling a police officer to "shh" during the minute's silence definitely does! What about a t-shirt? If a woman goes to the vigil, silently lights a candle and leaves, but she's wearing a t-shirt with "stop violence against women", is that enough to tip her into the latter category?

If anyone has been in London in the last ten years then they would be familiar with the public order problems with kettling and that it seems to prompt people to react very badly. It may also not have been lawfully done

And not just in the last ten years. They were doing it nearly 40 years ago, it’s bloody frightening, people panic and get hurt.

Oh come on @rosetylersbiggun - killed by the system we are told protects was one. I’m sure there were others.

@mbosnz

I don’t think there’s any evidence that the police have attempted to protect the suspect. The police officers dealing with the women at the vigil were completely out of order, but that’s no reason to suspect that this is because the suspect is a serving met officer. They have after all arrested him very early on and charged him.

You would have had a point if it had turned out months later that they had concealed evidence.

@rosetylersbiggun the he issue was that it was Covid times, and the protest was not allowed to go ahead. What were the police supposed to do? And actually I find the rhetoric of peaceful, passive, slight women v big burly police officers HUGELY sexist.