Ian Tomlinson and the G20 protests
Posted on Wednesday, April 8, 2009 at 12:19pm
3 responses
I realise that lots of bloggers have linked to this video already, but I think it’s important that as many of us show this video as possible, and reiterate the need for an inquiry into the actions of the Metropolitan Police in this instance. News programmes today reporting further on the incident suggest that Ian Tomlinson was ill, and that the ‘excitement’ of the event, as Sky News describes it, may have led to his heart attack. Whether this is the case or not, this does not however excuse the police for acting in the way that they did. Ian Tomlinson had his hands in his pockets, and did not pose a threat to the them from what I have seen from the videos. Even if Ian Tomlinson was on the protest, and was exercising his right to campaign, this does not mean that the police can treat citizens in this way. Even when he fell to the ground, not one police officer went to offer him support. People will be put off from using their democratic rights to protest peacefully in the future.
The police have been filming protestors at rallies and demos to use for intelligence purposes for a while now. But they must be aware that with the rise of applications like twitter, youtube on mobile phones and cameras, protestors and the public at large can now film events as they happen, and such behaviour by the police, who command the respect of the public, cannot be tolerated. Evidence from such videos will be key in the case of Ian Tomlinson- changing the way that such investigations would have happened ten years ago.
britian’s own rodney king moment bethan?
Police officers are caught out blatantly lying over their conduct towards an innocent person who posed no threat to them at all.
Clearly nothing less than full disciplinary measures against the officers involved ie dismissal will in any way suffice on this occassion.
But anyone with any experience of the miners strike or the anti-poll tax campaigns – to name but two – would know that the British police have been doing things like this for years and getting away with it!
It is easy to see now why the police supported recent legislation pushed through by brown’s govt that makes it an offence – punishable by up to 10 years in prison – to film or photograph police officers!
This example of citizen journalism, together with the Moldavian one you posted, shows why social networking/web2.0 and such should be subject to as little political and legal meddling as possible. They have become essential tools, not just for the Police etc, but for the ordinary person too. Of course, that’s exactly the reason that politics/law wants to clamp down on it, to monitor it, to regulate it, to censor it.
Who watches the watchmen? We do. And it’s vital that we keep doing it.
Dead, but no Guardian campaign for him.
During this incident, a man is pushed over and later dies of a heart attack. The man who pushed him over was trying to push him, of that there is no doubt. But he wasn’t trying to kill him. The Coroner declared that the victim died of natural causes and the perpetrator was never charged with anything even approaching manslaughter or murder.
Sound familiar?
Here is where the story changes dimension.
The national papers cover it as a factual piece, BBC News Websites give it a bit but not too much and national radio is almost silent over the issue. Almost no one howls for summary justice or a special enquiry. Do you know of this incident?
The dead man was PC Chris Roberts, the offender was Patrick Savage and it happened almost invisibly in Brinkburn Gardens, Edgware on Boxing Day 2007. At first, when initial reports flashed out on the wires that a policeman had died during an incident in London, the media ran it as “Breaking News!”. As soon as the circumstances became clear, they binned it pretty quickly.