G20: Getting to the truth- the death of Ian Tomlinson RIP

[cesare]

This was my impression too.

I'm also furious at the way Ian Tomlinson is being smeared. Even if he was drunk, so fucking what? Since when was there a law against having a few drinks after work? He was walking away from the police, hands in pockets, when he was assaulted. There can be no justification whatsoever for what the police did. None.

Absolutely. I fucking hate this 'asking for it' implication.

 

[laptop]

Unconfirmed story doing the roads of a TV news outfit is that the officer who pushed Tomlinson was also in the ruck at the climate camp.

Definitely a bad apple, then

Neither of these actions (if unconfirmed story true) anything to do with the orders and briefings and windup they were given, then.

 

[lopsidedbunny]

NEW FOOTAGE

Where the raining of bottles????

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/video/2009/apr/09/g20-police-assault-ian-tomlinson

 

[free spirit]

NEW FOOTAGE

Where the raining of bottles????

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/video/2009/apr/09/g20-police-assault-ian-tomlinson

not really new footage if you check the thread, but yes, distinct absence of a rain of bottles.

 

[pesh]

note that the timing's of these images have 99.9% certainly been taken from the time stamp on the camera, which probably hadn't been moved on an hour, which would put those images as taking place right around the time that he'd been attacked. Something that becomes more likely when you consider that his work mate on the newspaper stall has stated that Ian hadn't left the stall until 7pm - ie 50 minutes after those images are alleged to have been taken.

this x 100

has to be the case, hopefully it gets cleared up...
although i'd be amazed if the Mail and Sun hadn't had the same thought, it's hardly Colombo level detective work

 

[laptop]

My camera knows what time-zone it's in, and does Summer Time all by itself. And it's only little and cheap.

 

[starfish]

Once again it doesnt look very good for the powers that be.

Do you ever feel like a mushroom?

 

[pesh]

My camera knows what time-zone it's in, and does Summer Time all by itself. And it's only little and cheap.

mine doesn't, i just checked, it's a Nikon D70 dSLR and it thinks it's 1.23am

 

[ymu]

Blimey.

Most viewed on guardian.co.uk
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3. Video: Ian Tomlinson death: New video footage from G20 protests gives fresh angle on attack
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5. Video of police assault on Ian Tomlinson, who died at G20 protest

Most talked about
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1. Video reveals G20 police assault on man who died (75 technorati links)
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4. U2 manager Paul McGuinness on France's solution to online piracy (14)
5. Police officer breaks cover over death of Ian Tomlinson (12)

 

[ymu]

Critics say recent decisions not to prosecute officers, including the De Menezes case where the CPS decided not to charge individual officers despite the fact that the inquest jury disbelieved key parts of the officers' accounts, suggest a prosecution in the latest instance is unlikely.

Figures obtained by the charity Inquest show that in cases where an inquest has delivered a verdict of unlawful killing, there have been only seven prosecutions of officers since 1990. "If you look at the record of cases where somebody's death has been caused by actions of the police, there have been hardly any prosecutions brought," Wistrich said. "The record is really, really poor.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/08/ian-tomlinson-g20-police-assault-footage

I think it is actually quite likely that there will be a prosecution in this instance. The problem is, there should be more than one, and it should involve officers far more senior than those on the scene. Chances are, he'll be made an example of and they'll hope most of us are stupid and complacent enough to go with the "bad apple" theory.


The Inquest figures are here.

15 deaths
10 inquest verdicts of unlawful killing
7 trials following such a verdict (2) or without an inquest (5)
22 officers prosecuted
16 acquitted (12) or had charges dropped (4)
6 collapsed trials
0 acquittals

 

[ymu]

 

[Barking_Mad]

When political cartoons are this good, who needs pages of articles?

 

[Barking_Mad]

Hardwick said of the assault:

"We don't have CCTV footage of the incident... there is no CCTV footage, there were no cameras in the location where he was assaulted."

Speaking to More 4 News, the IPCC confirmed Hardwick's comment, saying that the CCTV cameras overlooking the incident were not working.

These fuckers have some nerve eh?

http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/society/law_order/ipcc+cctv+wasnt+working/3078297

 

[xes]

These fuckers have some nerve eh?

http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/society/law_order/ipcc+cctv+wasnt+working/3078297

Yeah but it was announced just days before the protest that some of the cameras were something like 8 pixels out, so they were just going to have to turn them off. That was no coincidence.

 

[Callie]

The cops like filming too don't they? I wonder if any of them were filming in the area? One assumes not.

 

[cesare]

Yeah but it was announced just days before the protest that some of the cameras were something like 8 pixels out, so they were just going to have to turn them off. That was no coincidence.

Wasn't that just Westminster though?

 

[London_Calling]

This will be very important given the statements by photo-journalists that events began much further along the passageway and before the footage.

A second postmortem on Tomlinson's body was conducted by Dr Nathaniel Carey, one the UK's most respected forensic pathologists, yesterday. He is understood to have been instructed to consider injuries Tomlinson may have suffered before his heart attack - identified as the cause of death by the first postmortem.

Carey was advised to inspect whether Tomlinson had been bitten by a police dog, or had bruising to his legs or upper body consistent with being hit with a baton. He also assessed whether there were neurological injuries that may have stemmed from an injury to Tomlinson's head. The second postmortem was jointly ordered by Tomlinson's family and the IPCC.

 

[Stobart Stopper]

The posts on here would make a lynch mob blush.

Nothing to do with "lynch mobs", this is about someone standing around with his hands in his pockets being thrown across the pavement with such force it took him off his feet.
It's there on film for all to see. How can anyone dispute that?

 

[lopsidedbunny]

Where this picture coming from?

 

[Stobart Stopper]

Try standing in a line with a baying mob in front of you mate, it's scary.

My husband has done it in the past, quite a few times and he said he would never have pushed someone over in that way. You can DEFEND yourself and use baton charging to do so but he's never knocked anyone off their feet like that.

 

[editor]

This will be very important given the statements by photo-journalists that events began much further along the passageway and before the footage.

From the same article:

Harriet Wistrich, who represents the family of Jean Charles De Menezes, the Brazilian shot dead by police who misidentified him as a suicide bomber, said last night that the Guardian's video appeared to show strong evidence that a crime had been committed. "In these circumstances, I can't reason why the officer involved could not be arrested and questioned under caution at this time."

Her comments were backed by Brian Paddick, the former Metropolitan police deputy assistant commissioner, who said: "If that had been a member of the public caught on video doing that, they would have immediately been arrested.
"The police are in danger of being accused of double standards by not suspending and arresting the officer. There is a danger of undermining public confidence in the police by not taking decisive action."

 

[ska invita]

Hardwick said of the assault:

"We don't have CCTV footage of the incident... there is no CCTV footage, there were no cameras in the location where he was assaulted."

Speaking to More 4 News, the IPCC confirmed Hardwick's comment, saying that the CCTV cameras overlooking the incident were not working.

These fuckers have some nerve eh?

http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/society/law_order/ipcc+cctv+wasnt+working/3078297

This is an interesting if not predictable development. As I said earlier, the US police & secret services to this date have managed to supress all CCTV footage of the Petagon explosion of 9/11, so this is small fry in comparison.

There is NO WAY there isnt CCTV footage available. The square mile is the most CCTV'd up place in the world, plus there would have been endless extra cameras in place by the forces themselves. The problem is once MI5 and the Met want to clsoe the door on this, who is to stop them?

The one hope is that a private CCTV camera owned by a shop keeper can be brought to light. In the 9/11 Pentagon case this was stopped by CIA moving in immediately (same day according to civilians) and confiscating this material. I doubt this has been done immediately by the MI5, so some small chance remains... though by now they would have been sure to act.

...this stinks...

I think it is actually quite likely that there will be a prosecution in this instance. The problem is, there should be more than one, and it should involve officers far more senior than those on the scene. Chances are, he'll be made an example of and they'll hope most of us are stupid and complacent enough to go with the "bad apple" theory.


The Inquest figures are here.

15 deaths
10 inquest verdicts of unlawful killing
7 trials following such a verdict (2) or without an inquest (5)
22 officers prosecuted
16 acquitted (12) or had charges dropped (4)
6 collapsed trials
0 acquittals

Thanks for posting these, been looking for something like this for a long time but the figures you give are misleading - from what i see from the link no prosecution ever goes through and all cases are let off with acquitalls, so no one was every sucessfully prosecuted. not one.

As to your comment that "I think it is actually quite likely that there will be a prosecution in this instance", I think you couldnt be more wrong - I think there is no chance of prosecution (to make they guy a scapegoat or otherwise) - to prosecute one policeman for a push and hit from behind would open the door for thousands of other cases and the high court judge just isnt going to allow that to happen.

 

[ViolentPanda]

A push, maybe, the strike on the back of the legs, may be something the policeman will have to defend in court.( other European police must be baffled by such a big issue of a blow to the back of the legs by a policeman, when many other European police forces would have clubbed him the first time he did not move)

Perhaps you've not been paying attention, but police forces in mainland Europe have pretty much the same training as British police, in that their training is to do with tackling people who're facing you (it's called "imminent threat"). You get no training on batoning someone from behind in a crowd control situation.
Oh, and your vomment about European coppers twatting people the first time they refused to move is also bullshit. They have to show "reasonable cause", even the hooligans of the CRS.

 

[cesare]

Perhaps you've not been paying attention, but police forces in mainland Europe have pretty much the same training as British police, in that their training is to do with tackling people who're facing you (it's called "imminent threat"). You get no training on batoning someone from behind in a crowd control situation.
Oh, and your vomment about European coppers twatting people the first time they refused to move is also bullshit. They have to show "reasonable cause", even the hooligans of the CRS.

I'd like to think that "vomment" was a deliberate shortening of 'vomit inducing comment' but sadly it's more likely a result of the c and v being next to each other on the keyboard. Nonetheless, I think we should adopt it for the future

 

[Callie]

Does anyone actually know if the Freedom of Information Act covers shop CCTV footage?

I think this aspect would be highly time dependant (probably too late already) if it is an option!

 

[ViolentPanda]

Other European policemen have reputations for being just as (if not more) violent and thuggish as our own. This is not a good thing. Just look at the riot police in places like Spain and Italy.

Other European citizens mights empathise slightly more.

The big difference between the police in the UK and forces in mainland Europe is that many of those states do hold their police more to account (generally because of strict civilian oversight).

 

[ViolentPanda]

Then there's the sidebar to the above-linked Mail story:



Sweepstake on how long before someone's arrested for photographing an officer committing a crime? I give it a month - if it hasn't happened already.

What interests me is the logical divide between "eliciting, publishing or communicating information about a police officer" and the actual act of taking a picture of a police officer, which neither elicits, publishes or communicates any information unless and until you put the image out in the world.

 

[Paul Russell]

mine doesn't, i just checked, it's a Nikon D70 dSLR and it thinks it's 1.23am

My Nikon D90 didn't change either. I think most cameras would have to be changed manually and quite a few people would take a few days/weeks to realise their clock needed changing. In fact there was a thread about it in the photography forum and someone said that they were going to change it in case they needed pics as evidence...

 

[ymu]

Does anyone actually know if the Freedom of Information Act covers shop CCTV footage?

I think this aspect would be highly time dependant (probably too late already) if it is an option!

Don't know, but you're right - this is an important angle. Faulty CCTV is part of the Met's cover-up MO. I'm sure the solicitors are onto it - JCdM's family lawyer is involved and she won't miss that trick. She's got the ear of the press at the moment too.

 

[ViolentPanda]

mine doesn't, i just checked, it's a Nikon D70 dSLR and it thinks it's 1.23am

My Canon EOS slr keeps flashing up "ffs set the date and time you lazy cunt".