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

[berniedicters]

All I am saying is that it is the responsibility of all cops to deal with the thugs infesting the met. The Met cannot expect any respect or co-operation from the public until they show they have the integrity and guts to police their own service.

I suppose the problem here is twofold. First of all, the "thugs infesting the met" (and why does the Met have to be a special case here - I've had run-ins with police in the Dyfed-Powys force whom I suspect would have been right at home on some of those cordons in London?) presumably serve some useful purpose, at least as far as the Met is concerned? I mean, if they were an obvious and unmitigated nuisance, someone would have tried to get rid of them, surely? My guess is that there is an element within police forces which quite likes having a few wild dogs around the place - maybe it makes them feel more secure.

Which leads me to my second point - could it actually be that these organisations are themselves frightened of the thugs? Perhaps the bullying behaviour extends into the locker room and the canteen, too, and the colleagues of these thugs are just too scared to report it? The more I see of bullying in other contexts the more I realise its potential to "lock in" behaviours and relationships which are absolutely to the detriment of all those involved, including the bullies, but which organisations often collude in maintaining, in most cases not deliberately.

Heh, perhaps we need to look at it in a way that says these organisations need help They have a kind of addiction, and what they need is a bit of "tough love" to get them off that hook, and starting to deal with the thugs and bullies in their midst. I think some kind of change is long-overdue - it seems to me that a lot of the racism and sexism that we've quite successfully overcome in society is still there, just beneath the surface, in the police, in a kind of "we know we're not supposed to say this, but..." way.

My guess is that a lot of this is tied in very closely with the @renegade copper running loose" on the streets stuff - it's not that they order it to go on, but they tacitly let it happen. Maybe when the penalties for allowing that to happen are so high that it becomes easier to tackle the thug tendency head-on, some change might happen. It's going to take some serious pressure for that to occur, though.

 

[rekil]

Am I the only one to see parallels between the behaviour of the unidentified suspended officer, and the cop that assaulted Nicola Fisher? I'm not suggesting that they're the same person - I'm suggesting that (from my perception at least) there's that roaming around/not part of the cordon/swooping in to take someone out aspect that seems similar.

DaveCinzano mentioned something previously about a LibDem MP (Tom Brake?) claiming there was a designated hitter system in operation.

 

[berniedicters]

you'll be waiting a long, long time



oracle]
that's posted by someone with the .sig
"LEWD STEWED & TATTOOED
I'm here to help, the taxpayer sent me."

That's seriously pathetic bluster.

We can do without the "support" of thugs like LEWD STEWED & TATTOOED just fine.

I do hope that the media are onto those boards, too. I think it would make for some very interesting background if some of these attitudes were to be aired out there in the public domain.

And as for coppers who can even conceive of spraying demonstrators with petrol and setting fire to them, let alone allow a view like that out into the public domain...well, I think they picked up the wrong card in the Jobcentre.

 

[cesare]

DaveCinzano mentioned something previously about a LibDem MP (Tom Brake?) claiming there was a designated hitter system in operation.

Ah, OK, cheers. I missed that.

 

[winjer]

DaveCinzano mentioned something previously about a LibDem MP (Tom Brake?) claiming there was a designated hitter system in operation.

Based on the idea that the one without the numbers does the hitting. I think he's wrong, it's a combination of not caring whether they have numbers on, and not caring whether they assault people.

e.g.
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=17683

 

[DaveCinzano]

The 'designated hitter' remark was reportedly made by LibDem justice spokesman David Howarth. The comment was featured in several reports, eg:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7999277.stm
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601102
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/u...ult-by-police-at-g20-protests-86908-21280153/
http://www.southwalesguardian.co.uk/uk_national_news/4290997.G20__attack__officer_is_suspended/
http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/...fficer_suspended_for_hitting_out_at_woman.php

The phrase does not appear to feature in any of the press releases in Howarth's page on the LibDem website now though.

 

[rekil]

Based on the idea that the one without the numbers does the hitting. I think he's wrong, it's a combination of not caring whether they have numbers on, and not caring whether they assault people.

I'd tend to agree with this. It's a queer old business, assaulting people and that.

 

[Squatticus]

TSG:

Sorry London but if you don't support us then we won't support you.

Ooh goody!

 

[tar1984]

That police forum makes grim reading.

They are all illiterate bastards as well!

 

[Struwwelpeter]

Each of these points might individually be discounted, but together they form part of a compelling circumstantial case, that the suspended officer was acting in a manner consistent with practice, standing orders or ad hoc deployment by other, controlling minds.

I don't disagree with your points at all. However, what is a "compelling case" to you and me, both "reasonable people" D) is not necessarily how the IPCC/CPS/Home Office will see it or spin it.

IMO, if there are any criminal charges out of this at all, it will either be against the individual officer or it will be another Health & Safety charge against the Met/CoP. I very much doubt that it would be both.

Which leads me to my second point - could it actually be that these organisations are themselves frightened of the thugs? Perhaps the bullying behaviour extends into the locker room and the canteen, too, and the colleagues of these thugs are just too scared to report it? The more I see of bullying in other contexts the more I realise its potential to "lock in" behaviours and relationships which are absolutely to the detriment of all those involved, including the bullies, but which organisations often collude in maintaining, in most cases not deliberately.

Interesting point!

 

[bluestreak]

That police forum makes grim reading.

They are all illiterate bastards as well!

Yep, ignorant bully boys convinced of their own righteousness. The law is what they do, by any means necessary.

They have no morality, just tribalism.

 

[tar1984]

Totally. The level of self-justification is something else.

Cunts.

 

[Fruitloop]

I don't thik it's a characteristic of the people that sign up, or if there is some self-selection it's not the main problem. The problem is the institution itself - Stanford prison experiment blah blah blah.

 

[tar1984]

I agree to an extent. Although I do think it takes a certain type of person to want to join the police...

Even the guys who sign up for the right reasons are going to end up immersed in whole the canteen culture. Of what is basically a diseased organisation.

Not good.

 

[DaveCinzano]

I don't disagree with your points at all. However, what is a "compelling case" to you and me, both "reasonable people" D) is not necessarily how the IPCC/CPS/Home Office will see it or spin it.

That is true, but then I am not (and haven't been) directing my comments at the IPCC, the police lawyers or the career politicians, nor have I particularly concerned myself with the niceties of jurisprudence. (Because, after all, the game is rigged.)

This whole G20 aftermath business is about the true nature of policing, and the need for actual, real justice. It's about standing up for ourselves. It's about never forgetting or forgiving. It's about anger at the way police officers lie and fabricate and look the other way, without impunity, about how police force backs up political systems which exclude the many to the benefit of the few. It's about all this and more, different but often similar or the same things overlapping, to different people.

I'm not banging on about things like 14+ police witnesses (including senior officers) to the deadly assault on Ian Tomlinson pretending like they didn't see anything because I'm on a Perry Mason trip, but because I have no faith, trust or hope in the police. A man died at their hands, for no reason. A man who could have been my dad, my uncle, me. A man put to the floor from behind, by one anonymous tooled-up thug backed up by the silence of his tooled-up, anonymous mates, an attack children in a playground could recognise as cowardly.

Well, I want to see their anonymity, their safety in the crowd, their magic shield, gone. I want them to have to face the glare of a bright summer's day, to walk out their front door of a morning and to see the look in their neighbours' eyes. I want them not to clutch at the excuses, the self-justifications, but to live from now until death remembering how contemptible their behaviour was, how they were the worst kind of bully, cheat, liar. I want them to feel the opprobrium of their children. I want them to feel too scared to ever do that sort of thing again.

I want them to know that actions have consequences, and I want those consequences to go beyond one man facing a criminal charge, a few others a disciplinary hearing.

 

[cesare]

I don't thik it's a characteristic of the people that sign up, or if there is some self-selection it's not the main problem. The problem is the institution itself - Stanford prison experiment blah blah blah.

I had the misfortune to go to school with quite a few daughters of OB of different ranks including one whose father was the asst com of the met at the time. Many of them and their friends went on to join the OB once they left school. Bullied the fuck out of anyone they could get away with. Attitude very similar to that posted on those forums.

 

[berniedicters]

I don't thik it's a characteristic of the people that sign up, or if there is some self-selection it's not the main problem. The problem is the institution itself - Stanford prison experiment blah blah blah.

Bit of both, I think.

When I think back to school and some of those who ended up in the police force, it did seem to be a bit of a tendency for people of a "certain type" to end up joining. Hard to put into words here, but it was a combination of a somewhat pedestrian intellect, and a certain outsiderness.

That said, I have met - and know - police officers who are anything but that kind of person. As a whole, they have tended to be a bit reactionary, and I can see some commonality between the mindset of people I've liked who are in the job and the attitudes shown in those quotes from police forum sites: albeit at opposite ends of quite a wide spectrum.

Perhaps it's what was alluded to before - once police stopped being part of a local community and operating within it, they lost the one thing that was going to stop them being the bully-boys of the State, and I think that has happened. And as that tendency has developed, so the attraction of a career in the police for the sort of person who does think breaking heads is a bit of fun will have increased. So it becomes a vicious circle, with people joining who have a propensity for being unpleasant, and who find in the "them and us" world of modern policing all the influences that Zimbardo discovered in his Experiment...

 

[Groucho]

...

My guess is that a lot of this is tied in very closely with the @renegade copper running loose" on the streets stuff - it's not that they order it to go on, but they tacitly let it happen. Maybe when the penalties for allowing that to happen are so high that it becomes easier to tackle the thug tendency head-on, some change might happen. It's going to take some serious pressure for that to occur, though.

In my view they need it to go on. It is about ensuring that the state has a body of armed men ready and willing to use violence against strike movements and social movements. In the final analysis, if our rulers cannot rule primarily by consent (propaganda etc) they will resort to force. So they need The Force. The police were set up to attack social movements such as the Chartists because it was no longer sensible to use the army. Use of the army kills people and escallates the war (even people not involved in protests start to get very upset when they hear that demonstrators have been killed). The growth of modern society means that the majority are capable of research into events and communication in a way that wasn't true prior to capitalism. Whereas peasant revolts could be put down by the army and executions, the deployment of the same against collective organisations of workers was dangerous.
An early deployment of the police against a Chartist rally led to the death of a police officer. The Chartist who stabbed him was released by the court because the public outcry against the police who had battered the Chartists with batons was so high. The verdict of the jury was justifiable homicide (1833).
How to maintain a force of violence against the majority? There is a need to give the impression that the force is there to protect all of us against anti-social crime. The fact is the police force are not organised on such lines as to enable them to do that effectively.
That is why the litany of police 'errors', and of 'bad apples' over the years is just so massive, and is why the state ensures that police who are caught assaulting protesters and pickets (miners, printers, POll Tax, Welling...), who kill in custody (Sylvester, Stanley..), who are caught fitting up suspects (Birmingham 6, Gui 4, Mag 7, Card 3, Bridge 4...) are very rarely if ever sacked let alone charged with an offence. If police officers were to fear dismissal or imprisonment as a consequence for attacking protesters etc they might not do it and their principle purpose is undermined. Hence the IPCC (or the PCA before it) never having faciliated the conviction of a single copper for any of the hundreds of deaths in police custody.
Just watch any of the footage of the G20 police violence or read the legal observers account of the attack on the climate camp. This was not rogue officers let of the leash. This was a concerted violent assault on protests directed by the senior officers on the ground.
Ian Tomlinson died at around 19:30 pm. The police found their favoured pathologist to give them their natural causes verdict and released their concocted story at 22:30 pm (or just before then). That wasn't the actions of a rogue copper but of an organised attempt to cover up a death that followed and was most likely a direct result of an assault by police officers that occured during a planned reign of terror against those who would protest against the priorities of our rulers.
The police force should be on trial not just a few rogue coppers.

 

[winjer]

Now on 'watch again' at http://www.channel4.com/news/

It's interesting to see that 'Officer A' was originally part of the kettle line on Cornhill, where the rest of his serial (U41) remained - you can see them in from around 03:35.

Also, the reports that he was based in Clapham seem to be wrong, as 4TSG is based in Catford.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Very well put. We used to aim for policing by consent, and constables were people employed to help citizens enforce the law.

Constables patrolled a set beat alone and on foot. They interacted with locals on a daily basis. Doubtless you got bullies and thugs all the same, but it was riskier. Constables relied on the people around them, people who might not come to their aid if they threw their weight around.

This was done away with by "modernizers" in the 1960s. I believe that change led directly to the gendarmerie we have today.

I'd say that the change that has affected policing the most has been the change to patrolling by car, which allowed resources to be redeployed from "walking beats" to primarily response roles.

Why do the police feel the need to array themselves with weapons and armour? Because consent is gone. Thugs aren't afraid of them, and law abiding people are made impotent, told to "jump up and down" if they see an old lady being beaten senseless. A state that despises its citizens demands the police have a monopoly on lawful force.

I wouldn't say that policing by consent has "gone", but that it's been severely attenuated as policing has become increasingly professionalised, and has (via 30 years of picayune criminal justice-related legislation that has focused on criminalisation of previously accepted behaviours) shifted deeper into a social control role at the expense of a public/community assistance role.

Look at what's been created. Police are isolated by policy, holed up in stationhouses and cars, or at most, patrol reactively in pairs, ear to the radio. They avoid informal chat with the public because they're obliged to act on "reports" of crime, even if the person just wants a comforting word. So officers band together, talk of "civilians", and the canteen culture spirals out of control. It's not a deliberate choice by officers, but an unintended and unavoidable consequence of withdrawing them from the streets.

I'd have to argue that "canteen culture" and the "us and them" attitude has always been present. In fact it's pretty much a given to any institutional environment, it's merely a matter of degree of alienation. Police officers have always experienced some degree of alienation from the wider community, but our current police services, for a plethora of reasons, are probably more alienated from "the wider community" than at any time since the 1920s and 1930s, when they lent their weight to supporting the political establishment at the expense of those wider communities.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Am I the only one to see parallels between the behaviour of the unidentified suspended officer, and the cop that assaulted Nicola Fisher? I'm not suggesting that they're the same person - I'm suggesting that (from my perception at least) there's that roaming around/not part of the cordon/swooping in to take someone out aspect that seems similar.

Used to see something similar in the 80s, where you get a handful of coppers basically roaming around acting like animals, rather than standing in a line with their co-workers.
The usual aim appeared to be to provoke reasonably peaceful protest into violence. Single officers causing aggro being more deniable (in an age where cameras and video recording equipment weren't common) than a phalanx of noddies beating the crap out of defenceless people.

 

[ViolentPanda]

TSG:



Ooh goody!

I'd happily support any copper that issues an ultimatum like that.

On a crucifix.

 

[ViolentPanda]

That police forum makes grim reading.

They are all illiterate bastards as well!

I've seen better grammar, spelling and punctuation from my dyslexic nephews.

 

[cesare]

Used to see something similar in the 80s, where you get a handful of coppers basically roaming around acting like animals, rather than standing in a line with their co-workers.
The usual aim appeared to be to provoke reasonably peaceful protest into violence. Single officers causing aggro being more deniable (in an age where cameras and video recording equipment weren't common) than a phalanx of noddies beating the crap out of defenceless people.

Yep.

 

[tar1984]

I've seen better grammar, spelling and punctuation from my dyslexic nephews.

 

[Azrael]

I'd have to argue that "canteen culture" and the "us and them" attitude has always been present. In fact it's pretty much a given to any institutional environment, it's merely a matter of degree of alienation.

That's what I meant by saying it has spiralled out of control. Back when officers had informal public contact, it could be held in check. Now virtually all on-duty contact is in a professional capacity, and the law has been changed so all people are suspects.

The ideal that public and police were on the same side also helped. In a move unimaginable today, Edwardian officers appealed to the public to help them shoot down armed criminals in the Tottenham Outrage.

The move to cars, supposedly introduced because foot patrols were "impractical" in centrally planned estates, is a symptom of our police moving from deterrence to reactive fire-brigade policing. This is what's made recent calls from the Met Commissioner for officers to patrol on foot and alone of limited value. It's not just where the officers patrol, but what their purpose is.

The setting up of the Special Patrol Group in 1965 looks like a watershed moment, when a unit with the specific purpose of confrontation and control was institutionalised. "Special units" must feed all the worst macho fantasies of some officers. (I'm not tarring all with the same brush, I'm sure others want to do a good job.) Sadly current thinking is all for such units, and technology, instead of boring human factors.

 

[winjer]

Again, did they know that at the time? Tomlinson collapsed 200 yards away from where this incident occured, and from the statement in its initial form they clearly spoke to independent witnesses at Cornhill to get their account of events there.

They can only have spoken to cops, all the civilian witnesses having been baton-charged across London Bridge. Some of the cops there would certainly have known that the incident and the collapse were connected, since they were present at both points.

See this photo:
http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/85755925/AFP?axd=DetailPaging.Generic|1&axs=0
which is taken opposite 77 Cornhill where Tomlinson collapsed, the FIT cop at the rear is one of those seen at Royal Exchange Buildings.

The journos, witnesses and everyone else did not know the dead man was Tomlinson, and that he was the same guy as was the person at the Royal Exchange until pictures of him being treated came to light. They then came forward and informed the press and IPCC, and the IPCC appears to have reacted appropriately to those reports.

This isn't true, the first eyewitness reports contradicting the police statement were received by legal support around 11pm on April 1st.

 

[winjer]

Yet photographs before his death seem to show marks on his face... I would've thought hitting the floor without breaking your fall would've left it's mark too

The press finally noticed the bruising:

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK...Injury_After_Being_Pushed_To_Ground_By_Police

 

[pesh]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/new...he-wanted-to-beat-up-hippies-on-Facebook.html

g20 officer bollocked for stating the bleeding obvious on facebook...

i bet the officer on Police Oracle who stated he wanted to burn all the protesters alive is glad he deleted his post in time..

sorry for the torygraph link.

 

[tar1984]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/new...he-wanted-to-beat-up-hippies-on-Facebook.html

g20 officer bollocked for stating the bleeding obvious on facebook...

i bet the officer on Police Oracle who stated he wanted to burn all the protesters alive is glad he deleted his post in time..

sorry for the torygraph link.

Another fascinating insight into their way of thinking...