Something which I would argue is based at least as much on a desperate lack of understanding about what the law is, etc. as on any informed opinion. This is precisely why I do what I do here and (more importantly) why I do likewise in the broadcast media. Criticise by all means ... but do so from an informed position.
Ian Tomlinson CPS verdict: "no realistic prospect of conviction"
- Thread starter solidyeoman
- Start date
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Who hadn't informed the pathologist that there had been police contact? Whose job was that? Why didn't they do it?
Barking_Mad
Non sibi sed omnibus
Britain's top prosecutor was confronted by Ian Tomlinson's family and told that his decision not to bring charges was a "fucking disgrace" and that he should "go back" to his "million-pound house".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jul/22/ian-tomlinson-family-charges-disgrace
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jul/22/ian-tomlinson-family-charges-disgrace
Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journalist
But we're not talking about complaints and discipline here are we? This is a death following police contact and as such is absolutely the responsibility of the IPCC to investigate, with a full independent investigation too ... as you well know
And the police service has not chosen to keep the rest of the shite for itself either - it would be more than happy if the IPCC (or anyone else) was made responsible and resourced to take it over. So don;t imply that the fact that they are still responsible is somehow a decision made by the police ...
(And if you ust use big words like egregious, make sure you use appropriate ones - the IPCC take over the most serious cases)
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
oh come on now. you know detective-boy's the only poster here arguing from an informed position. who are we to criticise what no one but detective-boy understands?
xes
F.O.A.D
something I would argue is based on at least a little bit of common sense, and knowing the difference between right and wrong.
Any independent and open-minded observer would clearly see that I have engaged by grey matter in relation to this thread to a massively greater extent than the vast majority of other posters (who have simply ranted / repeated prejudices / declared they're not interested in any other information / explanation / perspective ...)
Barking_Mad
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go on then. Link to any publicly available source showing the police using force on Ian Tomlinson before 3 April.There were witnesses flooding the internet with their version of events right from the off, together with videos, photos etc ............. so you can take this >>
Barking_Mad
Non sibi sed omnibus
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
you've claimed that at the time the first post mortem was carried out it wasn't known that there had been police contact. who didn't know? the police? the coroner? the ipcc? who?
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
how many police officers came into 'contact' with the police, how many police observed such, who many of them subsequently reported it, and was this contact communicated to the coroner? the answers would be, respectively, about 3, about 30, about none and no.
xes
F.O.A.D
I shall slap myself in the face until I remember!!
Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journalist
What about if he'd got his dog to bite a police officer, then struck him with a metal tube and final shoved him to the floor as he was walking away, only for the officer to collapse and die minutes later? What do you think the CPS would have done in that case? And if the answer isn't that no prosecution would have followed the it looks very much like one law for the police and another for Ian Tomlinson.
Louis MacNeice
I have no detailed knowledge of what was said by who, in who context, when or why. And so I cannot make any comment on whether any disciplinary action would be appropriate. If you do and you share it I will give you a view.
I have seen nothing from the police (official or even unofficial) which implies he was a troublemaker. Please link to anything you are aware of.
I have no idea. There certainly should have been disciplinary action in cases where evidence was readily available (I would not necessarily suggest that it would be worth spending millions carrying out a huge reactive investigation unless there were aggravating factors (such as the officer with no ID numbers displayed committing some serious offence). If there have been none then that is perfectly sound grounds for complaint / criticism. (As I have posted consistently from the outset).
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
let's just go back five years and think about the case of jean charles de menezes. how long was it before questions started to be asked about his death and the police version of events started to unravel?
returning to 1 april 2009, it's well known that the police forced journalists to leave parts of the city of london. it's well known that the police set out to assault hundreds - if not thousands of people - that day. it's well known that the police issued lies about the circumstances of ian tomlinson's death. and now you're falling back on the false position of talking about publicly available material, when the facts of the case were known within minutes, if not hours, to bronze, silver and gold commanders on the day.
Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journalist
And you are the objective vice of reason arguing from within the very institution being criticised; you can see how that comes across can't you?
Louis MacNeice
p.s. I should declare an interest as on both of the two occasions I have been in the dock, the police giving evidence have lied on oath; luckily on neither occasion were there serious repercussions from their perjury, but it happened and there could have been. I was genuinely shocked that they did it.
Streathamite
ideological dogmatist
erm, i thought it was the CPS who should 'follow up' on the IPCC recommendations'? i.e. the IPCC investigate, and if they deem there is a possible case hand the file to the CPS with words to the tune of 'based on our investigation, we think there may be a case to answer, tho' yours is the final say'?
xes
F.O.A.D
Because it is the police who do the violent actions worthy of complaint in the first place, and it is the police who make dam fucking sure that they get away with it. the IPCC are there to keep people like me quiet. They're obviously not taken seriously by the CPS.How the fuck can it be POLICE corruption when it is ther IPCC who have not followed them up?
Hmmm. I'm not sure. As I said there is certainly no way that every sudden death can (or should) be treated as unexplained / suspicious (for a start you'd all be whinging about hundreds more streets being closed for days and days whilst full scene examinations were carried out). But I am surprised that this was not recognised as a case which did merit such an approach even though there was no knowledge of police use of force at the time. It can't really be an exhaustive list of situations which are and which are not to be treated to the full monty - the world isn't that neat and tidy - but it certainly should have been recognised as a "critical incident" by someone at an early stage - the supervisor in charge of the unit giving first aid, or any supervisor made aware that he had died if no-one else (and I would have expected the incident commander, who must have been aware of the collapse incident, to have recognised it).
In my last couple of years of service, I started to make arrangements for senior investigating officers, exhibits officers, scene examiners, etc. to be given basic public order training and provided with public order kit for precisely this sort of situation - a suspicious or unexplained death during public disorder - but I believe that that work was not taken any further after I left. This means that a "proper" major enquiry can only be commenced (in relation to scene examination, etc. anyway) after the disorder has been cleared and the area is safe for officers without protective equipment to be deployed into. In this particular case, I don't think that has made any difference - I would not have expected anything relevant to be recoverable from either the scene of the first contact (even if it were known at the time) or the location of the collapse. The whole issue relates to the PM procedure and that was taking place in a nice safe mortuary.
Nothing (apart from general employment law, now that that applies to police officers). The robustness (or otherwise) of internal disciplinary procedures is something I have bemoaned many times before. Yes, trivial matters should be rapidly dealt with and it would be entirely wrong to dismiss officers over some minor issue ... but serious matters should be thoroughly investigated, dealt with as soon as possible and there should be no reluctance to dismiss officers found guilty of serious disciplinary (or criminal) matters. (That said, we should not forget that there ARE lots of officers disciplined and dismissed which we do not hear about).
(I wouldn't critcise anyone, police officer or otherwise, for applying the letter of the law, however. It should absolutely be the case that all are amenable to the law equally - there cannot be any allowing the rules of law to be ignored just because it is a complaint against a police officer - they have Human Rights too.)
xes
F.O.A.D
But that's exactly what has happened.
cesare
shady's dreams ♥
That is where you go wrong. And that is why you keep winding yourself up. You ASSUME that the "police kill someone" when actually what happens is that someone dies. Sometimes, but relatively rarely, it turns out that "the police killed them" is actually accurate ... but then you need to take account of the fact that the law allows fatal force to be used in some cases and so a number of those cases turn out to be lawful killings. And then you need to differentiate cases where there is some malicious / intentional wrongdoing which causes / contributes to death from where there is a simple accident or mistake - police officers are human beings and so accidents and mistakes will inevitably happen.
By starting from the "police kill someone" perpective you simply set yourself up to be enraged because you create, by the use of that phrase, a picture in your mind which is frequently not accurate and so, when the investigation shows it up to be something else, you go into one.
Stupid little loopholes, that are there apparently to make sure that people who are innocent get a fair chance. But are used against that, to get guilty people off.Absolute classic bollocks!!!
No, it wouldn't. And no, I don't.
Yes it would ... the decision not to prosecute would have been made a damn sight earlier and with far less learned legal minds being applied to the case (as I have already posted)
Yes I can. As I have repeatedly said. And there ARE some issues of concern that need to be addressed. But it is NOT a massive cover-up / corruption, etc. and repeatedly ranting to that effect does absolutely nothing to help get the genuine issues which need to be addressed dealt with. As usual your hyperbole undermines any chance of sensible debate and genuine issues being addressed.
Urbanblues
Was that it, life?
DB, we live in a media-led age. Images, and more potently moving images, inform and form our view of the world. When we see man, hands in pocket, walking along, offering no offence to anyone, suddenly struck and beaten to the floor by the police, and these images coming from many different sources and angles...
How much more informed do you need to be? People watching the events of that day taken from different angles and by various persons are doing so from an informed position. The information transmitted to their TV screens informs them that the police brutally attacked an innocent man and he died shortly afterwards.
DB, we know you’ve little or no respect for the views of the average punter on here. We’re not bright enough to circumvent the smoke and mirrors you put up in defence of the police. Always defending, what are to the majority of U75 posters, fairly indefensible positions you come across as though you’re still in the pay of the Met; and, whenever one of us Bolshie bastards has the temerity to criticise or question a police action you get call from your superiors to come and sort us out.
Er, yes, you do ... otherwise you wouldn;t know what was and was not disproportionate, unnecessary or violent ...
Only in your fevered and prejudiced imagination where you see conspiracy and corruption everywhere ...
Excellent. I won't have to waste any more time addressing arrant nonsense then.
