Protesting the G20 summit

[luke]

they covered this on channel 4 news

Video reveals G20 police assault on man who died
Exclusive footage obtained by the Guardian shows Ian Tomlinson, who died during G20 protests in London, was attacked from behind by baton–wielding police officer

Dramatic footage obtained by the Guardian shows that the man who died at last week's G20 protests in London was attacked from behind and thrown to the ground by a baton–wielding police officer in riot gear.

Moments after the assault on Ian Tomlinson was captured on video, he suffered a heart attack and died.

The Guardian is preparing to hand a dossier of evidence to the police complaints watchdog.

It sheds new light on the events surrounding the death of the 47-year-old newspaper seller, who had been on his way home from work when he was confronted by lines of riot police near the Bank of England.

The submission to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) includes a collection of testimonies from witnesses, along with the video footage, shot at around 7.20pm, which shows Tomlinson at Royal Exchange Passage.

The film reveals that as he walks, with his hands in his pockets, he does not speak to the police or offer any resistance.

A phalanx of officers, some with dogs and some in riot gear, are close behind him and try to urge him forward.

A Metropolitan police officer appears to strike him with a baton, hitting him from behind on his upper thigh.

Moments later, the same policeman rushes forward and, using both hands, pushes Tomlinson in the back and sends him flying to the ground, where he remonstrates with police who stand back, leaving bystanders to help him to his feet.

The man who shot the footage, a fund manager from New York who was in London on business, said: "The primary reason for me coming forward is that it was clear the family were not getting any answers."

The Guardian's dossier also includes a sequence of photographs, taken by three different people, showing the aftermath of the attack, as well as witness statements from people in the area at the time.

A number of witnesses provided time and date-stamped photographs that substantiate their accounts.

Some said they saw police officers attack Tomlinson.

Witnesses said that, prior to the moment captured on video, he had already been hit with batons and thrown to the floor by police who blocked his route home.

One witness, Anna Branthwaite, a photographer, described how, in the minutes before the video was shot, she saw Tomlinson walking towards Cornhill Street.

"A riot police officer had already grabbed him and was pushing him," she said.

"It wasn't just pushing him – he'd rushed him. He went to the floor and he did actually roll. That was quite noticeable.

"It was the force of the impact. He bounced on the floor. It was a very forceful knocking down from behind. The officer hit him twice with a baton when he was lying on the floor.

"So it wasn't just that the officer had pushed him – it became an assault.

"And then the officer picked him up from the back, continued to walk or charge with him, and threw him.

"He was running and stumbling. He didn't turn and confront the officer or anything like that."

The witness accounts contradict the official version of events given by police.

In an official statement on the night of Tomlinson's death, the Metropolitan police made no reference to any contact with officers and simply described attempts by police medics and an ambulance crew to save his life after he collapsed – efforts they said were marred by protesters throwing missiles as first aid was administered .

The force said officers had created a cordon around Tomlinson to give him CPR.

"The officers took the decision to move him as during this time a number of missiles - believed to be bottles - were being thrown at them," it said.

Yesterday, the IPCC began managing an investigation by City of London police into the circumstances of Tomlinson's death after the Guardian published photographs of him on the ground and witness statements indicated he had been assaulted by police officers.

The IPCC commissioner for London, Deborah Glass, said: "Initially, we had accounts from independent witnesses who were on Cornhill, who told us that there had been no contact between the police and Mr Tomlinson when he collapsed."

"However, other witnesses who saw him in the Royal Exchange area have since told us that Mr Tomlinson did have contact with police officers.

"This would have been a few minutes before he collapsed. It is important that we are able to establish as far as possible whether that contact had anything to do with his death."

The IPCC added that Tomlinson was captured on CCTV walking onto Royal Exchange Passage.

"This is the aspect of the incident that the IPCC is now investigating," it said.

It was here the video was shot. A post mortem carried out by a Home Office pathologist last Friday revealed Tomlinson died of a heart attack.

Prior to seeing the dossier of evidence, Tomlinson's family said in a statement: "There were so many people around where Ian died, and so many people with cameras, that somebody must have seen what happened in the Royal Exchange passageway.

"We need to know what happened there and whether it had anything to do with Ian's death.

"We know that some people who were at the protest may not feel comfortable talking to the police.

"People are putting pictures on the internet, writing on blogs and talking to journalists. But we really need them to talk to the people who are investigating what happened."

Full investigation in tomorrow's Guardian

from http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/07/video-g20-police-assault

[luke]

Correcting the media narrative of the G20 protests on April 1, 2009



“Anti-capitalist protesters embarked upon a wrecking spree within a City branch of the Royal Bank of Scotland today,” shrieked The Times on April 1, “and engaged in running battles with police as G20 demonstrations turned violent. Police were forced to use dogs, horses and truncheons to control a crowd of up to 5,000 people who marched on the Bank of England, in Threadneedle Street, on the eve of the London summit.”

This narrative of events is entirely typical. Under the headline “Police clash with G20 protestors”, the BBC reported that “protesters stormed a London office of the Royal Bank of Scotland”, later adding that: “officers later used ‘containment’ then ‘controlled dispersal’” (BBC, April 1). The Guardian reported: “The G20 protests in central London turned violent today ahead of tomorrow’s summit, with a band of demonstrators close to the Bank of England storming a Royal Bank of Scotland branch … [S]ome bloody skirmishes broke out as police tried to keep thousands of people in containment pens” (The Guardian, April 1).

What is interesting about this narrative is that it precisely reverses the events of the day.

Eyewitness accounts of the day agree that the police began the now-infamous tactic of ‘kettling’ protestors - refusing to allow anyone in or out of a confined space held by police lines - as soon as the four marches had converged on the Bank of England, at around midday. An article in The Times a day earlier by a former Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Andy Hayman, suggested that the police had planned to use this tactic well in advance: “Tactics to herd the crowd into a pen, known as ‘the kettle’, have been criticised heavily before, yet the police will not want groups splintering away from the main crowd. This would stretch their resources” (The Times, March 31).

Note that the “violent outburst” (Telegraph) of window-breaking took place hours after the police had decided to “herd the crowd” of at least 5,000 people “into a pen” without access to food, water or toilet facilities - and without allowing them to leave.

The press was surely aware of this. The Guardian’s live blog from the day noted at 11.57 a.m. that “the barriers designed to fence in the protesters are not big enough”, an hour later it confirms that there is “a ‘kettle’ at the Bank of England”: half an hour later they report “clashes” and finally, at 1.30 p.m., “a window has been smashed.” An objective observer of the sequence of events here might ask whether the police ‘kettle’ had in fact been responsible for the “clashes”, “violence” and smashed window.

But this idea - that the kettle might have provoked the “clashes”, and that the police might therefore be responsible for the “violence” - is remarkably absent from virtually all of the reams of press coverage of the protests. We do, of course, have a spectrum of opinion: whereas the right-wing Daily Mail sees the protestors as “a fearsome group of thugs”, a “bizarre group of misfits” fuelled by “Dutch courage” and a “willingness to use violence” (April 1), for the left-wing Guardian only “a minority of demonstrators seemed determined to cause damage” whilst “much of the protesting” was “peaceful” (April 1).

Again, the notion that there was not a “violent” core of demonstrators at all, but that people were provoked into “clashes” with the police due to police tactics, is absent. Even the article which is by far most critical of the police actions - a piece by Duncan Campbell in The Guardian titled ‘Did police containment cause more trouble than it prevented?’ - only goes as far as to say: “As for the violent clashes that led to cracked heads and limbs, how much was inevitable and how much avoidable?”. Campbell concedes that “some demonstrators were bent on aggro” but adds: “so were some of the officers.” He also criticises the conditions inside the kettle and suggests that it will make people think twice before embarking on a demonstration in future. Thus Campbell suggests the “clashes” were avoidable, but does not indicate that the kettles actually led to the “clashes” - though, to give credit where it is due, his is the only piece in the press which dares to suggest that the police were themselves violent.



“The challenge of policing”

Well before the protests, the press had been reporting with glee the “violence” predicted as “London went into lockdown” and “protestors issued a call to arms” with “police fears” of protestors “intent on violence” (The London Paper, 31 March).

The BBC posted a sympathetic article titled ‘The challenge of policing the G20′ (30 March) which pointed out that: “police officers spend their professional lives trying to play down the public order implications of demonstrations - it’s in their interests to keep things calm.”

“The security strategy of the day,” they reported breathlessly, “resembles a three-dimensional ever-changing puzzle” where “the unknowable factor is the demonstrator bent on violence”. The article ended with a quote from Commander O’Brien: “If anyone wants to come to London to engage in crime or disorder, they will be met with a swift and efficient policing response.”

This flurry of media coverage predicting “violence” from “anarchists” was clearly initiated by the police, who released a barrage of press statements before the protests which served to pre-emptively quell criticism of their actions on the day - actions which had, of course, been planned well in advance. The G20 policing was to be “one of the largest, one of the most challenging, and one of the most complicated operations” ever “delivered” by the Metropolitan Police, according to Commander Simon O’Brien, who hit the press circuit with gusto in the days preceding the G20 (CNN, March 27).

The press obediently played their part by reporting police “fears” word for word, with complete sympathy, and with no question of asking those who planned to protest whether they thought the police reaction might be overly violent. After all, “the police have had to prepare for every possibility” on April 1, noted the Times: “from terrorism to riots” (The Times, March 31).

With ample opportunity to question an unusually talkative police force, barely a single sentence in the press asked whether the police preparation for the protests might be heavy-handed or that a violent reaction by the police to the protests might lead to serious injury or death. The protestors, of course, were to be “violent” “mobs” (based on police “intelligence” gleaned from “social networking sites”), but the police were to be calm, measured and undertake only necessary measures.

The effect of this press coverage was to justify in advance all police actions whilst de-legitimising any actions by protestors. Endless predictions of “violent protestors” meant that all the day’s “clashes” were sure to be blamed on the “minority” of those “intent on violence” - even if evidence suggested that “clashes” were actually instigated by police, and that violence was in the main inflicted by the police on protestors. Within the press narrative, the police are merely reactive; forced to respond to a “violent” situation and “keep things calm”; the notion that they could have actively encouraged and provoked “clashes” seems patently absurd.



So what’s missing?

There are a number of important questions which simply didn’t appear in the press.

a) Did the police intend to ‘kettle’ demonstrators in a confined space regardless of whether there was any violence or not?

All the evidence, including past cases of the police using this tactic, suggests this was the case. (At the Climate Camp protest at Bishopsgate on the same day, the police beat protestors back into a kettle despite them holding up their hands and chanting ‘this is not a riot’, as can clearly be seen on the Indymedia video ‘Riot police attack peaceful protestors at G20 climate camp’).
Is there a possibility that the police were not in fact “forced to use dogs, hoses and truncheons” due to “violent” protestors, but that they inflicted violence on peaceful protestors?

b) Was there really “violence” from the protestors?

The Metropolitan Police state that “small groups of protestors intent on violence, mixed with the crowds of lawful demonstrators” (Met Police, 2 April) and The Guardian quotes Commander Simon O’Brien as claiming there were “small pockets of criminals” within the crowd who attended a memorial for Ian Tomlinson on April 2. Again, eyewitness accounts of both days state that virtually all of the violence came from police. Despite hours of kettling and media reports of “missiles” being thrown at police (translation: plastic bottles), the only tangible evidence of protestor violence at either of the two main protest sites seems to have been some smashed windows, which of course is damage to property and not “violence”.

The Guardian reports that a small group of demonstrators were “seeking confrontation as they surged towards police lines.” Of course you’re expected to sit quietly when you are being held against your will behind police lines and periodically beaten with batons. But is it conceivable that those who “charged” police lines simply wanted to leave? And why is it confrontational to “charge police lines” without using any weapons, but not confrontational to hold thousands of people in an area, keeping them there with kicks and batons? That the protestors could have actually showed remarkable restraint when being provoked in an unbearable situation is laughable according to all the press. Yet this is what eyewitness accounts point to.

Only the Letters page in the Guardian gives any credence to this: one person writes that “the few scuffles we did witness were caused precisely at the frustration of people not being allowed to come and go as they pleased”; another states that: “an ugly mood developed after those who had come to exercise their democratic right to protest were detained against their will” (Guardian, April 3).

c) Were the police tactics responsible for the “violence” of the day?

Because the press has been admirably obedient in reversing the course of events, this is an impossible question - according to the media first there was “violence” from “anarchist” protestors, then the kettle began. Yet once we establish a more accurate chronology, and take into account police prior planning, it seems that it had always been intended to shut thousands of people into an enclosed space without being able to leave.

d) Was the ‘kettling’ tactic intended to make people think twice about demonstrating in future?

The most critical piece in the press, by Duncan Campbell in the Guardian, states that those “people thinking about embarking on demonstrations in the future may have to decide whether they want to be effectively locked up for eight hours without food or water and, when leaving, to be photographed and identified.”

Yet it does not suggest that this may have been the initial intention of the police in adopting this tactic, even though it is absurd to suggest the police might have planned to use this tactic without imagining it would lead to anger and frustration on the part of those trapped in the kettle. In conjunction with the extensive restrictions to freedom of protest under the New Labour government, amply documented elsewhere, it might be reasonable to suggest that the police tactics were in part, at least, designed to deter protestors.

e) Were the police violent and should any officers face charges?

Remarkably, this question is absent from virtually all the press coverage - despite hundreds of injuries to protestors, the death of someone apparently trapped in a kettle, and video footage showing baton charges directed towards crowds of people with their hands in the air, the use of riot shields as an offensive weapon, and the beating with batons of protestors sat on the ground (see, for example, ‘Riot police attack peaceful protestors at G20 climate camp’ on Indymedia). The ample groundwork laid by the police suggesting there would be protestors “intent on violence” happily accounts for all the violence of the day and makes easy to ignore eyewitness accounts that state that peaceful protestors were being kettled, charged, beaten and provoked by the police.

To take just one of countless eyewitness accounts, see for example a typical report that “a girl … who was on the front line of the cordon, was suddenly shoved up against a wall and kicked repeatedly by a policeman. He left her as she stayed cowering … The general atmosphere was fear at who the police would pick on next.” (Indymedia, April 6).

Given the number of witnesses and video evidence, it has taken remarkable obedience by the press to refuse to ask this question - and for a media so obsessed with violence, it seems strange that the overwhelming violence of the day - that inflicted by the police on protestors - barely merits a mention.

from http://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/2009/04/correcting-the-media-narrative-of-the-g20-protests-on-april-1-2009/

[faceless]

That's quite an indepth article - but who actually needs so much detail? Are there people out there who still think the police are good honest workers who only have the best interests of the country at heart?

Scratch that - there's millions of em!

[luke]

from the times!

the whole barrel was rotten last week at G20 protest

As dusk fell on the City of London last Wednesday, an elderly woman remonstrated with a policewoman. “Why won’t you let us out?” she asked, slumped against the Bank of England between two puddles of urine.

The policewoman responded that she was only following orders. Even as the Metropolitan Police press office was telling newspapers that protesters were being released, it was clear that no one was being allowed to leave.

If, as yesterday’s footage seems to imply, just half an hour later a policeman struck Ian Tomlinson from behind, the police have an obvious response. The policeman involved was a bad apple who has let everybody down. It was an isolated incident. He was disobeying orders.

Last week, after spending seven hours as a journalist locked into an increasingly small cordon, after watching police officers charge with truncheons and shields and after watching peaceful protesters retreat bloodied, I wrote about my experience.

I claimed in this paper that the police action – detaining thousands of innocent people without charge, and then systematically squeezing them over a period of hours – seemed guaranteed to produce violence. I argued that many of the police involved seemed not just prepared, but eager, for a fight.

After the article was published, Sara McAlpine – who said that she had happened to pass a demonstration the following day to mark Mr Tomlinson’s death – sent me an e-mail. There is no way to corroborate her account, except that it tallies with so many others. “This is what I witnessed myself in 15 minutes standing near the Bank of England,” she said. “The police split the protest into two groups on two cornering streets, not letting anyone leave. Suddenly, a policeman threw a punch at the face of a male, who raised his right arm to try and block the punch (no retaliation, merely a block). Immediately, three officers threw him up against the scaffolding, knocked him to the ground and beat him with their batons. They then carried him horizontally away.

“A photographer on the spectator side of the cordon tried to capture it. An officer ran over and grabbed him, trying to force him into the cordon. He escaped but the officer came after him and squared up to him (who was right next to me at this point) shouting, ‘Do you want a piece of this, huh, do you want to come and get some?’ He was then called back by another officer.

“A few minutes later, a girl no more than 10 metres away from me, who was on the front line of the cordon, was suddenly shoved up against a wall and kicked repeatedly by a policeman. He left her as she stayed cowering.”

“At that point, five police surrounded us (as quite a crowd had amassed in horror by now) and told us that we would be arrested if we didn't move along. One guy said he had a right to stand there and watch and the policeman threatened him in no uncertain terms that he would either be arrested or thrown in the cordon if he didn't move. He did. I left.”

Hers was not the only e-mail. Steven McManus, who says he is a barrister and a former special constable, was in Threadneedle Street on Wednesday. “At around 6pm I was outside the Royal Exchange chatting with some officers. I was between the officers and the protesers. The atmosphere was calm and non-confrontational. I shared a few jokes with one officer and was just generally chatting.

“A short while later the line began to move forward. The officers began to shout that we should all move back. I turned towards the crowd and began to move off in that direction. As I was walking away I was struck from behind by a baton and pushed forward towards the steps of Bank Underground.

“I was more than a little shocked at having been hit. The officer who had struck me was one I had been chatting to moments earlier, who knew about my City Police connection, and to whom I had my back turned. I remonstrated with the officer as to why he had hit me – his reply being: “F*** off, move back”. He said he could not help but be reminded of the manner of the attack on Tomlinson.

Elsewhere in the city, other groups were reporting similar incidents. Richard Howlett was at Climate Camp, a separate demonstration in Bishopsgate that – after 12 hours of non-violent protest – was cleared by riot police in the early hours of Thursday, April 2. “They moved in and blocked us in from both ends. Utterly unprovoked, the police then pushed forward in full riot gear using their truncheons and shields to beat people indiscriminately. Friends of mine were beaten and there were several injuries,” he said.

“Climate Camp responded in a totally peaceful manner. We sat down and chanted, ‘This is a peaceful protest, this is not a riot'. It was incredibly saddening to see the police resort to totally disproportionate tactics in dealing with totally peaceful protesters.”

Any inquiry into policing at the G20 protests must look beyond the circumstances surrounding Mr Tomlinson's death. Because if the rest of the operation – both the tactics employed and the officers deployed – is ignored, then there is a good chance an individual tragedy will have been compounded by a wider travesty.

from http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6060244.ece

[faceless]

Here's the movie 'Battle In Seattle' for those who haven't seen it.

[faceless]

Policeman Suspended Over G20 Protest Death
April 09, 2009

A policeman has been suspended after being caught on camera pushing a newspaper seller, who later died, to the ground during the G20 protests. The officer came forward to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), which is investigating the death of Ian Tomlinson. An amateur cameraman filmed the policeman hitting Mr Tomlinson and shoving him to the ground as thousands of protesters converged in the City.

An IPCC spokeswoman said: "The IPCC has called for the officer to be suspended. The Metropolitan Police has now informed us that the officer has been suspended with immediate effect. Although decisions about suspension are a matter for the chief officer of the police, when there is an IPCC investigation, the police are obliged to consult with us over the suspension of officers. In this case, we have expressed the view that the officer in question should be suspended from duty, in the public interest."

A Met spokesman said: "A Metropolitan Police territorial support group police constable has been suspended, effective immediately, in relation to the IPCC investigation into the death of Ian Tomlinson. Although the Metropolitan Police consulted with the IPCC, the decision was taken independently by the Metropolitan Police having considered all the circumstances."

The IPCC is examining hours of CCTV, photographs and footage filmed by protesters to try to piece together Mr Tomlinson's last moments.

-----------------------

This individual cop taking the blame is like the soldiers in Iraq taking the blame for the torture. There's no doubt they carried out a crime, but they were told they could by their commanders.

[Brown Sauce]

I don't think that they get the gig unless the commanders know that they're cunts.

[luke]

cunts sounds about right, check this article from the guardian;

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/mar/20/met-police-officers-accused-assaults

[Brown Sauce]

there ya go .. I don't trust inquiries ..

TSG - not so far away from the disbanded SPG (special patrol group) ... another bunch o' cunts ..

ahh, I see,

[luke]

New G20 video compounds doubts over police account of Ian Tomlinson's death
Video backs witnesses' claims and contradicts police account
Police seen as obstructive, their faces obscured, ID hidden

New footage obtained by the Guardian today gives an insight into the way police and protesters treated Ian Tomlinson, the man who collapsed and died shortly after being struck and pushed over by the police at last week's G20 protest.

The video provides further evidence that the initial explanation of Tomlinson's final moments released by police was misleading. It also corroborates the version of events given to the Guardian by witnesses to his death, some of whom are pictured in the film.

Moments before the video was shot, around 7.20pm on 1 April, Tomlinson was struck with a baton and thrown to the floor by a riot officer who had covered half his face with a balaclava and concealed his badge number.

Tomlinson was then seen stumbling down Cornhill, in the City of London, towards the spot, opposite St Michael's Alley, where he collapsed.

The footage, shot by Nabeela Zahir, a 27-year-old freelance journalist from London, contains three important elements to note:

• Police move quickly to push away those protesters and bystanders who were aiding Tomlinson, including a man on the phone to the ambulance service. The ambulance service wanted to be put in contact with the officer, who declined to take the call.

• The reaction of protesters is important. After the demonstration, police accused them of impeding Tomlinson's treatment by subjecting the officers and medics to a hail of missiles. In the video, a missile is seen to be thrown but you can hear someone in the crowd saying: "There's someone hurt. Don't throw anything." This indicates something was thrown, but certainly there was no barrage of missiles on film, and nothing reached the police. A man is also seen, standing with his arms in the air, shouting: "There is someone hurt here. Back the fuck up."

• The riot officers have concealed their faces. Pause at 56 seconds. There are four officers in shot. Three have their face masks pulled half-way up their faces.

from http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/09/g20-video-ian-tomlinson-death includes video

[faceless]

Would you rather hug a hoodie or cuddle a cop?

[Brown Sauce]

[faceless]

there's a surprise eh? Though, of course, they should have admitted that they flat-out lied about the availability of this footage. The police themselves must have filmed it too of course. These bastard liars at the heart of normal everyday government are exactly the reason why I have as little to do with them as possible.

[luke]

[faceless]

When I see clips like that I really start fuming. I once chased a group of them at a mayday march here after they grabbed a young student lassie - you've never seen a group of grown 'men' shit themselves quicker. I was raging though and being a bigger bastard than them they couldn't just slap me about - so they crapped out and ran back.

Fucking bullies.