The G20 backhander
He covered up his police number and gave a woman half his size the back of his hand and his baton.
Let’s have a crack at the first draft of the script:
Investigation… inquiry… suspension… apologies… one bad apple… unacceptable… as you were… until the next time…
(I particularly enjoyed the officer at 4.30 in the video who tells the photographers to turn around and that ‘there’s nothing to see’. He really said, there’s nothing to see. It reminds me of somebody…)
In other news, the Independent Police Complaints commission chief was wrong when he said there was no CCTV in area of Ian Tomlinson assault. So who told him there wasn’t any and why?
Posted on April 15th, 2009 at 8:20am under Civil liberties, Crime and punishment
It’s amazing just how quickly the Tomlinson cover-up swung into place, I’m sure there are thousands of rape victims who wish they’d been treated with such thoroughness and diligence.
Aren’t we always being told, every time the government squeezes another drop of life out of our privacy, how the innocent have nothing to fear? Doesn’t that apply to the police, our servants, too? Maybe their numbers should be tattooed onto their foreheads?
I am sure you are aware of this, but the officer has been positively identified as a (former) Forward Intelligence Team sergeant, shoulder number AB42 by monitoring project FITwatch:
http://fitwatch.blogspot.com/2009/04/former-fit-officer-suspended-over-g20.html
Meanwhile the project to identify police witnesses at the Cornhill assault on Ian Tomlinson continues – currently we have improved pictures and/or numbers for nine of the 18+ officers who were there.
http://bristle.wordpress.com/2009/04/11/if-the-police-officers-who-witnessed-the-assault-on-ian-tomlinson-will-not-come-forward-voluntarily-then-we-ourselves-must-drag-them-into-the-public-arena/
(And subsequent posts & comments.)
We hope to have all current material collated more neatly together within a day or so.
*yawn*
Covering up police numbers is wrong, but you seem to be under the impression that this woman’s behaviour was is no way wrong – which is laughable.
I’ve posted on this video today, suffice to say that you evidently think that provoking, charging and harrassing riot police is acceptable whereas I do not.
Do you do anything else in comment boxes other than whore your own blog?
Suffice to say that you evidently think that shouting at a policeman deserves to be rewarded with physical violence whereas I do not.
LFAT, the point is that verbal abuse does not justify hitting someone, never mind with a baton. It is not proporionate.
I’m curious – is there any level of police violence which you think would be unjustified in a situation like this? Does giving lip to a policeman justify being tazered? Shot?
*Yawn*
What would you say if that was your sister?
Substitute G20 demonstrators for Jews – doesn’t sit easy on the conscience now, does it?
“It is not proporionate.”
Neither is it ‘reasonable’, a word which, as a Tory, LFAT ought to know is one of the basic cornerstones of British justice. Or has the concept of British justice gone with the rest of his principles when faced with the much more important opportunity to bash some lefties?
More, her ‘lip’ appears to be a response to the forceful detention of people on the other side of the police line. Several people try to leave, and one is thrown back with some force. Her ‘lip’ is a pretty reasonable response to that.
This springs to mind:
When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
Then they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
I did not speak out;
I was not a Jew.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out for me.
Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984)
I’m also really curious about those nifty little epaulette covers… Where are they getting them from? Is there a forum somewhere where they swap sewing patterns for them, or are they actually issued?
I read somewhere it was gaffer/duct tape.