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Business as usual-1499
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Back to newspapers, trains, banking and "forign" conflict.
But there is at least one debate arrising from this (all be it fuled from a voyeristic appatite of the public for the "victims family outraged"). The question of the police assuming the right to deal out summary justice - and how much they lie about it.
Before i get into that let me clarify a couple of points. It appears I got some details wrong despite best attempts to cross check stories from several sources. - There were well over 3,000 people "ketteled in the bank cross roads and the "accepted figure is now about 5,000. When I was there at lunch time I didnt think there was more than a few hundreds inside the cordon though this was based on an estimate of the size of the area than by any attempt at a direct count.
There was sporadic violence in the form of bottles being thrown and damage to property. Though this was mostly later in the day ( after the offices had emptied and most workers gone home) and appears to have been at most no more than an handfull of individual incedents.
Damage to property appears to have been largly limited to a two or three buildings in the city having had thiere windows broken though in one case whether this was simply vandalisim or directly related to the protests is unclear. RBS right beside bank station is the exception it had windows broken and a number of pc's destroyed.
It appears sadly that i am in good company in havingf to revise earlier coments. Despite statments to the contrary by the metropolitan police, Ian Tomlinson had a number of interactions with the policethe day he died - the last 2 of which appear to have been violent. He may have shouted at an officer but what is clear and what has been distributed widely on video and on camera images - is that he had his hands in his pockets - was walking away from officers and was struck with a batton on the legs and was flung to the ground from behind.
The officer that was directly responsible was masked and not wearing any insignia. Several of his colleagues were also masked and other officers at the time were also with out any obvious insignia. Clearly they were either out of control, (which doesnt appear to be the case) or the senior officers on the sceen condoned this. Shortly afterwards Ian Tomlinson collapsed with a heart attack and died.
In response to complaints the IPCC were either mislead or actively complicit in attempting to minimise public concern over the events.
Unfortuneatly Ian Tomlinson's death is being focused on and is to some extent detracting from the cases of several others who were also assaulted. It would seem that while there are a number of people who claim to have been hit few are making claims for assault.
Perhaps the initial denials from the Met. (saying that they had no contact with the deceased and then significantly different accounts of what contact they did have ) shed some light on this apparent reclarance on the part of the assaulted.
Some would take it that this is evidence that no assaults took place - others see it as confirmation that without significant fianaces to burn there is no point because the police will simply lie to ensure that no sucsessfull case is brought against them.
What is worrying and makes me side with the latter opinion - is that in a part of London with so much CCTV coverage, the public were dependant on a fund trader with a video camera and a newspaper with a reputation for liberal (or lost?) causes to publicise these events and ensure at least some quantum of investigation of took place. Other papers notably the Sun , the mail and the telegraph - were far more interested in the millitary style raids carried out on squats the next am resulting in a few dozen arrests for public order charges and perhaps a charge of theft. Again several people were assaulted. One person at teh squat suggested the police try knocking next time as they would happily have let them in.
One has to wonder if the response to charges of assault ( whatever about manslaughter) can be seen to have been delt with in an equally rigerous manner. - contd.
