Police are not confused about how much force they can use in what situation - given past abuses of their authority they can't get a blank cheque

Claims made by police spokesmen on BBC News 24 that police are “confused” about what level of force they can use and that this is making it difficult for them to deal with rioters need to be taken with a huge pile of salt. The line they’re pushing is that in the past police have ended up in court for simply trying to prevent crimes. They know that’s a lie. The only police who ended up in court or fired were those involved in the shooting of Jean Charles De Menezes after massive incompetence by senior officers given the power of life and death over others; and others like the officer who repeatedly assaulted bypasser Ian Tomlinson during the G20 protests; the officer who attacked the loud but tiny environmentalist protester Nicola Fisher with a baton (and got off with it) ; and the officer who dragged a prisoner across a police station before throwing her face down into a cell.

Others who should be facing charges of grievous bodly harm and endangering lives have got off with it. They include the policeman who beat peaceful student protester Alfie Meadows so hard with a baton that he would have died if he hadn’t had emergency brain surgery – and the officers who tried to turn the ambulance carrying him away from the nearest hospital as protesters being treated in the same hospital as injured police offended their sensibilities (presumably on the usual theory held by the stupidest and worst police officers that all protesters are criminals).

 Some police spokesmen are trying to use the riots to reverse planned job and funding cuts. That’s fair enough. I support increasing the number of police and i'd guess most people do. However they’re also using them to try to demand a blank cheque to use any amount of force they feel like in any situation and to try to get the public to place them above the law. That won’t wash.

If they’re confused about how much force they can use when they’re not up to the job – they can use what the law allows – the amount required to defend themselves and others and to prevent serious crimes – and no more.

No blank cheques to beat up anyone they like.

The initial rioting in Tottenham seems to have been caused by police shooting Mark Duggan (who may or may not have been armed but we now know definitely did not fire first – or at all) and by fifteen riot police subsequently beating a single 16 year old girl who was one of a large group of family, friends and neighbours of Duggan demanding answers from them, after she threw a leaflet and possibly a stone. That underlines the fact that giving the police a blank cheque to do as they please and believing them without question (even though their spokespeople lied about De Menezes , Tomlinson and other cases) will not make the public safer or reduce crime, but is likely to cause it instead.

The police know that when they act in self-defence or the defence of others with the amount of force necessary in the situation they’ll have public support and be acting within the law. They have to be in no more doubt than the rioters that they can’t launch random attacks on people or break the law without facing consequences. If the police were allowed to be above the law, it would only breed contempt for it and them, which would be bad for everyone.

Police violence against the peaceful majority of student protesters and passers-by should be punished too - they shouldn't be above the law

Student protesters have come in for a great deal of criticism in the media lately, but a lot of it has been less than balanced – with a ridiculous fixation on the relatively minor incident involving Prince Charles and Camilla. The minority of protesters who have made serious attacks on police, for instance throwing snooker balls, often causing serious injuries to officers, will get little sympathy and will likely get jail sentences. However the majority of non-violent protesters are not responsible for the actions of this minority – and, with a few exceptions, too little attention has been paid to the continuing and increasing instances of random police violence against non-violent protesters and passers-by, which so far follow a long established pattern of police being above the law. This too often turns the police uniform from what it should be – and still is when worn by many decent officers – a uniform whose wearers uphold the law and only act in self-defence or defence of others – to a shield which allows those who have let power go to their heads, or who want to be able to attack others without consequence, to be immune to prosecution for their actions.

 “Kettling” for short periods to identify and arrest those responsible for violence or serious criminal damage may be legitimate. However when extended for long periods - up to 7 hours in sub-zero temperatures in London recently and in the G20 protests, it becomes effectively illegal detention without trial (1).

Non-violent protesters like Alfie Meadows, seriously injured last week by a baton strike to the head, have been attacked by police for no apparent reason. Meadow’s life was only saved by an ambulance crew refusing to cave to police pressure and 3 hours of brain surgery. Meadow only survived because his mother was nearby and both had mobile phones. She said she remembered the Blair Peach death and knew he needed treatment fast. Meadows’ mother said that despite police claims that they would allow clearly peaceful protesters to leave the police were “The police had been very violent all day. Whoever was trying to get out, they weren't allowing them.”. Police initially refused to allow a Professor to accompany Meadow out of the “kettling” to get an ambulance; and tried to turn the ambulance carrying him away from the nearest hospital , as police were also being treated there (2) – (4).  This was illegal and suggests an unacceptable attitude among some police that all protesters, peaceful and violent, are the enemy in a war.

Passer-by Ian Tomlinson, who wasn’t even a protester but trying to go home from work, died after repeated assaults by the same police officer during “kettling” in the G20 protests, seen by witnesses and recorded on video, with his attacker never charged (5) – (6). The officer will face a disciplinary hearing held by the Metropolitan Police, but such hearings usually lead to all charges being dismissed (two examples later) (7). 

Police have continued to sweep up passers-by along with journalists and non-violent protesters in “kettling” the recent student protests in London and in many cases to attack them with batons and mounted charges and even refuse them medical treatment (8) – (10).

For instance Guardian journalist Caroline Davies emailed a colleague on the first day of the protests in London saying that another journalist, Shiv Malik, had told her the following

‘The crowd surged in an attempt to break through the police line, and I was caught on the same side as the police but facing towards them with the fence behind me. The fence came right up to the police line. The police started to push back then they started using their batons on protesters. I was caught then and pushed up towards the front. I ducked, my glasses were knocked off my face so I was trying to hold them. Then, basically, a baton strike came to the side of my face and then onto the top of my head. Directly onto the crown of my head.  I felt a big whacking thud and I heard it reverberating inside my head. I wasn't sure whether I was bleeding or not. I moved off to the side and asked a police officer if I was bleeding. But he just said 'Keep moving, keep moving". Then I put my hand to the top of my head and looked at my palm and I could see there was blood everywhere. I then asked another police officer, who was wearing a police medic badge, if he could help me. And he told me to move away as well and told me to go to another exit.’ (11).

Witnesses and a video also seem to show police dragged a disabled protester from his wheelchair and struck him and others trying to stop them with batons (12).

When some police are placed above the law public safety is lost. When police killed protester Blair Peach in 1979 through a baton strike to the head, no-one was ever tried. When a joint police and British military intelligence operation killed Brazilian electrician Jean Charles De Menezes due to stunning carelessness and disorganisation – and police spokespeople churned out a series of rapidly disproven lies to try to justify the action - no-one even lost their job. Metropolitan Police Chief Sir Ian Blair later resigned over a dispute with Mayor Boris Johnson (13) – (14).

When 6 foot plus, body armoured, police officer Sergeant Delroy Smellie was approached by 5 foot tall protester Nicola Fisher at a vigil for Ian Tomlinson, he turned, first told her to go away, then , as she continued to argue with him, hit her twice with his hand and then took out his baton and struck her hard across the leg with it twice – all caught on video (15). Whatever your view of whether Fisher was justified in haranguing or challenging him or not Smellie’s response was un-necessary, violent and in no way defence of himself or anyone else. Yet his force and a District Judge both decided he had no charges – criminal or disciplinary to face.

Another officer, caught on CCTV video dragging a female prisoner across the floor of a police station before picking her up and throwing her face down onto the floor of a cell, causing injuries and bleeding to her face, was similarly cleared of all charges on appeal after being convicted at his initial trial (16).

We can’t afford to let police forces, judges or politicians misguidedly protect a minority of thugs within police ranks the way the upper hierarchy of the Catholic Church has protected paedophile priests – and make no mistake, a minority of those who join the police do so in order to abuse that position and hurt people, just as with those paedophiles who become priests or teachers or nursery staff for the same reason. If we do the rot will spread and we will risk a police state. Police forces only enhance public safety when they are strictly required to obey the same laws they enforce.

There are police who uphold the law and only use force when there’s no other option, proportionate to that used by others - and only in self-defence or the defence of others, often in the face of provocation, threat, or attacks which can or have caused serious injuries. They deserve our full support and respect.

However those who lash out at random – or because they think they can make violent attacks themselves, shielded from prosecution by their uniform – should be charged, tried and sentenced like any other suspect– and expelled from the force if found guilty. The latter are unfortunately too common, largely because politicians, judges and senior police officers are often so biased or so fearful of being seen as “soft on crime” or as “not supporting the police” that they will not uphold the law when police officers break it – even when deaths result.

We should not always place the blame solely on the lowest ranks either. Politicians and senior police officers making strategic and tactical decisions must bear responsibility for some of the results of those decisions.

Governments and big parties also give seemingly unconditional support to police most of the time for another reason – they rely on the police to crush opposition to their policies, especially when, as is often the case, those policies benefit a minority at the expense of the majority or a larger minority (usually the poorest and those on middle incomes). The police, granted secure jobs by the state, have a traditional alliance with the government in crushing the poor and the newly unemployed when the government sacks public sector employees and cuts benefits for the poor, the unemployed and the disabled.  In the 1980s the main target were the miners. In the 1990s, poll tax resisters.

Many people who witnessed the trouble at the student protests at Millbank, when student protesters occupied Conservative Party headquarters and smashed windows, believe that either the police were hugely incompetent in their estimates of likely demonstrator numbers and so police numbers required ; or else they were sending the Coalition government a subtle message – don’t keep threatening us with cuts along with the rest, because you’ll need us to protect you from public anger against those cuts.

(Only a few dozen students cheered the idiot who dropped the fire extinguisher – with the majority on the ground booing at the dropping of it and chanting “stop throwing shit” (16))

Nor has the Coalition delivered on it’s claims to be restoring civil liberties. Instead anti-terrorism police, who might have been better focusing on actual threats, have questioned a 12 year old schoolboy for attempting to organise a picket of David Cameron’s constituency offices to protest the planned closure of their youth centre. It’s not clear whether the police were acting on the orders of some superior or member of government or on their own initiative.

 

(1) = guardian.co.uk 10 Dec 2010 ‘Being kettled was a shocking experience’, by Jaqui Karn,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/10/kettled-shocking-experience

(Karn is a researcher on crime ethnography whose work has been published by the London School of Economics –http://www.willanpublishing.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=1843921952 )

(2) = Kingston Guardian 10 Dec 2010 ‘Kingston professor says protester with serious injuries was "hit by police"’,
http://www.kingstonguardian.co.uk/news/8731809.BREAKING_NEWS__Uni_professor_says_protester_with_serious_injuries_was__hit_by_police_/

(3) = Independent 10 Dec 2010 ‘Police investigate truncheon attack’,
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/brain-op-for-student-hit-by-truncheon-2156207.html

(4) = Observer 12 Dec 2010 ‘Police officers 'tried to stop hospital staff treating injured protester'’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/dec/12/police-injured-protester-hospital

(5) = Guardian 07 Apr 2009 ‘Video reveals G20 police assault on man who died’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/07/video-g20-police-assault (also gives eye-witness statements contradicting the Metropolitan police’s initial version of events which was reproduced in many newspapers)

(6) = Guardian 22 Jul 2010 ‘Ian Tomlinson death: police officer will not face criminal charges’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jul/22/ian-tomlinson-police-not-charged

(7) = guardian.co.uk 27 Jul 2010 ‘Ian Tomlinson death: police officer faces disciplinary hearing’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jul/27/ian-tomlinson-death-paul-stephenson

(8) = Guardian 27 Nov 2010 ‘Letters : Police kettling stirs the pot of student unrest’,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/nov/27/police-kettling-stirs-student-unrest (see 1^st, 3^rd and 4^th letters)

(9) = guardian.co.uk 10 Dec 2010 ‘Being kettled was a shocking experience’, by Jaqui Karn,http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/10/kettled-shocking-experience

(Karn is a researcher on crime ethnography whose work has been published by the London School of Economics –http://www.willanpublishing.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=1843921952 )

(10) = Guardian 26 Nov 2010 ‘Student protests: Met under fire for charging at demonstrators’,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/nov/26/student-protests-police-under-fire

(11) = Guardian News Blog ‘Student protests – as they happened’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/blog/2010/dec/09/student-protests-live-coverage ; see entry for 4.31 p.m

(12) = East London Lines 10 Dec 2010 ‘Disabled journalist describes “violent” police as opponents of tuition fee rise vow to fight on’, http://www.eastlondonlines.co.uk/2010/12/disabled-journalist-speaks-out-about-violent-police-as-dust-settles-on-student-demonstration/

(13) = see this article on my website and the source links at the bottom of it, http://www.duncanmcfarlane.org/menezes

(14) = BBC News 17 Aug 2005 ‘Police shooting - the discrepancies’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4158832.stm

(15) = Independent 17 Jun 2009 ‘No disciplinary action for G20 assault case officer’, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/no-disciplinary-action-for-g20-assault-case-officer-2003173.html

(16) = guardian.co.uk 18 Nov 2010 ‘Police sergeant cleared of assaulting woman suspect in custody’,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/nov/18/police-sergeant-andrews-freed-appeal

(17) = New York Times 10 Nov 2010 ‘Video of Student Protests in London’,
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/10/video-of-students-protests-in-london/

Join the police and get away with murder

Ian Tomlinson lies dead or dying after being hit with a baton and then knocked to the ground by policeman Simon Harwood. As in the Jean Charles De Menezes case the Crown Prosecution Service refused to bring any charges.

Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, claims there is no realistic prospect of a prosecution against Police Officer Simon Harwood for the death of Ian Tomlinson succeeding despite video evidence and many eyewitnesses (1) – (3). Two reputable pathologists also say Tomlinson died of internal bleeding caused by “blunt force trauma”. They say the likely cause is the baton attack on Tomlinson by Harwood and/or him pushing Tomlinson over onto the pavement (4) - (5).

Liver disease caused by Ian Tomlinson's alcoholism made him more vulnerable to these kind of injuries according to the pathologists. It's also unlikly Harwood was deliberately trying to kill Tomlinson, but his actions were clearly assault - and since they also caused Tomlinson's death - manslaughter

Mr Starmer claimed the lack of a prospect of a successful prosecution was due to the “fundamental disagreement between the experts about the cause of Mr Tomlinson's death”, as if the word of Dr. Patel, who is facing multiple disciplinary hearings from the General Medical Council over his conduct of previous pathological reports – and is banned from carrying out further ones for the Home Office, is testimony as reliable as that from two other pathologists, neither of whom are facing any charges (5).

The delay of over 6 months by the DPP in coming to a decision on whether to bring charges against the policeman involved is very convenient for that officer as it means no assault charge can be brought against him (6).

The Crown Prosecution Service’s website claims that “The CPS exists to ensure that wrongdoers are brought to justice, victims of crime are supported and that people feel safer in their communities.” (7)

After going out of their way to prevent anyone being brought to justice for the killings of Jean Charles De Menezes or Ian Tomlinson, perhaps they should add the qualification “unless those responsible are police officers, in which case we’re here to make sure they get off with it”.

They might as well put up recruitment signs saying “Join the police and get away with assault, GBH, mansalughter, maybe even murder!”.

Those newspapers which reported false police claims that officers had tried to help Tomlinson while being pelted with bottles and bricks by protesters should be made to correct those false claims with headlines just as prominent (8). Multiple eye-witnesses say Tomlinson was helped by protesters who phoned an ambulance while police ordered them to “move on”. They also said the only bottles thrown were plastic ones, by people in the centre of the crowd who didn’t know what was going on – and stopped when they were told (9).

In China a woman was beaten for 15 minutes by police officers for trying to petition a Communist Party Official about a problem. The beating stopped when police realised she wasn’t a petitioner but the wife of the official, which, apparently, is the only reason it’s news, as it’s common to assign police to beat up petitioners to discourage them from complaining to officials (10). So much for free market reform bringing democracy to China. So far, at least, it’s clearly not working.

In the US something similar happened to a black man suspected of being on drugs when he refused to change into a medical gown in a hospital. Hospital security guards began beating and tasering  him until they found out he was the nephew of Supreme Court Justice Thomas Clarence (11).

It seems that wherever you go in the world, democracy, dictatorship or one party state, police can break the law by beating people for little or nothing, even commit manslaughter or murder, and get off with it. That doesn’t seem that democratic.

(1) = CPS ‘The death of Ian Tomlinson - decision on prosecution’, http://www.cps.gov.uk/news/articles/the_death_of_ian_tomlinson_decision_on_prosecution/ , (for summary see BBC News 22 July 2010 ‘G20: No charges over Ian Tomlinson demo death’,http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-10723274 )

(2) = Guardian 07 Apr 2009 ‘Ian Tomlinson death: Guardian video reveals police attack on man who died at G20 protest’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/07/ian-tomlinson-g20-death-video

(3) = Guardian 08 April 2009 ‘Ian Tomlinson death: G20 witnesses tell of dogs, batons and an attack by police’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/08/g20-ian-tomlinson-death-witnesses

(4) =  BBC News 22 July 2010 ‘G20: No charges over Ian Tomlinson demo death’,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-10723274 - see sub-section headed ‘Analysis’ half-way down the page and to the right of the main report, which says ‘In the case of Mr Tomlinson, two pathologists - one instructed by the police and the other by his family - agreed that he died partly from internal bleeding caused by "blunt-force trauma".But the first examination was carried out by Dr Freddy Patel, a Home Office pathologist, who says Mr Tomlinson died of a heart attack. ‘

(5) = BBC News 22 July 2010 ‘Tomlinson pathologist facing GMC’,http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10729545

(6) = BBC News 22 July 2010 ‘G20: No charges over Ian Tomlinson demo death’,http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-10723274 ‘Jenny Jones, a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority, said......."If everybody had moved a bit faster wemight have actually been in the time-frame for an assault charge to be brought," ‘

(7) = Crown Prosecution Service ‘Your CPS’, http://www.cps.gov.uk/yourcps.html

(8) = e.g Evening Standard 02 Apr 2009 ‘Police pelted with bricks as they help dying man’, http://www.chickyog.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/esp67-02042009.pdf

(9) = Guardian 08 April 2009 ‘Ian Tomlinson death: G20 witnesses tell of dogs, batons and an attack by police’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/08/g20-ian-tomlinson-death-witnesses

(10) = Guardian 22 July 2010 ‘Chinese police beat official's wife by mistake’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/22/china-police-beat-wife-official

(11) = ABC News 09 July 2010 ‘Judge Clarence Thomas' Nephew Derek Tasered by Hospital Staff, Family Says’, http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2010/07/judge-clarence-thomas-nephew-derek-tasered-by-hospital-staff-family-says.html