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.

Riot police beating 16 year old girl protesting Duggan shooting may have sparked the first riots - in Tottenham , London

The riots across London and other English cities have obviously involved a lot of opportunist theft and violence many actions that can’t be justified in any way, like the burning of public housing and three men run over and killed by a hit and run driver in Manchester – and far from it all being children out of control, there are plenty of looters in their 20s and some parents sending their children to loot shops according to eyewitnesses.

The shooting of Mark Duggan doesn’t seem to have been the only spark that started the first riots, in the Tottenham area of London, though. Reports by eyewitnesses  quoted on the Guardian website say that after Duggan was shot and killed by armed police, Tottenham community leaders and Duggan’s partner, family, friends and neighbours, among others, came on to the street to demand to know exactly what had happened. Hours later, with no answers provided, a 16 year old girl approached a line of riot police saying “We need answers, talk to us” and throwing a leaflet and possibly a stone at them. Fifteen riot police then jumped on her with shields and batons and began to beat her, triggering a riot (1).

Various eye-witnesses all agree that the initial gathering in the street was peaceful. Some claim some of the group were armed and carrying petrol, ready for looting and burning, though others deny this (2).

The media has quoted Metropolitan police spokespeople as saying Duggan was a “well-known” “major player” (i.e senior gangster) who was armed with a gun at the time he was shot (3).

This might be true. Or it might not. Metropolitan police spokespeople have said many things that turned out to be completely untrue about people they’ve shot the wrong people dead in the past, most notably Jean Charles De Menezes, the Brazilian electrician shot as a suspected suicide bomber in in an operation involving unbelievable levels of incompetence, carelessness and stupidity from people trusted with the powers of life and death over others.

Met spokespeople claimed De Menezes ‘jumped the ticket barrier’ on entering an underground station (CCTV footage and eye-witnesses disproved this), claimed he was wearing a bulky jacket with wires coming out of it (again proven false) and that police had called in medics by helicopter to try to revive him after the shooting (which seems pretty unlikely since they’d shot him 8 times in the head).

Similar lies by police came in the case of Ian Tomlinson, a newsagent walking home, who was ‘kettled’ along with (mostly peaceful) G20 protesters after a handful of protesters smashed a bank window. Police then set a dog on him and one officer hit him with a baton and shoved him twice, resulting in his death. They then invented stories about protesters pelting them with bottles as they tried to save the life of Tomlinson, who had supposedly had a heart attack due to the protesters’ actions. They went on to employ a coroner known to be dishonest to deal with the post-mortem. (In this case the policeman involved was eventually fired).

This does not prove they are lying about Duggan having had a gun, but it means the word of the police can’t be automatically trusted and we have to wait for a full investigation to find out the facts.

Initial investigations by the Independent Police Complaints Commission have found that the police’s original claim that Duggan was shot after firing on armed police officers is wrong. IPCC investigators found the bullet lodged in one officer’s radio, which Duggan had supposedly fired,  was a police issue one, not the kind of ammunition in the gun they claim Duggan had (4). This suggests that the police fired first, the police were the only ones who fired ; and at least one police officer lied about this, though it’s possible other police genuinely believed Duggan had fired the shot that hit the radio.

We can’t be certain whether either side is telling the truth or the whole truth here of course, about the shooting or the beating, but given the extremely poor record on honesty of Metropolitan Police spokespeople, anyone taking claims as fact without waiting for an inquiry will be relying on a source that has proven less than reliable in the past.

(1) = Guardian.co.uk 07 Aug 2011 ‘Tottenham riots: a peaceful protest, then suddenly all hell broke loose’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/07/tottenham-riots-peaceful-protest

(2) = See (1) above

(3) = Telegraph 08 Aug 2011 ‘London riots: Dead man Mark Duggan was a known gangster who lived by the gun’, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8687403/London-riots-Dead-man-Mark-Duggan-was-a-known-gangster-who-lived-by-the-gun.html

(4) = Guardian.co.uk 09 Aug 2011 ‘Mark Duggan did not shoot at police, says IPCC’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/09/mark-duggan-police-ipcc

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