Policing
Ian Tomlinson, killed by kettling
Salfordonline has an eyewitness account of the death of Ian Tomlinson, who was on his way home from work when he was caught up in a police kettle during the G-20 protests.
Ian Tomlinson, 47, was apparently on his way home from work as a newsagent, and allegedly collapsed and suffered a heart attack during the protest.
The allegations were made after the widow of the man today lead a march for her partner who she said “died for the crimes of capitalism.â€
One female witness who wished to remain anonymous talked of “police brutality and heartlessness†and directly implicated members of the police force in the “murder†of the protester who, in tributes left outside the Royal Exchange in the city, was described as a “hero.â€
She spoke of the “unwarranted†attack made by “masked policemen in riot gear.†After being struck in the head by a police baton she said the man was then bloodied and left unconscious on the street.
It’s a tactic which according to veterans, was first used on the “Stop the City”protest of the eighties but was only fully adapted after the May Day protests of 2001. The Metropolitian Police is somewhat ..selective… in its use of this tactic, largely keeping it confined to demos of a certain political character. Kettling doesn’t just disrupt demonstrations, it also changes the focus of media attention, form the demo itself to lawandorder. It helps delegitamise protest. And now it has killed.
G-20 demo: contained / police kill protestor
the advantage of being stuck working from home with a bit of manflu (as Palau oh so sympathetically calls it) is that I got to see an awful lot of the coverage of yesterday’s G-20 protests on the various newschannels (BBC1, Sky News, BBC World, Al-Jazeera undsoweiter). What struck me was the discrepancy betweent he images shown and the commentary. the talk was all about the challenges the police faced in “containing” the demo and the calm and mature way they responded to “provocations”, while the images showed a largely peaceful demo, enlivened by the occasional bit of police violence.
Once the RBS windows were smashed the focus changed to speculation about whether or not this would be a “controlled” riot or become “as bad as the May Day riots”. Meanwhile the images seemed to show something that looked suspiciously like the police herding a group of black Bloc meatheads (agents provocateurs?) towards the RBS brach, oddly enough the only bank in the area nmot in lockdown, as if they wanted these demonstrators to smash the windows in…
The police was praised for the way in which they kept control over the demonstration, keeping groups of protestors locked in and only letting a trickle go through; no thought was given to the irritation and anger this caused other than noting that “things got grim”. The assumption that this was at all necesarry was of course never challenged.
From what I saw of police tactics it seems Craig Murray called it:
The Metropolitan Police now have a well rehearsed system for dealing with such events. Each demonstration will be split up into several separated groups. Each group will be tightly corraled, penned in with barriers in an uncomfortable crush that feels threatening to those inside. Occasionally groups will be shuffled between pens. Most demonstrators will not be allowed to the destination point to limit the appearance of numbers at the rallies. Once it is over, people will be kept corralled for several hours, with no refreshment or (this is critical and no joke) toilet facilities.
The tactic appears designed to create confrontation as people try to get out of penned areas to hear the speeches they came to hear, to escape the crush or just to find a loo. At the same time the argie-bargie thus deliberately sparked is confined to small numbers the police can contain.
Dave Hill’s liveblogging of the demo again confirms this.
UPDATE: police tactics of containment get a man killed. Police says that water bottles were thrown at first aid workers. But eye witnesses deny this. Who to believe…
Still Sure It Can’t Happen To You – Or Your Kids?
Anyone actively political in a way that’s embarassing or inconvenient to the Labour government is now, officially, a terrorist.
Happening in my home town now: some students in a shared house smoked dope, had some replica weapons, started getting interested in anticapitalism and antiracism/fascism, and engaged in a little light graffiti. They got raided for the dope and they’re now all in prison under the Terrorist Act.
Why are nonviolent potential student protestors and a 16 year-old schoolboy, who’ve yet (other than the graffiti artist) to even protest, let alone commit a known offence, being held as terrorists?
Apparently Devon and Cornwall police found “literature relating to political ideology†in the house. Oh, and knives.
If this is terrorism, we’re all fucked. I certainly would be if having “literature relating to political ideology†is what the police now characterise as terrorism.
Do I have to tell my children, quick, burn your copies of Naomi Klein and Malcolm X for fear of a knock by the plod? Were I in the UK and not on dialysis I would undoubtedly have been on my way to the G20 today to protest by any means necessary. It certainly could’ve been me or many people I know (none of whom are terrorists by any stretch of the imagination) arrested, our homes raided and lives deliberately ruined by politically motivated police, if that’s what makes you a terrorist.
These are trumped-up arrests on trumped-up evidence meant to politically intimidate legitimate protestors who do not agree with the government and to permanently label them (and anyone they know or associate with) as terrorists. It doesn’t matter that the students will probably be quietly released with no charges after the G20. Just the fact you’ve been arrested under the Act is enough to label you forever. You’re in the database now.
“Computers have also been seized for examination.” say Plymouth police. Yes, multiple computers with multiple users, not to mention multiple mobile phones, in 2 shared student houses. Since when have students been guilty of what their housemates read online or text to their mates?
But how very handy for the police to be able to hoover up who knows how many innocent yet politically inconvenient email or facebook friends or bloggers or LJ readers for Jacqui Smith’s handy little database of dissidents (if her husband hasn’t left the USB stick at Spearmint Rhino already).
I don’t know as yet whether any activists I know personally have been swept into the Terrorist Act’s net as a result of this blatant act of deliberate political intimidation – because the arrestees have yet to be charged, let alone named – but that’s hardly the point.
This is happening now, today, to mere schoolboys and student activists, and no-one who speaks out against the current form of government is safe from unjustified, politically motivated intimidation and imprisonment.
The G-20 protests: Cointelpro’d?
Lenny talks about the media hysteria surrounding the G-20 protests and where this is coming from:
A great deal of this scary material is apparently coming from one website, G-20 Meltdown. This website is described as an “umbrella group” for protesters, supposedly representing 67 different protest groups, although there is nothing on the website to show that this is so. The only indication that it might be is a list of organisations supporting the protests, but a disclaimer at the bottom of the list rectifies a previous ‘error’ which implied that these organisations were supporters of G-20 Meltdown. (This error has lead to some statements in newspapers implying that the Stop the War Coalition among others are in some sense affiliated to G-20 Meltdown, which I don’t think they are). And far from being run by hotheaded anarchists, the website is run by Camilla Power, an anthropologist based at the University of East London, a trade unionist, and a member of the CPGB. Another source for these scarifying articles is Chris Knight, cited as a member of the protest group ‘The Government of the Dead’. He is another CPGB member, and a professor of anthropology based at UEL. His frankly bombastic statements include the suggestion that the army and police might lose control of the City of London. If he were serious about this, he wouldn’t say such a thing either to the press or in any public forum where it could be accessed by police. Such statements, whatever the intention behind them, are foolish. They allow the press to imply that there is violence planned (there is not), and they give the police carte blanche to claim that the city is under extraordinary threat, thus mandating severe repression.
The question now is, who are Camilla Power and Chris Knight and why are they allowing themselves to be used to discredit the protests? Yes, there are sometimes young hotheads impressed by reading their first subversive books who think the best way to fight the power is to smash up a McDonalds, but this whole operation smacks of
Cointelpro. Veterans of sixties and seventies leftist causes (civil rights, disinvestment of South Africa undsoweiter) say you could always tell the FBI or Special Branch infiltrants: they were the ones calling for violence and “radical” action, preferably as publically as possible.