Normally the Daily Mail is the first to defend the police against the slurs of dangerously longhaired protestors or loony lawyers, but this is more like how it usually deals with socalled “dole scum” or suspciously foreign asylum seekers. The murder of Ian Tomlinson seems to have been a wakeup call and it’s interesting to see how the Mail‘s views on the Tomlinson case developed over time.
On 9 April 2009 HM Coroner for the City of London opened and adjourned the inquest into the death of Ian Tomlinson. In so doing he received evidence of identification and the provisional findings and opinion as to the medical cause of death from a report prepared by the consultant forensic pathologist, Dr F Patel, instructed by HM Coroner to conduct the post-mortem examination. The pathologist’s final opinion must await the completion of additional tests.
“Dr F Patel made a number of findings of fact including descriptions of a number of injuries and of diseased organs including the heart and liver. He found a substantial amount of blood in the abdominal cavity. His provisional interpretation of his findings was that the cause of death was coronary artery disease.
“A subsequent post-mortem examination was conducted by another consultant forensic pathologist, Dr N Cary, instructed by the IPCC and by solicitors acting for the family of the late Mr Tomlinson. Dr Cary’s provisional findings and his interpretation of the findings have been provided to HM Coroner in a further preliminary report (the final report once again awaiting the outcome of further tests). Dr Cary’s opinion is that the cause of death was abdominal haemorrhage.
“The cause of the haemorrhage remains to be ascertained. Dr Cary accepts that there is evidence of coronary atherosclerosis but states that in his opinion its nature and extent is unlikely to have contributed to the cause of death. The opinions of both consultant pathologists are provisional and both agree that their final opinions must await the outcome of further investigations and tests. These are likely to take some time. The IPCC’s investigation into the death of Ian Tomlinson is ongoing.”
In other words, the initial verdict of death by heart attack, widely reported even before the first coroner had reported his findings, was a lie. What’s more, the findings of the second report have been held up a week because the Independent Police Complaints Commission was afraid it could prejudice its inquiry. That’s not the end of it: the first pathologist investigating Tomlinson’s death had been reprimanded for his conduct before, once for smearing a black man who had died in police custody, once for diagnosing a murder victim as having died of natural causes, leaving the murderer to kill twice more. Why he was brought in to look at this death is unknown, but might his conduct in the first case have had anything to do with it?
Meanwhile the officer who had attacked Tomlinson minutes for his death, has now been questioned on suspicion of manslaugther. We’ll have to wait to see if anything comes from this, but at least it’s more than Jean Charles de Menezes’ family ever got. What’s also different from the Menezes case is how the media is reporting on Tomlinson’s death, much more critical of the police than they were then.
The filth hit an innocent woman and all Mairs can think off is have some “police expert” on to tell how justified it is sometimes to control crowds by hitting them with batons. It’s shocking to hear this violence being normalised when the video shows the casual backhander a cop gives a woman half his size, then take his baton out and hit her on the legs as her back is turned. In some ways it’s worse footage than what was showed of Ian Tomlinson, as there the situation had already kicked off while here you had a bogstandard peaceful political protest in which the police with no reason started attacking people trying to leave.
Eddie Mairs’ disgraceful performance fits in well though with the general BBC attitude of sucking up to the police and their silencing of police outrages. Ian Tomlinson only rate a one sentence mention and was thought of as “just a London story” until the Beeb was forced to report on it through blogs and the Guardian keeping the story alive. Further back of course there’s the infamous incident in which BBC newscasts showed footage of police attacking the miner strikes in reverse order, making it appear as if the police defended themselves against the miners rather than the other way around.
The territorial support group officer identified himself to his manager and the Independent Police Complaints Commission as fresh pictures suggested he had removed his shoulder number and covered his face with a balaclava before hitting Ian Tomlinson with a baton and pushing him to the ground last week.
But the officer has not been arrested on suspicion of assault or suspended from duty by the Metropolitan police.
Emphasis mine. That this officer has not been arrested or even suspended yet comes as no great surprise of course, the police defends its own. In the coming weeks and months we’ll hear a lot about this “tragic accident” and the difficulties of being a copper, as well as the most sincere apologies from the police leadership for this unforeseen tragedy. Tomlinson’s assailant might get off scott free or be thrown to the wolves, depending on public opinion and political pressure. In any case the emphasis on the part of the cops, as well as the people who will supposedly investigate their behaviour, will be that it was an accident, an incident, no more. Remember the way the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes was investigated: that will be the way this killing will be investigated.
But as the emphasised bits int he quote above hint at, this is of course nowhere near the whole truth. Everything in the runup to the demo made it clear the cops were out to riot. We had solemn warnings about expected violence, including that infamous warning about a “summer of middle class rage”, excessive safety measures put in place and last but not least, that high profile arrest of the supposed Plymouth anarchists. All this was calculated to get the bobbies on the beat in fighting mood as well as lure black bloc numpties to the demo and discourage more sane people.
Now the police are supposed to be identifiable, but Tomlinson’s assailant was able to cover up his face and remove his shoulder number, something he only could’ve done if this was alright with his superiors. Officiall police policy may say otherwise, but this has become standard operating procedure with cops handling “political” cases like anti-establishment demos. Again, this is an indicator of the fact that unprovoked violence was on the agenda, which makes Tomlinson’s death not a tragic incident, but the logical if unwished for outcome of a deliberate policy.
This is the Guardian video footage of a riot officer attacking Ian Tomlinson minutes before his death, without provocation. A clear case of manslaugther, I’d say, though I doubt the officer in question will ever be prosecuted for it.