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Guess what verdict the cop got
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Merrick
Merrick
2148 posts

Edited Apr 08, 2010, 13:45
Re: Guess what verdict the cop got
Apr 08, 2010, 13:41
Locodogz wrote:
coercion doesn't equal violence.


No, and violence is rarely used because the the threat of violence, harrassment or incarceration are enough.

Locodogz wrote:
"The additional role that's accepted is to enforce obedience to their will" Accepted by you (and maybe even some of your mates) but you have any evidence of any wider acceptance of this point?


Have a look at any public order situation. Have a look at the film that started this all off, Sergeant Smellie hitting that woman.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V23PGWd46MM

There is a long, boring bit of no action; this was no heated riot, it's standing around with a lot of cops and no aggression. Then a cop pushes someone over. People shout, the woman remonstrates with Smellie. He's told her to go away, she doesn't, so he slaps her. Then he calmly takes his baton out and strikes her legs so she goes down.

It is, by any standards, an over-reaction. This is clearly not reasonable force. She is not doing anything criminal. She has simply disobeyed him.

As with the footage of the assault on Ian Tomlinson, we should pay attention to the casual nature it. Note the reaction - or more accurately, non-reaction - of the colleagues. They would be shocked if it were anything unusual.

Can anyone plausibly believe this was the only such assault Smellie committed that day? Given the total lack of reaction from colleagues and the readiness of the attack, can anyone believe they hadn't all seen and done similar things many times that day? Do we really think this is the first and only time they'd ever done anything like this?

It's treated as normalised, like it shouldn't warrant our attention. The officer at 4.30, seconds after Smellie's assault, actually says to people with cameras 'there's nothing to see'.

All of them have a duty to report any such conduct by themselves or any colleagues. Where were the queues round the corner outside London police stations as officers hand over their testimony and guilty ones turn themselves in? Or is this normal and accepted behaviour?

Locodogz wrote:
My involvement in this thread arose when you blithely stated that you "hated 99% of the police" with the implication that they'd use violence against peaceful protesters. I know a couple who tell me they wouldn't (not over 1% of the force I acknowledge but possible as statistically meaningful as your insight into 99% of the police) and that's why I'm saying you're wrong on this.


Have a look at the film from the Climate Camp protest the day before the Smellie incident.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlJRi7YR1bU

Just as Tomlinson was not threatening and had his hands in his pockets, when the police wade in with batons, the crowd here hold their hands in the air to show they're unarmed and chant 'this is not a riot'.

What sort of orders do you think are being given to the group of officers being briefed at the start of the film?

Every single officer is behaving like the one who attacked Ian Tomlinson. It is not them acting on private motivations, they have clearly had orders to do it.

How many of them do you see turning away and leaving? As with the Smellie thing, how many - as is their duty - reported their colleagues for doing this? Are you really telling me the coppers you know would have done that?

This is not just the odd officer losing their cool, it's how they work as a body, it's institutional.
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