Probe after student hurt by truncheon blow

[cory777]

Source: ITN

The police watchdog is investigating after a student protester was left with bleeding on the brain after being hit with a police truncheon.

Alfie Meadows, a philosophy student at Middlesex University, was struck as he tried to leave the area outside Westminster Abbey during Thursday's tuition fee protests, his mother said.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission has launched an investigation, but said inquiries were still at an early stage.

After falling unconscious on the way to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, Mr Meadows underwent a three-hour operation for bleeding on the brain.

Read more: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20101211/tuk-probe-after-student-hurt-by-truncheo-dba1618.html

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Uncensored Activist News http://activistnews.blogspot.com/

[laughingliberal]

1. K & R I hope the assailants are brought to justice. nm

[LeftishBrit]

2. Hope he's OK in the end; and hope the perpetrator is punished.

[dipsydoodle]

3. Doubtless

there is plenty of video footage to determine what led to the event. I'd say its unlikely to have been a wholly unprovoked blow.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. Unlikely? What about those blows at the G20 summit last year?

Including the one that killed Ian Tomlinson? I'd say there's a good chance it was completely unprovoked.

[dipsydoodle]

10. That hasn't ended yet

and that video footage removed all doubt as to Ian Tomlinson's innocence in the matter.

In the case of this week actually being in Parliament Square, which the organisors had agreed would stay off limits, was a provocation in itself.

[LeftishBrit]

11. So going into the wrong place justifies the police nearly beating someone to death?

[dipsydoodle]

12. They didn't nearly beat someone to death

Let's just wait for the outcome of the criminal investigation.

It remains however like any other form of trespass......the land is as you find it.

If you think I have no sympathy whatsoever for those who were in Parliament Square then you're perfectly correct in that assumption - they simply shouldn't have been there.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. It wasn't 'trespass' - it was in a normal road

It's only trespass if the owner of the land tells you to leave. If the person then refuses to leave, he can be arrested, not assaulted. And if the police had a reason for blocking him, then they should block him, not attack him from behind.

dipsydoodle, I can hardly believe what you're saying about this - you're trying to justify police violence against peaceful demonstrators (or, in Tomlinson's case, a passer-by who wanted to use a normal, publicy-open route). What's got into you?

[dipsydoodle]

14. I'm not aware of saying anything against Tomlinson

who was wholly innocent - just going about his daily business and he got picked on.

I used trespass as an analogy. As far as I'm aware the police had blocked them - they were already kettled in the Square partly on the basis "you went there : now stay there" and part;y to keep them well away for the House of Commons. Chances are he got a wack for something another had done - you saw them poking at the police with the fencing and its known that some were carrying cans of paint too - so much for peaceful protest.

They lost my sympathy when the first little shit sprayed Revolution on the Portland stone in Whitehall a few weeks back. If I'd got hold of him I'd have emptied the rest of the can in his ear.

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. OK, I misread "that video footage removed all doubt as to Ian Tomlinson's innocence in the matter"

as you claiming that Tomlinson was definitely guilty of something. Sorry for that.

OK, there is a case for likening being in Parliament Square to 'trespass' when the march wasn't meant to go through it; but that doesn't justify the use of violence. Nor does possession, or even use, of paint. If someone was fighting the police, then the police can use force on them; but if "chances are he got a wack for something another had done", then the police have got it very, very wrong - they can only use force on people who are fighting. They're not there to take revenge, or to scare people into submission with violence.

[dipsydoodle]

16. I also didn't mean he had been struck maliciously

I meant that IF the officer had been struck and he struck back he may have missed his intended target bearing in mind he'd have had two maybe more rows of police pushing at his own back and restricting his own movements. That is not by way of excusing him. As I said before - there's probably some video footage of exactly what did occur.

[Creative]

17. Yes, I'm quite certain that is was "unprovoked."

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_vSyk6SJoF1M/TOkqALUSCvI/AAAAAAAAGYU/yOe9G2R1D5s/s400/london+student+riots.jpg

[fasttense]

4. Ah, democracy in action. Putting your life at risk for disagreeing with your government.

It seems strange to me that people who disagree with the actions of their own government most often have to risk their life to be heard. While those who passively allow their governments to do whatever, never risk anything.

[dipsydoodle]

5. The whole point about revolution

is victory or death. Doubtless there will be a martyr sooner or later.

Hasta la victoria siempre.

[Billy Burnett]

6. Indeed.

:hi:

[fasttense]

7. But this was merely a protest.

An expression of a point of view different from our elected governments. Is it really a revolution? Does it really call for martyrs?

It just seems strange to me that a government made up of We The people, a democracy, should have to revolt. Shouldn't our representatives in government be doing what We The People want? If not, then perhaps it is NOT a Democracy.

[JohnyCanuck]

9. Our cops are acting more and more like shock troops, not upholders of the law

and the powers that be like it that way.

Wake up: Arbitrary rule is all around us
By James Laxer

In Ontario, the Special Investigations Unit that reviews complaints against police has released a report that concludes that in two specific cases during the G20 summit in Toronto last June, excessive force was used. But just when it appears that the system might work and deliver some semblance of justice, that hope is instantly dashed.

SIU director Ian Scott has concluded that the offending officers cannot be identified and, therefore, cannot be charged. In the case of one man who was arrested, and sustained a fracture below his right eye, the SIU determined that the police used excessive force. But the badge number on the man's arrest sheet did not correspond to the assigned badge number of any Toronto police officer. Even Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair has acknowledged that up to 90 officers were not wearing their name-tags during the summit weekend. He says he will discipline the officers who chose to make themselves unidentifiable, but they are not being charged with an offence.

The only conclusion we can reasonably draw is that a large number of officers were out of control during the policing of the summit. Because the police won't come forward to testify against their fellow officers, the cover up works. Officers who assault people on the street, even when the assaults are videoed, get away with it because follow officers won't say a word against them. When the police act more like a gang of thugs than like professionals who uphold a set of standards, they become untrustworthy, a force that neither serves nor protects.

And what do those in charge do about this? Next to nothing.

http://www.rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/james-laxer/2010/11/wake-arbitrary-rule-all-around-us