Cop shoots unarmed person in the back

[nemafakei]

"And the broken bottles behind them are just something that came out of nowhere"

Well, they look like discarded plastic bottles that have been crushed underfoot to me. Are you trying to claim that they are bottles that have been thrown? If so, while I'm happy to say people throwing plastic bottles are idiots, bear in mind that throwing a plastic bottle is more like throwing a paper aeroplane than throwing a brick, in that it's not all that likely to actually hurt, let alone injure someone. It's certainly not justification for charging at a load of people who *didn't* throw a bottle. Hell, even the police claim that most of the demonstrators were totally peaceful.

"Moreover, there seems to be the prevalent notion that it was all the police's fault and that the protesters are as innocent as the day they were born."

When I hear any evidence of protester violence I'll change my tune. This 'prevalent notion' might as well.

"But I have to wonder, were they held in at all sides?  Could they have walked away from the protest?"

Yes, that is the point of a kettle. All of the media reports I've read confirm this, and I've read none that detail an exit route.

"On a wider scale, how did the police know that it wasn't going to be violent?"

They don't know either way. But it is an established principle of law that you do not punish someone for something they haven't done, and the onus is on the police to investigate crimes that have happened, not punish people for crimes they might be thinking of committing.

"Now, I don't know about you, but it seems to me that there's barely-restrained enmity towards the police in that crowd."

Even if you'd never been on a demonstration before, you'd be pretty pissed off if you'd been kettled, watching as the police charged at protestors with nowhere to go, watching as people are indiscriminately beaten.

"they're the sort of people that go around quoting their rights to police"

And clearly, that sort of people need to be given a good clubbing, eh? Rights are there to give us a warm fuzzy feeling that we live in a democracy, we're not actually supposed to try to use them.

"They get hit with batons to move them back, but does it deter them?"

Ok, the fact that *there was nowhere to go* aside, what right have the police to decide suddenly "you cannot be here where you are standing", that this is such a grievous offence that corporal punishment must be administered, and such a clear-cut offence that the entire justice system can be bypassed to do it?

"Breaking a bank window, chanting and refusing to move backwards doesn't seem like peaceful protest to me."

Breaking a bank window is destruction of property, and it's the only evidence of 'violence' on the part of the protesters going. Nobody's health was threatened by the protesters. It's difficult to move backwards when you're penned in on all sides, and frankly, why is refusing to move backwards evidence of non-peaceful activity? And unless they found a way to assault the coppers by chanting "Ni!", saying that chanting is evidence of violence is ridiculous.

"I don't see anything that the police did that was out of hand, bar the "kettling" method"

Physically assaulting demonstrators? APs? Beating up some poor guy on their way home who died a few minutes after, and trying to suggest they had nothing to do with it? Why should instances of police brutality be "cases that will need to be looked at separately" when the police is a corporate institution of the state whose purpose is to protect the public? These are on-duty coppers, with their mates, in their uniforms, wielding shields and truncheons, all paid for by the taxpayer, giving my friends scars. They're justifying their actions by arguing for collective punishment of unorganised protestors who have autonomously decided each for their own reasons to gather outside the Bank of England. Why should the institution be free from culpability or even criticism when its policies result in violence while individuals be subject to collective punishment for the misbehaviour of a small number of them?

[Dragoon Knight]

This is what I get for providing an alternative view. :P

- OK, the "no exit routes" from the kettle is wrong.  If the police weren't allowing people to move away from the protest, then that was incorrect and unjustifiable.

- To both Sneakgab and Nema: peaceful protest can certainly include chanting, which in itself is not violent.  All I'm saying is that, in that video, I get the impression that had the police simply stood there (or backed off after the press began), then the crowd would have given as good as they got.  This is just opinion - can't really be proven one way or another.

- Sneakgab: What I'm saying regarding the shields and armour being no use should the crowd rally and riot, is that if the police sense tensions rising, then they have a responsibility to use their shields and batons to manipulate the crowd in a way that makes such rallying difficult, if not impossible.  I don't agree with them hitting those in the front line with their batons - pushing with shields should have been enough.

- Both of you seem to hold to the idea that, because the protestors had a "right" to be there, that they weren't acting unlawfully.  If the police want them to move away, then they have to move away.  My suspicions about the people at the front being those who "quoted their rights at police" was meant to indicate that they're less likely to co-operate with authority and more likely to resist it, only making the situation worse.  It's a case of stubbornness - "fighting for your right" is all well and good, but complaining about getting hit afterwards is sort of their own fault.  Getting away from the front was always an option - turning around and trying to move back wasn't even attempted.

- I can't really comment on the death / individual cases of injury.  If they're confirmed as being caused by the police, then of course it's wrong.  I'm not defending them for that - I'm speaking only about their actions in trying to control a crowd.  We cannot know what might have happened that day if the police hadn't pressed backwards - is it so wrong of me to think that they had good cause?

[Dunenewt]

I know its not the best source, but it was the first link I came across, and the same info was in the Daily Telegraph when I read it on the day.  From TheSun.com:

'Three face a charge of possessing a bladed weapon, and one is charged with assault.

A ragtag mob made up of numerous protest groups fought with police throughout the day.

As the rioting spread, windows were smashed at an HSBC office, and one group tried to loot a branch of Tesco.

Shop staff fought to pull down metal shutters before a dozen police officers beat off the rioters

[Dante]

No, it's not the best source.

I have a few of my own though.

Police actions and the obligatory Tomlinson link for a start.

[Dunenewt]

Okay, here's a much better source:

Rioters loot RBS office after clashes in City

G20 protests turn violent