In a report today, in the Guardian accuses the Independent Police Complaints Commission and the Metropolitan police of attempting to manipulate the story of Ian Tomlinson's death at the G20 protests and to 'manage' Mr Tomlinson's family. The following is particularly interesting:
On Sunday, the pictures obtained by the Guardian showing Mr Tomlinson on the ground in front of police were published.
Around 10.30 am the Tomlinson family attended the scene of the death, where they spoke to the Guardian about allegations he had been assaulted by police. They said they were glad the pictures had come out and wanted more answers. They were concerned about allegations that Tomlinson had been assaulted. They gave the Guardian their names, telephone numbers and address and then attended a church memorial service.
It was then, during the service, that the family's police liaison officer told the Guardian he was extremely unhappy the paper had spoken to them. He told the Guardian's reporter not to contact the family "for 48 hours".
Meanwhile official guidance from the IPCC to another Guardian journalist accused the paper of doorstepping the family at a time of grief. The IPCC guided that the family had been deeply distressed by the newspaper's approach. On the same day the IPCC told journalists from rival publications there was "nothing in the story" that Mr Tomlinson had been assaulted by an officer.
So, to summarise: inappropriate behaviour by the police's family liaison officer, along with interference and manipulative briefings by the IPCC. Thank goodness the family now have their own legal advice.
Most of this background information never gets reported, but it helps to show why justice following a death involving the police is so rare.
Elsewhere in the same newspaper are comments by eye-witness Alan Edwards, who helped Mr Tomlinson aftter he was assaulted. He mentions the following contact with the IPCC:
Edwards will make a full statement to the Independent Police Complaints Commission today. But he has already given a preliminary description to the police watchdog of what happened. "When I spoke to the lady at the IPCC she asked what happened when [Tomlinson] fell over. I said: 'He didn't fall, he was pushed.'"
Quite. No prior assumptions by the IPCC's investigators then...
"He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's believing him."
Lies crafted and repeated by the Metropolitan Police and its counterparts around the country, fed through unattributed ‘police sources’ to the press, are so commonplace that it’s hardly surprising public scepticism has become almost instinctual. The police lied about the deaths in their custody of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell station, of Roger Sylvester in Tottenham and of Ibrahima Sey in Ilford. They lied about Christopher Alder, who lay dying on the floor of a police station in Hull whilst officers mocked and racially abused him and they lied about Shiji Lapite, who they strangled and killed in Stoke Newington.
After over a decade as secretary of the United Families & Friends Campaign, the coalition of bereaved relatives of those who have died in custody, it’s hard for me to think of a single controversial death where the police haven’t lied repeatedly, particularly in the immediate aftermath when the press narrative is set for months to come.
But it’s not just the lies that breed scepticism and suspicion, it’s the deliberate smears that suggested that Jean Charles was acting suspiciously, that Roger was high on cocaine, that Shiji was a drug dealer, that Ibrahima was mad and had ‘superhuman strength.’ Each tried to blame the victim for causing their death and all were calculated attempts to pervert the course of justice, to block the possibility that police officers might be held to account for their decisions and actions. And although routine following a custody death, the smears are commonplace whenever there is controversy.
Back in 2006, when the police blundered into the home of two innocent brothers on the next street from mine in Forest Gate in a botched ‘anti-terror’ raid, shooting and wounding one man and then restricting the movement of a whole community for ten days, police press officers were soon busy feeding smears to the press. Lurid stories about suicide bomb vests and a ‘chemical bomb factory’ were scoffed at by my neighbours as children played football on the streets around the ‘crime scene’, but plenty of tabloid readers believed these lies, just as many still think that Jean Charles jumped the ticket barrier at Stockwell. When all else failed, the Met circulated rumours that a computer taken from the home of the two brothers contained child pornography – rumours angrily refuted by their lawyers who demanded evidence that was never provided.
The police’s management of news in the aftermath of the G20 protests followed the same pattern once it became clear there had been a fatality, although this time it was protesters rather than the dead man who were slandered (one wonders what the message would have been if a protester had died – presumably ‘violent anarchist’ with ‘superhuman strength’). The intent, however, was the same as ever – to undermine prospects of accountability of the police.
Whilst we might hope for justice for Ian Tomlinson’s family, the experiences of so many other families suggest the chances are very slim, but not as slim as an end to the police’s manipulative and unhealthy relationship with the British media. Anyone reading the bland, wilfully feeble ‘scrutiny’ by the Metropolitan Police Authority knows that the state has no stomach for reining in police fabrication of the truth.
Which leaves us with a sobering thought – that they almost got away with it, that there may have been no investigation, not even an inquest, but for the chance capture of video evidence. With little sign that the police intend on changing their heavy-handed tactics during the policing of protests, the work of the splendidly brave (and repeatedly harassed) activists from FITwatch may now need extending to our own team of camera operators, not simply to resist and oppose the surveillance on protesters but ready to record evidence of police brutality.
NOTE: The submission I wrote for Newham Monitoring Project in 2006 on selective leaks by the police to the press following the Forest Gate raids is available at the Statewatch website.
Thanks to Piara for pointing out Livingstone's interview on Channel 4 News. "I always worry," said Livingstone, "that these elite groups [of police] end up with a much more paramilitary approach to policing, a much more proactive 'go in and sort it out', than the traditional bobby that's on the beat."
This from the man who praised the 'elite' paramilitary police officers involved in the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes.
Members of Jean Charles de Menezes's family in London have issued the following message of support to the family of Ian Tomlinson, who died at last week's G20 protest. It has passed on by Mr Tomlinson's solicitors. It reads:
The family of Jean Charles de Menezes and their Campaign wish to express their deep condolences to the family of Ian Tomlinson over his tragic death. Our thoughts are with them at this difficult time.
We have been following the emerging evidence relating to the police assault on Ian with grave sadness as we remember the early accounts of how Jean Charles’ death was reported. The Tomlinson family has a right to find out the truth behind what led to Ian’s death. We know from experience that their pain at this time is only being exacerbated by the misinformation and half truths that have been circulating.
We are concerned that the police appear to have misled the public about vital information regarding the circumstances of Ian’s death and find it deeply worrying that Ian’s death is not being independently investigated but rather; the City of London police force is investigating the Metropolitan police. How can an investigation claim to be independent if police officers are investigating themselves?
The notion that the Met has fully learned the lessons of the Menezes tragedy must be called into question in the way in which they have handled the aftermath of Ian Tomlinson’s death. The media also must shoulder some criticism for its continued unquestioning acceptance of police accounts of contentious deaths.
Justice4Jean continues to campaign to ensure that no family has to go through what the Menezes family endured. We have long called for an independent inquiry into the over arching issues raised by the shooting including the ability of the IPCC to deliver justice and how the police are able to repeatedly mislead the public over contentious deaths. The need for such an inquiry is clearly needed now more than ever and we hope the Tomlinson family get the truth and justice they deserve.
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One day on, I’m still angry about the conduct of the police in the Square Mile and I’m reminded of a quote by George Orwell, who wrote “whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible.” The police revelled in their apparent invincibility on the streets during yesterday’s protests and at times were out of control. It certainly looked that way to many protesters.
I cycled up to Liverpool Street and headed over to take a look at events at the Bank of England, having planned to attend the Climate Camp protest on Bishopsgate. I’m glad I managed to get away just before the imposition of the police tactic of the ‘kettle’, which amounts to imprisonment in a contained space for hours on end, without food or water or any of the formalities of arrest. As soon as people tried to leave and were refused, it was almost inevitable that tensions would rise, which from what I saw was what a number of the riot cops were itching for. Reports in today’s rightwing newspapers have praised the police, unsurprisingly, but even the liberal press have trotted out nonsense like the laughable ‘protest tourism’ of Deborah Orr in the Independent and the claim, by the idiotic Sandra Laville in the Guardian, that the Met are “said to be among the best public order officers in the world” – by whom? And the ‘best’ at what, shutting down legitimate protest?
Over at the amazing Climate Camp, it felt relatively calm for most of the afternoon, despite the surly aggression of the police officers in the boiler suits who clearly felt they had drawn the short straw as they stood at either end of the occupied road outside the European Climate Exchange. Sadly the calm didn’t last: from around 7pm, riot police violently attacked the camp, injuring many who had been engaged in peaceful protest and once again refusing to allow anyone to leave the area. As the police advanced, Climate Campers held up their hands and chanted “peace not violence”, but it didn’t do any good – the police waded in with their batons. See the following footage of the violence of the police:
I hope that police tactics will come under greater scrutiny over the coming weeks, not least because of the shocking news of the death of a protester caught by in the ‘kettle’ near the Bank of England. This has been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, for what little that is worth, whilst the police have already spread smear stories saying they were attacked when providing assistance to the injured man, which have been contradicted by eye-witnesses. As anyone who recalls the aftermath of any death involving police contact will know, lying seems to be the standard police procedure in these circumstances. But if the police get away yet again with their decision to treat all and any protester as violent and dangerous, there are a number of major potential consequences for any demonstration that doesn’t involve a stroll from Embankment to Hyde Park along a prescribed route.
Firstly, the prospect of creating anything like the carnival atmosphere of peaceful opposition and freedom of expression that existed at Climate Camp, or briefly outside the Bank of England, will have been taken away, perhaps forever. As a result, future protests are likely to be less collective and coordinated, more autonomous, aiming to ensure they are more difficult to cordon off and control. That’s fine for the committed activists but uncertainty about protest plans and the fear of violence from the police – the only genuine fear felt by most people yesterday – risks making people think twice about exercising their right to protest in any manner other than one ‘approved’ by the state.
Moreover, if non-violence protest is routinely met with beatings, intimidation and harassment, then what point is there in chanting “peace not violence” when no-one cares and no-one is listening? What incentive is there, if fact, not to forcefully defend yourself? At the moment, I’m not so sure that is such a bad idea, even though I have never been comfortable with violence. I certainly saw the breaking of a few windows at a Royal Bank of Scotland branch yesterday as staged for the scrum of photographers. But if hundreds of police officers square up with their shields and their batons hoping to batter a few scruffy hippies and instead get a bloody good kicking, isn’t that bully’s justice? Why should those prepared to exercise their right to self-defence deserve condemnation rather than praise? To misquote a statement that is often also attributed to Orwell, could it be that “people can protest peaceably in their streets only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf”?
Our police ‘service’ should remember that whoever is winning at the moment can change. There’s nothing inevitable about invincibility and if you assume that every protester is violent and dangerous, one day you may well turn up to repress another protest and find out your prejudices have come true.
If that happens, yesterday’s events in the City will start to look like... well, a peaceful picnic on Bishopsgate...
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