The tragic and preventable death of Ian Tomlinson brought shame and ignominy onto a police force that shows no sign that it has learnt lessons from that black day.Indeed the officer who pushed Mr Tomlinson, Simon Harwood, quit the Met on health grounds in 2001 immediately before a planned disciplinary hearing into claims that he illegally tried to arrest a driver after a road rage incident while off duty, altering his notes retrospectively to justify his action. Before long he was back with Surrey police, prior to returning to the Met in 2005, claims of being punched,throttled, kneed or threatended were alleged against Harwood, even before the day he pushed Mr Tomlinson.
Pattern
Recently people who have attended events intent on nothing more than peaceful non violent direct actions, have met with harsh and intimidating policing.
Guardian journalist Peter Walker recently attended Balcombe and had this to say on twitter '' all in all Balcombe is an object lesson in how to turn a peaceful, singing, good natured crowd, into a panicked group in seconds'' he was of course refering to the change in tactics just before the main arrests were made in Balcombe, including that of Green Party MP Caroline Lucas.
These cases are not isolated cases involving police brutality.
Riley Dylan an activist medic at the Big Six Energy demonstration in London in May of 2012 said the police were ''inflicting blows to the head and to the body, it was wildly disproportionate''
And Nadine El Enany had this to say about the Anti-fees protests ''Anti-fees protesters are putting police in the dock'' ''Courts are seing an abundance of footage of police violence and intimidation, as two more student protesters are aquitted''.
MP's And Policy
MP's make policies that are largely unpopular with the people they are supposed to govern, so the people try to show the Government they do not like their policies. They are attacked for daring to speak out by the police using the ''breaking the law'' excuse,a law made by MP's and their cronies. It is no wonder that people do not want to engage in politics if this is how they are treated. Caroline Lucas has gone on record as saying ''the Prime Minister and his coalition Government don't listen, so we have to take peaceful non violent direct action''
The police have had their numbers cut and pay greatly reduced and they still act for the Government that did this to them, in turn the Government act only for big energy companies and big corporations and how much they can personally make out of dangerous extraction methods that will poison the very people they hope will vote for them in the 2015 general election.
From this two things should be learned, the first is that if you beat and intimidate people who are behaving in a non violent way, they will remember that and distrust you always, so perhaps you should be more careful and considerate. The second is, if you bring something to the people that is dangerous, poisonous and divisive and try to foist it onto the people through strong arm tactics they will resist and when the time comes they will vote you OUT.
At the 2015 general election you will know which party/parties NOT to vote for, after all they made all of this happen with their nasty policies, helped by even nastier policing.
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