Ian Tomlinson unlawfully killed by Pc

estebanrey · 19 Jul 2012 at 18:24

bitslice said:
The police can't do their job without being able to baton people, that's why we give them battons (and tasers and pepper spray and guns and possibly water cannons)

They also can't pussy foot about and not use them just because one guy in a million might die from being poked with one.

Have you actually seen the video? The guys was just walking along innocently in front of them, he wasn't even part of the protest!

There must have been 8 officers alongside Harwood and yet none of them even moved toward Tomlinson, only Harwood felt the need (or rather urge) to leap forward and hit IT in the legs and shoving him over.

Surely a baton's use should only condoned when the officer in question feels at threat. They can't just around smacking people because they don't like the look of them.

SexyGreyFox · 19 Jul 2012 at 18:29

Johno please? said:
Beaten?

Wasn't he shoved to the ground?

No he wasn't 'shoved to the ground', he was pushed away and he fell over.

Robbo · 19 Jul 2012 at 18:33

I love how we've obviously got one 'dodgy' (at best) police officer involved in this case, and all of a sudden the entire police force are evil.

However nasty a piece of work Harwood may be, he didn't do much wrong in this particular case. What kind of person tries to wind up a riot police line...

Freakbro · 19 Jul 2012 at 18:34

Dimple said:
No he wasn't 'shoved to the ground', he was pushed away and he fell over.

That's a pretty fine line to differentiate...I would suggest pushing (shoving) someone in the back with the level of force the policeman did would reasonably lead to them falling to the ground.

Robbo said:
However nasty a piece of work Harwood may be, he didn't do much wrong in this particular case.

What

of course he did.. He assaulted a man walking away from him with his hands in his pockets posing no threat which lead to his death...

Danthus · 19 Jul 2012 at 18:35

KNiVES said:
Yep, a fantastic justice system where police routinely slaughter people and nobody gets charged for it. See my last post above.

Routinely slaughtered?

The Halk · 19 Jul 2012 at 18:35

KNiVES said:
Yep, a fantastic justice system where police routinely slaughter people and nobody gets charged for it. See my last post above.

Hyperbole. Do you know what slaughter means?

The people police deal with are the dregs of society - drug addicts, alcoholics, homeless or a combination. It's inevitable that these people will be on death's door - so if they are going to get arrested after breaking the law then that's the point at which I'd say they're likely to die.

I do however believe that there must be at least some form of unlawful killing going on in police cells. I don't like the police in general and I've found many of them to consider themselves above everybody else. I don't for one second doubt that lots of people take a beating in the cells or the back of a meatwagon.

However to say there's slaughter going on I don't think is correct. I don't expect any police officers kill people intentionally, I'd suspect it's poor handling and excessive violence that does it, contempt rather than intent.

wazza300 · 19 Jul 2012 at 18:38

Housey said:
I think this copper is a bad egg based on his record of other incidents.

there all bad eggs arn't they???

estebanrey · 19 Jul 2012 at 18:38

Robbo said:
I love how we've obviously got one 'dodgy' (at best) police officer involved in this case, and all of a sudden the entire police force are evil.

I don't think it's the 'force' in general people are complaining about but rather the 'system'.

In the last 5 years I've seen numerous cases brought against officers and they ALWAYS get off. Many of the circumstances, IMO, would see a normal member of the public sent down.

estebanrey · 19 Jul 2012 at 18:39

Dimple said:
No he wasn't 'shoved to the ground', he was pushed away and he fell over.

No he was hit in the back of the legs with a baton and then shoved in the back.

1:15

The BBC have it from a different angle and you can see the baton strike better.

Describing being struck with a baton in the legs and then being shoved as being "pushed away" is laughable. And what was he being pushed away from exactly?

And as I asked earlier, if Harwood was taking the correct course of action why didn't the 6 or 7 other officers join him in the attack?

Robbo · 19 Jul 2012 at 18:39

wazza300 said:
there all bad eggs arn't they???

Are you serious?

Freakbro said:
What of course he did.. He assaulted a man walking away from him with his hands in his pockets posing no threat which lead to his death...

Pushing someone ignoring the orders of a riot police line isn't exactly pinning down a harmless person and beating the living hell out of them, which is what you'd think had happened given some of the reactions in this thread.

olivier renault · 19 Jul 2012 at 18:51

Anyone else would have been jailed and shamed.

estebanrey · 19 Jul 2012 at 18:52

Robbo said:
Pushing someone ignoring the orders of a riot police line isn't exactly pinning down a harmless person and beating the living hell out of them, which is what you'd think had happened given some of the reactions in this thread.

He wasn't pushed, he was struck with a baton and shoved, watch the video

Meridian · 19 Jul 2012 at 18:58

Von Smallhausen said:
His actions were shocking Burnsy and I've said that consistently but no court was going to prove that those actions were responsible for Mr Tomlinson's death.

I'm not a lawyer, but IIRC the usual definition of manslaughter not only requires you to be reckless, but means that you carried out an action where death was a reasonably possible outcome. But I'm struggling to see how whacking someone around the legs and then giving them a shove could reasonably be expected to result in them dying - this was sheer bad luck (probably combined with health issues caused by excessive persistent alcohol abuse. Harwood was probably too aggressive, and I would imagine his force career is at an end, but there's no way Tomlinson's death was manslaughter, and the jury was perfectly correct to reject that verdict. The prosecution was almost entirely politically motivated.

MrMoonX · 19 Jul 2012 at 19:01

olivier renault said:
Anyone else would have been jailed and shamed.

yeah if you went out and pushed someone and hit them with a baton and then they died, you would so go down for manslaughter, but cos this POS is a copper he gets off easy, justice again proves its jobs for the boys

Robbo · 19 Jul 2012 at 19:02

estebanrey said:
He wasn't pushed, he was struck with a baton and shoved, watch the video

Shoved then, probably what you'd expect if you stand in the way of a riot squad that's telling you to move.

Meridian said:
I'm not a lawyer, but IIRC the usual definition of manslaughter not only requires you to be reckless, but means that you carried out an action where death was a reasonably possible outcome. But I'm struggling to see how whacking someone around the legs and then giving them a shove could reasonably be expected to result in them dying - this was sheer bad luck (probably combined with health issues caused by excessive persistent alcohol abuse. Harwood was probably too aggressive, and I would imagine his force career is at an end, but there's no way Tomlinson's death was manslaughter, and the jury was perfectly correct to reject that verdict. The prosecution was almost entirely politically motivated.

Agreed.

SexyGreyFox · 19 Jul 2012 at 19:07

Freakbro said:
That's a pretty fine line to differentiate...I would suggest pushing (shoving) someone in the back with the level of force the policeman did would reasonably lead to them falling to the ground.

I wouldn't have fell over from that push

estebanrey said:
No he was hit in the back of the legs with a baton and then shoved in the back.

The push came way after the baton strike but you make it sound like they both happened at the same time.
Anyway, it's very sad and a man lost his life but a jury saw it exactly as I did.

wazza300 · 19 Jul 2012 at 19:11

Robbo said:
Are you serious?

yeah im serious,who likes the police anyway?cant stand them

Robbo · 19 Jul 2012 at 19:15

wazza300 said:
yeah im serious,who likes the police anyway?cant stand them

In my experience, people with your attitude don't like them because they have to deal with them on a regular basis. I wonder why that is...

Danthus · 19 Jul 2012 at 19:19

MrMoonX said:
yeah if you went out and pushed someone and hit them with a baton and then they died, you would so go down for manslaughter, but cos this POS is a copper he gets off easy, justice again proves its jobs for the boys

The case went to court, 12 members of the public found him not guilty.

The Halk · 19 Jul 2012 at 19:19

Meridian said:
I'm not a lawyer, but IIRC the usual definition of manslaughter not only requires you to be reckless, but means that you carried out an action where death was a reasonably possible outcome.

Manslaughter isn't that.

Under English law, according to R v Creamer,[13] a person is guilty of involuntary manslaughter when he or she intends an unlawful act that is likely to do harm to the person, and death results which was neither foreseen nor intended. The alternative name for this crime is constructive manslaughter. Although the accused did not intend to cause serious harm or foresee the risk of doing so, and although an objective observer would not necessarily have predicted that serious harm would result, the accused's responsibility for causing death is constructed from the fault in committing what might have been a minor criminal act.

However since all he did was push him to the ground, manslaughter wasn't done in my non-legal opinion.