Competition Time

I presume everyone’s seen this by now? The challenge is to come up with something to justify how the police behaved - I don’t think it’s possible.

Disregard the other unconfirmed elements of the case – the reports that Ian Tomlinson had already been attacked with batons in a neighbouring street; that he had nothing to do with the demonstration the police were there to suppress; that the police officer hit him with a baton before the shove; that he died 10 minutes later from a heart attack – forget all that, just focus on what is actually visible in the clip itself.

I’ve heard the following spurious excuses already:

1. Tomlinson was drunk.
2. He was deliberately pissing the police off by walking slowly.
3. It was high spirits - the police were ‘psyched up’ and ready to face an angry mob.
4. Tomlinson was a protester and had been causing trouble moments before.
5. He was muttering insults and goading them under his breath.

None of these count, they’re all completely irrelevant. If Tomlinson was drunk, so what? If he was walking slowly just to annoy the police, aren’t they professional enough to deal with it in a civilised manner? Who cares if they were ‘psyched up’ - football fans get ‘psyched up’, nightclub bouncers get ‘psyched up’ – does that give them the free-reign to beat up anyone they want? Even if Tomlinson had been a protester; even if he’d been witnessed lobbing a brick at a squad car and was wearing a T-shirt that said ‘fuck the police’; even if he’d called the officer’s mother a rabid whore – it still doesn’t justify how he was treated.

You might try and formulate some kind of argument based on ‘reasonable force’ but that would also be bollocks. Reasonable force, as defined by the Crown Prosecution Service, means that you can only use ‘such force as is reasonable in the circumstances’. That means it’s got to be proportionate to the threat. If a police officer is in danger of being attacked or killed, they can use whatever means available to defend themselves. An unarmed man walking slowly with his hands in pockets – how much of a threat was he to a police officer dressed in full riot gear? Enough of a threat to approach him from behind and shove him so hard that he’s knocked off his feet and falls face first to the pavement?

It’s worrying that if he hadn’t had a heart attack minutes later, we might not have heard about this. It also makes you wonder how many other similar incidents happen – incidents behind the locked doors of cells or on streets where there isn’t an American fund manager recording things on his phone. But it is encouraging that the footage has generated as much interest as it has and that people seem to be genuinely outraged.

Therefore, for the good of our country, I hope that nobody manages to come up with an excuse that justifies the police officer’s behaviour. If someone does and people accept it, it’ll be a sure sign that our democratic and civilised society really is falling apart. If we start fearing the police and allowing them to wield their power indiscriminately, it’s only a short step to outright oppression and abuse. Then we’ll lose the liberty and freedom of speech that enables us to complain about things like this in the first place.