Ten Percent

When All You've Got Is A Hammer

Every problem looks like a nail-

A police decision to use a Taser gun on an 89-year-old man who was threatening to cut his own throat has been upheld by a watchdog. The Independent Police Complaints Commission(IPCC) said North Wales Police officers were protecting the public and the man’s life. The retired carpenter and World War II veteran walked out of a residential home in Llandudno, Conwy in January.

He smashed a window and ran off clutching a piece of glass. Police said at the time that they used the 50,000-volt stun gun to control the man, who has not been named, because they thought he might kill himself. The IPCC has now upheld the decision of an internal North Wales Police inquiry in to the incident. Relatives had disagreed with the decision and said the Taser could have killed him, that handcuffs were unnecessary and that the officers should have used other ways to calm him down.

This is the IPCC that has now been revealed to be complicit in attempting to cover up the killing of Ian Tomlinson

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) planned to announce that it had completed its assessment into Tomlinson’s death on 1 April and discovered nothing suspicious. At 11.30am on 4 April, investigators prepared a document announcing Tomlinson died of a heart attack after being caught up among protesters “dressed entirely in black” who, it said, were charging police.

“It was during this charge and retreat that Mr Tomlinson has seemed to have been caught up in the crowds and a number of people describe seeing him ‘collapse and fall to the ground’.”

The statement went on to say the IPCC had examined CCTV of the incident, police records and statements from independent witnesses, and been “satisfied that there is no evidence that the actions of those officers present on Cornhill contributed in any way to the sudden and untimely death of an innocent bystander”.

Their premature conclusions were read over the phone to Tomlinson’s family, but then appear to have been shelved at the last minute.

The logs also reveal the family were told by police there were “no marks” on Tomlinson’s face, a claim they contested after viewing his body. In their first interview, on Thursday, the family said City of London police, the Met and the IPCC discouraged them from talking to the media and said they believed there were attempts to cover up details about the death.

They said they were only given a selective account of a postmortem which found Tomlinson died of a heart attack.

The logs appear to confirm they were not told that the pathologist also discovered large amounts of blood in Tomlinson’s stomach and other injuries.

“Looking back, it is obvious we were misled by police in the hours and days after Ian died,” Paul King, Tomlinson’s son, said.

“There is still a lot to come out about how we were prevented from knowing the truth about Ian’s death.” He added that the family had been in shock when police family liaison officers were appointed and, he said, “trusted them too much”.

(ht2 Harpymarx)

The IPCC is a sham, they are too close to the police to fulfil the role of police oversight and investigation of criminal activity by the police. Their continued existence tells you all you need to know of authoritarian desires for police control of the population amongst the establishment, all wrapped in the shiny false pretences of accountability.

Ian Tomlison’s widow Julia and son Paul King, were interviewed in the Guardian (I wonder if the Guardian had not decided to take this stance would the killing be swept under the carpet despite coverage in independent media, because clearly the IPCC were part of the scam and citizen media is not that powerful)-

Julia Tomlinson criticised the IPCC failing to properly investigate her husband’s death until after the video was broadcast – almost a week after his death.

“The IPCC should have been there from day one – definitely – not left it five days later,” she said.

King added: “We’ve asked to see the evidence that [the IPCC] passed to the CPS. We’re still waiting for it … we haven’t seen it.

“Everyone knows that there was a lot of cover-up in the beginning. The truth will come out in the end.”

The family believe police misled them over Tomlinson’s death from the outset.

“It was half past four in the morning – a knock at the door and Stephanie, the second youngest daughter, answered the door,” Julia Tomlinson said.

“There were two police officers standing there and they asked to speak to Sam, my eldest daughter. I came down the stairs and they asked if I was Mrs Tomlinson, and I said yes.

“They said: ‘Have you heard about the G20? I said: ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

“They said: ‘If you’d like to sit down, then we’ll explain to you. And they said: ‘Your husband was caught up in the G20 riots, and he suddenly collapsed and died of a heart attack.”

Police then refused to allow her to see his body in the Royal London Hospital, she added.

“Six days later, I wasn’t allowed to go and see him,” she said. “I didn’t understand why they didn’t want me to go and see him – if someone dies of a heart attack, you get to go and see him. But they weren’t letting me.”

They also disclosed that, when a post-mortem examination was completed three days after Tomlinson died, police gave them an edited version of the results.

The family were not told that a forensic pathologist had found large amounts of blood in his stomach, a suspected dog bite on his leg and a number of other injuries.

“Now we know that it wasn’t a heart attack … that he died of internal bleeding.”

King said: “We’ve been confused by the City police, Metropolitan police, IPCC to not say anything: ‘Don’t say anything, because you’ll jeopardise the case’.

“I think we’ve been so confused with all that – don’t say this, don’t say that, even down to don’t talk to the media – they’ve made us quite scared to talk.

“The IPCC have finished their investigation, we haven’t been able to talk, and we just want to let people know how we feel. We are grieving.”

So They're Admitting We're Under Occupation?

Independent Northern Ireland-style go-betweens could ease tensions between police and protesters, say MPs. The Joint Committee on Human Rights said poor communications lay at the heart of problems at the G20 protests on 1 April.

And furthermore is it admitting the police do not work for us but for the government/ruling capital? Also in the reports no one mentions Tom Brake MP’s observation of the Met’s use of agent provocateurs.

Liberal Democrat Tom Brake says he saw what he believed to be two plain-clothes police officers go through a police cordon after presenting their ID cards. Brake, who along with hundreds of others was corralled behind police lines near Bank tube station in the City of London on the day of the protests, says he was informed by people in the crowd that the men had been seen to throw bottles at the police and had encouraged others to do the same shortly before they passed through the cordon.

So in summation, yes this is class war and yes the police are not on the people’s side and at last they have decided to admit this?

Anyways, ‘poor communications’ oh no I think the comms worked fine, what went wrong was we got them on film killing a man. There was no ‘failure’ they just got caught doing what they do under orders from on high.

Against Guidelines, Police Clearly Using Pain Compliance

This was a Tasering sent to Trent FM in Nottingham

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP2Lp5ql-Xg]

(sorry Daily Mail) According to guidelines from the Association of Chief Police Officers, they must not be used indiscriminately. Guidelines issued to forces state: ‘The use of taser is one of a number of tactical options available to an officer who is faced with violence or the threat of violence.

’Its purpose is to temporarily incapacitate an individual in order to control the threat that they pose.

‘It must not be used to inflict severe pain or suffering in the performance of official duties.’

So either the cops broke the guidelines or this is a big fib they are being taught to use pain compliance or in other words electro-torture to make people do whatever the officer wants them to do. Oh yeah, they punched him a fair bit too.

Taser- This machine creates fascists.

Torture Cancer- Met Police Waterboarded Suspects

Police brutality and the use of torture is not new, but the Whitehouse’s normalisation and legalisation of torture, Blair then Brown’s supine submission to ‘the special relationship’ and the media’s acquiescence to calling it ‘enhanced/harsh interrogation’ absolutely contribute towards a culture that produces this-

Metropolitan Police officers subjected suspects to waterboarding, according to allegations at the centre of a major anti-corruption inquiry, The Times has learnt.

The torture claims are part of a wide-ranging investigation which also includes accusations that officers fabricated evidence and stole suspects’ property. It has already led to the abandonment of a drug trial and the suspension of several police officers. However, senior policing officials are most alarmed by the claim that officers in Enfield, North London, used the controversial CIA interrogation technique to simulate drowning. Scotland Yard is appointing a new borough commander in Enfield in a move that is being seen as an attempt by Sir Paul Stephenson, the Met Commissioner, to enforce a regime of “intrusive supervision”.

The waterboarding claims will fuel the debate about police conduct that has raged in the wake of hundreds of public complaints of brutality at the anti-G20 protests in April.The part of the inquiry focusing on alleged police brutality has been taken over by the Independent Police Complaints Commission. It is examining the conduct of six officers connected to drug raids in November in which four men and a woman were arrested at addresses in Enfield and Tottenham. Police said they found a large amount of cannabis and the suspects were charged with importation of a Class C drug. The case was abandoned four months later when the Crown Prosecution Service said it would not have been in the public interest to proceed. It is understood that the trial, by revealing the torture claims, would have compromised the criminal investigation into the six officers.

Gee the IPCC are investigating, we can rest easy then…

Report on Kingsnorth Policing Buried

Chris Ames, Index on Censorship:- The Home Office and Kent Police have buried a report on the policing of last summer’s climate camp at Kingsnorth power station, provoking suspicions that it was critical of the controversial police tactics at the protest.

During the protest last August, activists complained of aggressive policing, including violence against peaceful protestors, excessive use of stop and search powers, arbitrary arrests and mass confiscation of personal property. A number of MPs called for an inquiry.

Last December, policing minister Vernon Coaker told MPs that the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) was “considering the lessons to be learned” from Kingsnorth. He said he would discuss its report with the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) and would then “be happy to share those conclusions” with Liberal Democrat Shadow Justice Secretary David Howarth.

But the report has been shelved, apparently because Kent Police did not like its findings, despite sending it back to be revised. Soon after receiving a “final” version, Chief Constable Michael Fuller commissioned a second review, on the grounds that the NPIA report “was not an evaluation of the operation overall or whether or not strategic and tactical objectives were achieved”.

The force also refused to hand the report to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC). Kent Police have declined to say what the report’s findings were, in spite of a claim that its policy “has always been to be open and transparent in everything we do”.

The Home Office is now presenting the second review, which is being carried out by an assistant chief constable of South Yorkshire Police, as a “report by the NPIA”, even though both the NPIA and South Yorkshire Police have stated that the NPIA are not involved.

[More]

& Chris Ames in the Guardian, (ht2 Indymedia)

For Muslim Men The UK Is A Secret Police State Already

Five Muslim community workers have accused MI5 of waging a campaign of blackmail and harassment in an attempt to recruit them as informants. The men claim they were given a choice of working for the Security Service or face detention and harassment in the UK and overseas.

They have made official complaints to the police, to the body which oversees the work of the Security Service and to their local MP Frank Dobson. Now they have decided to speak publicly about their experiences in the hope that publicity will stop similar tactics being used in the future.

Three of the men say they were detained at foreign airports on the orders of MI5 after leaving Britain on family holidays last year.

After they were sent back to the UK, they were interviewed by MI5 officers who, they say, falsely accused them of links to Islamic extremism. On each occasion the agents said they would lift the travel restrictions and threat of detention in return for their co-operation. When the men refused some of them received what they say were intimidating phone calls and threats.

Two other Muslim men say they were approached by MI5 at their homes after police officers posed as postmen. Each of the five men, aged between 19 and 25, was warned that if he did not help the security services he would be considered a terror suspect. A sixth man was held by MI5 for three hours after returning from his honeymoon in Saudi Arabia. He too claims he was threatened with travel restrictions if he tried to leave the UK.

An agent who gave her name as Katherine is alleged to have made direct threats to Adydarus Elmi, a 25-year-old cinema worker from north London. In one telephone call she rang him at 7am to congratulate him on the birth of his baby girl. His wife was still seven months’ pregnant and the couple had expressly told the hospital that they did not want to know the sex of their child.

Mr Elmi further alleges: “Katherine tried to threaten me by saying, and it still runs through my mind now: ‘Remember, this won’t be the last time we ever meet.’ And then during our last conversation she explained: ‘If you do not want anything to happen to your family you will co-operate.’”

More @ The Independent
Remember Bisher al Rawi, who ended up in Gitmo after he was approached, worked for MI5 and then subject to extraordinary rendition and torture when he was framed as a ‘terror suspect’ for having …a battery charger from Argos. It looks like they are using tougher blackmail & harassment tactics now that rendition and the black site prison network are more common knowledge. For young Muslim men in Britain this amounts to an almost apartheid condition, note they have gone to the papers with this suggesting the exhaustive avenues they took of normal redress were not so helpful. Even now the men arrested in Manchester are being denied their rights and the government looks to deport them -in a fit of pique (?)- after finding zero evidence. The NUS Black Students’ Campaign (or here) have passed a motion supporting these students and Hicham Yezza.

Filth

The Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, said today that he was extremely concerned about some aspects of the policing of the G20 demonstrations although he insisted the vast majority of his officers had done a “remarkably good job”. Giving evidence in front of the Commons home affairs select committee, Stephenson said images of officers apparently lashing out at protesters “were a real concern and should be investigated thoroughly”. But he denied the footage showed behaviour that was “incompatible with British policing”.

Yesterday the MPs also heard from Commander Bob Broadhurst, who was in charge of policing the G20 event. He defended his officers saying they had been “superb” in challenging circumstances.

“The vast majority of those officers have never faced a situation as violent as that,” he said. “I do have a concern that some of our officers have not faced that. I would like to train them more but we don’t have the time.”

What violent situation? Oh the one your agent provocateurs tried to instigate you mean! Talk about rewriting history. And good to see the commissioner thinks murder is a compatible method of British policing. No change there.

Worth a look- Launch of United Campaign Against Police Violence