Rounding off an extremely bad month, the past 12 hours been hard on police credibility as they try to address the fallout from the 24 November demos.  First, they denied that a serving officer discharged a BCF halon fire extinguisher point-blank into the faces of young demonstrators during the student demonstrations this past Wednesday.  However, with the help of one of our very own regular contributors, Indymedia had already exposed this as a falsehood. As of this morning, the corporate press has followed suit.

Next up: the police statement that their tactics "did not involve charging the crowd" of young people detained between lines of riot cops for nine hours. Video posted on Indymedia has again shown this to be untrue, and this time it's The Guardian that's picked up on the story. Although the police may have hoped for a PR bounceback, the whole framework of public order policing and its standard toolset (mass detention with no charges laid, internet censorship, and surveillance of people doing political organising work) appears to be increasingly provoking a reaction.

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