I couldn't tell from the footage. SW burns nicely though.

Yes, a serious lesson for the kid: to not throw petrol bombs!

Its the kids fault. Not the camera man; not the police; stop trying to pass the blame
For every action, there is a consequence. If you throw a petrol bomb then thats your business. You know what you were doing, you know it was wrong, you know the law, you know the consequences. Yet, you somehow seem to think you are exempt!? well fuck off

Whoever it is in the video, they're clearly masked up, their identity has not been uncovered (the police only talk about suspicions), there is no evidence this was a petrol bomb and there is no evidence that the object was ever thrown. So whether you feel that petrol bombs are wrong or not, to say it's this 14 year old kid's fault for throwing a petrol bomb is a ludicrous and clearly deliberate misreading of this entire situation.

As for petrol bombs, the cops are willing to bludgeon protesters over the head with batons and open fire on protesters kicking a royal car (plenty of police sources have said they're surprised this didn't happen). They're willing to allow a huge crowd into parliament square, kettle them so there's nowhere to run and then horse charge them. They're willing to deploy undercover officers to rape people involved in social movements in order to extract information. They're willing to murder someone non-threatening and cover it up on the day with lies and incompetent pathologists, and when the story comes out they refuse to bring any charges against the man who struck the fatal blow.

And what are these dangerous domestic extremists trying to do? Stop the elite hijacking education. Highlight the gross poverty gap that is exemplified no better than a royal couple driving with heads in the clouds to a west end show through a crowd protesting the assault on their futures. And stop climate change which is already taking its horrendous toll upon powerless people worldwide.

What authority do the cops have to do this? Clearly no moral authority. Only state-granted authority. The state claims a monopoly on violence which allows it to bitterly condemn harris fencing being used to move police officers, while praising as heroes the brainwashed kids they send across the world to kill strangers and be killed by strangers in order to protect 'vital state assets' like someone else's oil or security we wouldn't need if we stopped treating the world like our playground.

Fuck the cops, why weep for them when they take blood money in order to suppress peoples' movements that threaten to deliver real empowering democracy out of the hands of the elites. Their pay packets are funded by the very people they suppress. And in the midst of all this, someone ALLEGEDLY lobs a petrol bomb at them and THAT'S the injustice you scream about? Seriously, get some perspective.

Shoddy shoddy reporting from the mirror which claims the video shows "a hooded figure hurling the Molotov cocktail across Parliament Square, London". Clearly they haven't bothered to watch the video as it in fact does NOT show anyone hurling anything.

 http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/01/15/schoolboy-14-arrested-for-allegedly-throwing-student-fees-petrol-bomb-115875-22849996/

Looked like a flaming toilet roll to me, with a bottle photoshopped in later.

No more videoing then. No more taking photographs. Be careful what you publish online. They are watching you! Best stay at home and never protest. There are cameras everywhere and the FIT may be watching too. Just think, your little phone video could make all the difference and could get you arrested as well.

@ Watsit

clearly the article writer was not saying stay at home and do nowt, they were sensibly saying some people need to stop endangering other people by their obsession with spectacular images and videos which reveal identities or add to police files/evidence... in my young days anyone with a camera or video camera in a riot situation was politely asked and then less politely told to stop, or action was taken. not everything about new technology has a totally positive effect.

Ted, you are completely missing the point. Of course we all know throwing molotovs at the police is illegal and that there will be consequences if caught. That is the whole fucking point!

But... SOME OF US THINK IT IS GOOD TO THROW MOLOTOVS AT THE POLICE! So we should be doing all we can to help people like this break the law and get away with it. And those collaborators who snitch deserve the consequences of what they get.

Maybe you are a sheep who blindly follows what the state tells you and obeys without question the laws that are created by the rich and powerful. But some people aren't, and more power to them.

Good luck to whoever was arrested, hopefully they won't pin anything on you.

Because in such a pigged out area stuffed with journos, and with the event blogged so intensively after, you'd have thought a molotov would have been major news at the time.

And running that long with a lit molotov in your hand seems a wee bit crazeeee.

Are the cops blatantly misusing unclear footage to up the temperature before the demo on the 19th? And are the journos who think that an undercover cop amongst 'fluffly tree huggers' is a bit too much, allowing that to happen?