8.50pm 1st April - London Bridge Riot Police still blocking entry to City
11am 2nd April - Royal Exchange, Workman removing graffiti with high pressure
11.10 am Threadneedle Street, citizens held by COL Police for Stop and Search
11.10 am Threadneedle Street, COL Police body search citizen
11.31 am COL Cops writing up their notes
12.03 am RBS Building Bartholomew La Glazing contractors in attendance
5.59 pm Adding comments and tributes to the Wall
"No Democracy Wall" - Ian Tomlinson Memorial
Wall close-up Threadneedle St side
Wall facing Bank Tube (Exchange Entrance)
People reading tributes and messages
6.45 pm Protester by Exchange Tube (Bank) Entrance
Group of protesters sitting on the Exchange steps
Tog - Agency 'stringer' filing copy
Stubborn Graffiti (was still there after 6.00pm)
I didn't actually witness the police prevention of the protest against Ian Tomlinson's death nor did I know much about it till the evening of the 2nd April, for as I have already documented at about 12.30 pm I followed the passing "The Young Peoples March For Jobs" to the ExCel and did not return to Bank till around 5.30pm.
It was then there I discovered that the hoarding put up to protect some monument outside the exchange had been turned into a 'No Democracy Wall' and memorial to Ian Tomlinson
The circumstances leading to the death of Mr. Tomlinson remained sketchy in my mind, for some days helped in part by media reports only too willing to accept police concocted versions of the events, and dismiss eye witness’ accounts as mistaken or misguided, However the flood of footage of the event has prompted even the most diehard blue surge media defender to backtrack and howl for an inquiry! Independent and above reproach...some hope!
Three videos that are now in the public domain prove eye witness’ accounts given just after the sickening unprovoked attack by a TSG police officer on passer-by Ian Tomlinson as accurate and that the Met as usual engaged in an attempt to cover up the truth
Both of the assault and their prevention and interference in the subsequent first aid offered by bystanders
A woman attending to Mr Tomlinson and giving him first aid, is seen to be manhandled and removed, whilst officers refuse to speak to ambulance personnel a man on a phone has contacted
clip link of police assault (1st Video):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/video/2009/apr/07/g20-police-assault-video clip link fresh angle on attack:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/video/2009/apr/08/g20-police-assault-ian-tomlinson-video clip link backs witnesses' claims and contradicts police account:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/09/g20-video-ian-tomlinson-death Do you think that timid toothless excuse for a watchdog the IPCC will come up with more than the usual whitewash in their independent criminal inquiry?
But I can bet you this it will be even more reason why the Bill will want to restrict the use of cameras by the public and press
Copyright Stalingrad O'Neill - permission is required for third party usage
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Comments
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Use of cameras?
10.04.2009 06:36
Videographer
don't know about vindication
10.04.2009 13:42
- who has access to and influence over the cameras, the 'content' they record, the distribution channels that selectively promote particular images/recordings above others to suit particular discourses, and so on.
- the potential for reduction of events in some respects to 'spectacles' or other 'symbolic' representations
Don't get me wrong, I think it's very useful that some things get recorded, however to believe that it represents a 'vindication' of the general use of it is not taking into conicderation some of the above points and using a pattern of reasoning that could also validate a good deal of other things I'd not be so happy about....
(one crude example that springs to mind is the Wall in Israel - a great many people I've talked about it with who come from Israel put the "fact that there have been less Israeli casualties as a result of the wall and various controls over Arab movements within Israel" forward as a 'vindication' of the wall....)
cost-benefit
not vindicated at all.
10.04.2009 19:01
"Look, we caught a shoplifter with our cctv - they work and your civil liberties don't matter!"
Cameras have their places. Getting in the way of people trying to affect change and involved in direct action isn't one of those places.
Anti-Camera
Small contribution to the debate
11.04.2009 11:22
CCCP
CCTV evidence use reference
12.04.2009 20:44
I don’t read into this debate that any one justified the use of CCTV
What was suggested was Ian Tomlinson's case, vindicated of the use of video cameras at events!
It is also incorrect to site the de Menezes case as a reference regarding CCTV evidence use! Miraculously for the police, the cameras were not working (and by an amazing coincidence we are told, CCTV footage of Tomlinson is unavailable due to camera malfunction)
That’s not to say your final statement "Don't expect any coppers to serve any prison time over this latest incident of State sponsored murder" is at fault
Drip drip drip of information:
de Menezes wiki
or google: de Menezes CCTV footage
Mr. McLeavy
In Memory of Ian Tomlinson - Peter Marshall
15.04.2009 12:48
"The media of course don’t come out of this at all well. The BBC in particular I think let us down; they simply do not have enough first-hand reporters and far too many people with their seats firmly on office chairs. Like the press they compete in the stoking of public fear and the stigmatising of democratic protest. Of course it isn’t largely the journalists who are responsible - with a few exceptions (mainly among ‘columnists’) they do their job as best they can, often, particularly for photographers and videographers, at some personal risk. But it isn’t the guys on the job who produce the programmes and papers, who decide on what has “news value” and dictate the values behind that decision.
To find the real stories behind the news you need to look elsewhere, to blogs and web sites, where you see eye-witness reports, pictures and video. The media are too busy resenting the presence of such things to have worked out how to make effective use of these sources - and of course like any other sources you need to read them with a critical and often cynical eye on where they come from. But it certainly isn’t a coincidence that the two stories which have dominated British news over the past week came from the mobile phone of a “citizen journalist” and blogs.
And if you want to know the real story behind the arrests of over a hundred activists suspected of conspiring to commit aggravated trespass at the Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station you won’t be looking at the press but to the blogs."
S O'Neill
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robograd@tiscali.co.uk