Police violence in the park - photos from London Mayday

r | 01.05.2005 17:16 | Free Spaces | Repression | London

Police used mayday as an excuse to act like bullies and thugs, but this time they kicked off in a park full of kids and families enjoying the glorious warm weather.

London, Hackney, police mayday riot.

Comments

Hide the following 13 comments

The police were actually pretty relaxed and didnt intimidate or harass anyone.

The few arrested made were dealt with quickly, despite a couple of anarchists trying to provoke it into something more then that.

Generally a good day, with very little if any interference from the Met.

Those arrested know why they got detained, and it wasnt for peacefull protest.

Dan

dan must be a police officer

01.05.2005 21:54

oh come on dan! were you there? the police acted like complete arseholes! i notice theres no mention of it on the news like the girl who was blowing her whistle on the march and was punched in the face by a male police officer! obviously you think this is ok in a civilised society? let me tell you anyone who uses agression against a woman is scum! and that was the general conclusion of most of the crowd! scum! scum! scum! or did you miss that as well? my theory is you are trying to smokescreen the tactics of the police farce! who were bang out of order! and well they know it! to anyone who was assaulted by the police sue the fuckers! it sure werent legal! ask dan since he seems to be very friendly with the harsh face of capitalism today! whos streets? our streets!

johnny alpha

Police brutality may day in hackney

01.05.2005 21:59

The police were actually pretty relaxed and didnt intimidate or harass anyone bolloks i have footage on my moblie where the police pick on peacefull protesters and arrest them for no reason, I saw a woman standing on the corner away from the boxed in protesters just grabbed by 3 of the poice anf dragged across the road for no reason followed by another 3 police how many does it take to arrest 1 woman 6, i think at least 4 to many then people were asking why she was arrested but the poice did not give a reason, but when poeople tried to film or take pictures of the false arrest they pushed people back and i mean really pushed back i would say that was assualt wouldnt you.

The few arrested made were dealt with quickly and very harshly, I dont aggree with you dan who quoted "despite a couple of anarchists trying to provoke it into something more then that". I would say that was the other way round the poilce were out of order the way they acted when just picking off the people they could grab so they could get there names and in the meantime try and stir the crowd up to make out it was there fault, to many quick temperd cops if you ask me its almost as if they wanted a ruck you no what im saying.

Generally a good day, with very little if any interference from the the protesters who were quite happy playing the drums and tambroines and dancing in the street wheres the harm in that untill london fields were the same quick to raise the batten cops out for a ruck started making stupid arrests trying to stir up the crowd which they almost did but after chanting why dont you go home the poice eventually backed off.

Who's streets OUR STREETS

Thee Booster

Thee booster
mail e-mail: steviete69@hotmail.com

Reality of the day from my angle

01.05.2005 22:06

As someone who was detained and threatened with arrest for throwing water to protesters, I don't think that the police attitude was quite as reasonable as Dan apeared to. This would have been more worrying if they had not said that they were going to arrest me on the basis that I was trying to injure protesters by dropping water on them. I was asulted many times during the day and saw others asulted many times. None of the assults on me were serious, but it is very unprofesional and a sign of a police force that is not confident in its ability to control the populace.

a point from a friend of the fluffy terrorist:
I don't think it is very helpful towards our movement or fair on our belief system to say that was "anarchists" who were supposedly trying to turn a peaceful demo into a fight, anarchism is a belief of forward thinking people not violent thugs, i find your use of the word similar to that of the tabloids, we should work to gether rather then segregating ourselves into seperate groups.

Fluffy terorist

thugs in uniforms

01.05.2005 22:15

Dan must have been at a different demo. Dan, were you in Hackney Central? The police started harrassing young people with earrings and noserings at highbury and islington tube station. One boy was pulled into a corner and searched. When the crowd boarded the train to hackney central, a small army of met police pushed into the already crowded wagon, commanding people around like an occupying army and pushing hard (no matter wether you were bystander or demonstrator). I don't know what constitutes harassment for dan, but my knees wobbled and i was scared - just because i was on the tube with a whole load of thugs in police uniforms.

"The police were actually pretty relaxed"? Not when they pushed a fist into me, a woman without any activist accessories. Not when they didn't want to let us off the tube in hackney central, and we had to push through.

The police "didnt intimidate or harass anyone"? When they had built their section 60 or whatever they call it, they kept pushing people into it, tourists and young girls who clearly didn't want to be in that circle of thugs. Not intimidation? And constantly filming peoples unprotected faces - no harassment?

Dan tells us that "the few arrested made were dealt with quickly" - i saw this happening to two people. 3, 4, then 5 met police pushing an activist on the ground, painfully pulling his arms behind his back, placing a booted foot on his neck - yeah, great. And not only efficient, they even managed to shield the brutality so that it was hardly possible to take pictures of the assault! The second arrest was a black guy. Ah, great - of he wasn't just thrown to the ground, but I also saw him being hit strongly. Then handcuffed. I am worried about what happened to him in the police van.

Apparently, people got arrested for threatening public order. I must say, today, the threat to public order came from muscled up thugs in met police uniforms. I wish someone would have arrested them, and deal with them quickly, as Dan suggests.

cows with guns

oh fgs

02.05.2005 11:30

God what a fuss. You lot need thisd stuf fto validate your activist credentails, but you go no so much you end up looking daft. I bet if the police didnt arrest anyone you would all be really dissapointed. Boring.

mor

inverted racism?

02.05.2005 12:21

"The second arrest was a black guy"

So what? If he was white would you have noted that? It would be equally wrong be he Anglo-Saxon or ethnic. If it was just a plain arrest (which could happen to anyone no matter their colour) don't try and create a racist incident where there isn't one.

No 2 ALL racism

Sheeps with wolf dresses...

07.05.2005 20:34

So you got harassed by police 'violence'?? five of you 'arrested' (most probably released within 5 hours, am I wrong?)?? and your achievement was entering a TESCO and dance around it for half an hour before sheepingly being kicked out by the police, and after that the whole capitalist system goes on, isnt it?
Then gets to Thursday and all you achieve is getting a murderer in power again and just Galloway from Respect, plus more votes for the Tories...
I just find this hilarious... you all have a big problem, that is that you have never suffered anything bad. You ALL are responsible of colonialism and exploitation. I wish you would have lived under Franco in Spain (as I did) and suffered what POLICE VIOLENCE is or under Stalin in Soviet Russia (I am a Trostkyst for all of you that don't know what POUM is, and yes Stalin was like Hitler not a revolutionary) or in Portugal under Salazar... that was police violence. You Brits think of yourselves as a big progressist nation with a strong civil society that brings around the biggest demonstration against the war in Iraq... what have your demonstration and all the bollocks about bringing down capitalism achieved? I´ll tell you NOTHING, NOTHING, with big letters!!!! Keep playing your game of we are revolutionaries but you aren´t you are a caricature of what a revolutionary is. Go out of your sad rottening country and talk to people like Santiago Carrillo from the Spanish Communist Party, with Evo Morales from the Bolivian Coke Producers Union, read about Chico Mendes, Dolores Ibarruri, Baburam Battharai, Trotsky, Durruti,... real revolutionaries, not your SWP and your CND,... you are so politically correct because you are scared that pushing too hard will destabilise your capitalist world and bring your commodities down. You know Viren from SWP?? He plays computer games in ULU every Monday with other SWP's members; and those of you that went to ULU to be against the Olympics, you couldn't even argue against the rower there when he (for once the oligarchy was allowing dissent!!) was willing to, because you have no arguments. You think that being a revolutionary is wearing Che's T-shirts and pins and going to demonstration. To be a revolutionary you got to do a revolution, and until then you are just wannabes... but the sad thing is that you don't want to go any further, because you are bourgeois yourselves... read more and prepare yourselves, organise yourselves, but disrupting a TESCO for half an hour does not make a difference, just gives you mental orgasms...
Poor fools, you cry against the United States, but your country is the same thing, and outside here we see it like that. So get used to it, everywhere in the world the UK is the same as the US... the utmost of rampant capitalism with a population drunk in apathy and vanguard of capitalist exploitation.
Salud,

POUM Activist

Upholding tradition

08.05.2005 12:48

nice to see that some people still celebrate mayday in the traditional manner

muffit
Homepage: http://www.socialistwanker.com

Socialist Wanker's wankers

08.05.2005 19:57

So you lot from the Socialist Wanker, it seems to me that you read objective media: The Sun, Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail,... looks like you have an education (have you passed your kindergarden levels??). Are you able to read or are you so desperate that you buy the paper to look at naked girls and then build up your arguments out of them. So pathetic... one day you'll be punished... you are the prostitutes of Rupert Murdoch and Bush... and the sad thing is that you don't know it... you are being robbed in your nose and still clean the thieves' ass...
I feel so sorry for you.

Enjoy your sad life.

POUM Activist

hate mail! fantastic!

10.05.2005 00:23

Why thank you! You know who you sound like? The french dude from the southpark movie who smokes all the time.You hate everyone dont you?

So we "read objective media" (which you consider to be The Sun, Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail,)

Really? you think we are sun readers?

we "buy the paper to look at naked girls and then build up our arguments out of them."

That is just brilliant. Truly inspired.

"one day you'll be punished"

By who? for what?

"you are the prostitutes of Rupert Murdoch and Bush..."

How?

Sorry as I only look at pictures of naked women I am not up on POUM but you can be assured I will make sure i find something to read about you in between my sticky pages thankyou.

muffit
Homepage: http://www.socialistwanker.com

Strange comments.....

27.08.2006 16:24

I found this site by accident and had no idea it had happened as it was not reported on the news.

I find it more and more worrying these days that members of the public are being denied their rights to peaceful protest whenever it affects commercial activity.

I note if you ask a Police officer who or what they are charged to protect, they say property and life, not life and property. The implication in that is that life is expendable and property is not!

I also find it extraordinary that people will criticise those members of the public who exercise their right to protest and seem pleased when the police use heavy handed tactics...so what if its a small protest at a Tesco, at least they are not being apathetic, they are exercising their rights and making it known they are unhappy about something.

Its all academic anyway.
Soon anyone who speaks out against the government or criticises a business' practice will be labelled a terrorist.
Liberties are eroded already by the backdoor ASBO - you can now be imprisoned for crimes which carry no prison sentence and they are being used against people who are exercising their right to protest - when they continue protesting, they are imprisoned for breach of ASBO, hows that for the bureaucrats?

The hysteria about terrorists could be home grown still continues since the Miner's strike. Most people don't object to the tightening of laws because they think it doesn't apply to them, but they are already tight enough that in the wrong hands, they could be used against anyone who doesn't "fit". The wrong hands are not far away, look at the BBC website commennts page about people's hysteria about immigrants, I fear the NAZI's are here already, but not in name!

Peace Lovin' Terrorist

rebellious student idiots

10.10.2007 14:54

I must say, i agree with the guy from POUM (whatever that is), that the british are a bucnh of tossers for holding up a tesco store. you will all go thru university and feed teh system taht yuo complain about. those that don't do uni will burn tehmselves out with drugs and beg the same system for dole money for the rest of your lives.
I would gladly join any revolution that involved chopping the heads off teh royal family (all of them, liek france did), but you guys just seem to moan about the police giving you a kicking for messing about in tescos. I'd give you a kicking if you blocked my tesco too - if i want to buy my food and a load of pretend hippies started dancing round, i'd kick yer fuckin faces in !
Now, if you want to organise a proper revolution and do away with the nmonarchy, fair enough, I'll join - but dancing around poxy maypoles wion't do it. you've got to organise an army, and kill teh bastards. unless they're dead, they'll keep coming back, so there's no point. the bastards all have to die, or eevrything will revert to what it is now - royal controll. you moan about governments, but they work for the queen and have limited power ''the day to day running of teh country'' (which means they do the paperwork for the royals and the aristocracy). If the prime minister refuses to kiss teh queens hand and '''swear''' allegiance to her, he can't be prime minister ---- so who runs the feckin show - him ??? get stuffed, tehy are constinutional monarchs because that menas tehre is less chance of teh people rising up and killing them....if teh people keep blaming the government, who's harming the royals and their foreign poicies, (like lets blow up iraq and steal saddams gold and oil) ?
even gearge bush (and al gore, for that matter) is related to the Queen. The yanks faought a revolution to get rid of teh monarchy, so now they are ruled by teh queens 2nd cousins nephew (or whatever he is), rather than the queen herself. And they are too stupid to see it, just like you bunch of namby pamby, would be 'levellers'.
Organise a real fight and risk your lives - them or us, only one group will survive. the french did it and tehy won tehir country back (from relatives of our royals, don't forget). so next time you hear people say '''bloody french''', just rememebr who put those words in their mouths - teh same royals who put words in yours every day.
Now, stop fighting teh police in tescos car park, and atsrt a real war !!!
it's been done plenty of times before (USA, FRANCE,RUSSIA), and even the UK killed the king once (charles 1st), but his sly little queer son got back into power 10 years later (charles 2nd), and now the fuckers won't go away.
All teh kings and queens are europe (and teh US presidents, most of them) are related, so ask yourself, why are yuo throwing stones at the cops ???? they are just a distraction from teh real power.
Anyway, u r a buch of so called left wingers, who will no doubt contribute more to the power of the establishment than most peopel throughout your lifetimes. Go to war, yuo cowards, and don't moan about girls with whistles because they shouldn't be there if tehy don't want to get beat up. if any of you were men, you'd be telling stories about how you choppped teh copper who did it into a thousand pieces and fed him to your dogs, not whinghing about getting locked up in cells for a few hours.
If you're gonna march, do it fiercely and swiftly, not whining about in stupid t-shirts, liek it empowers you in some way --- it doesn't, it makes you look stupid. and some university student tart getting pulled by the arm won't encourage anyone to do your fighting for you. She will be working and paying taxes as soon as she can get a fucking job - she's dying to get rich at the expense of any silly lefties who stand in her way.
So- Bog Off !!! you are not revolutionaries, you are moaners who hold up queus in tesco !! are there no men left in britain ???
Oh yes, there are ... the police ... at least they don't mind having a fight, even if they are on teh wrong side !

mikey ra