It seems that politicians and the media are getting more concerned over a couple of schoolboy emails about Tory politicians than the death of innocent bystander Ian Tomlinson after a beating by the police at the G20 rally just two weeks ago.
As predicted by The Citizen, the police ‘investigation’ has turned into a sham and no doubt there will be a fudged outcome where nobody gets blamed and nobody is held responsible.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (about as independent as any of these jumped-up quangos are from their masters in government and the civil service) can’t seem to find any CCTV evidence of anything, even though millions of us have seen images on TV which cannot be disputed. It has taken the IPCC several days even to get to this stage, when other investigations into excessive police violence – but where nobody actually died – were instigated within 24 hours.
It does no credit to the police force or the IPCC that while the offending police thugs have supposedly ‘stepped forward’, they don’t appear to have been decent or honest enough to own up to their violent beating of a British citizen going about his business, and which is highly likely to have been a direct cause of his death.
WE SAW what was done to Ian Tomlinson.
WE SAW at least one of the policemen removing his identification badge and covering has face with a balaclava before beating Mr Tomlinson.
WE SAW – in newspapers and on TV – the testimony of various independent witnesses to police attacks on the man. People not involved in the protest rally. People from other countries with no axe to grind against the police.
People who – unlike our own policemen – have no reason to lie.
WHAT MORE DOES THE IPCC WANT?
We must not let the police off the hook on this. Nor let minor political squabbles get in the way of justice being done for this unfortunate man or for the violence which he suffered in the final hours of his life to go unpunished.
Government and the police need a clear message from us that police violence on innocent citizens exercising their democratic rights is simply not acceptable.
Please don’t let this case be swept away in a tide of indifference. We all need to stop this from becoming even more the norm than it is already.
IT COULD BE YOU – OR YOUR OWN SON OR DAUGHTER – NEXT TIME.
