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Vol. 73/No. 18      May 11, 2009

 
Video exposes cop role
in London man’s death
 
BY ÖGMUNDUR JÓNSSON  
LONDON—Claims by cops here that they had no contact with a man walking in the area of the G-20 protests just before his death have been contradicted by video released by the press. Despite dozens of complaints of cop violence during the protests weeks ago, several videos showing police assaults, and the death of one of those assaulted, no cops have yet faced charges.

Ian Tomlinson, 47, who was on his way home from work at a nearby newsagents, collapsed April 1 as he was walking through the protest area around the Bank of England. A postmortem examination the following day found that he had died from a heart attack. The police stated they had no contact with him before his collapse.

But on April 7 the Guardian newspaper released a video, taken minutes before Tomlinson died, that shows him walking away from a group of police officers, some with dogs and some in riot gear, who are pressing him to move on. Then a masked riot cop gives Tomlinson a heavy baton-blow on the legs and shoves him onto the ground. Tomlinson just manages to pull his hands out of his pockets before hitting the pavement. Witnesses described police attacking Tomlinson before the video was shot.

Peter Smyth, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, justified the assault. “I know it’s a generalization,” he said, “but anybody in that part of the town at that time, the assumption would be that they are part of the protest.”

Tomlinson’s family and the government's Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) arranged a second postmortem, which found that Tomlinson had most likely died of internal bleeding. The IPCC pressed the family to keep quiet about the results for a week. The report also revealed that the first postmortem had shown extensive abdominal bleeding, but this was never mentioned by either the commission or the police.

The police suspended an officer of the Territorial Support Group (TSG), an elite cop unit, on April 10. Following the second coroner’s report, he was interviewed on suspicion of manslaughter, but has not been charged.

The IPCC says it has received 145 complaints related to the protests, including 70 by victims or witnesses of “excessive use of force.” Another TSG officer has been suspended for assaulting a demonstrator at an April 2 vigil for Tomlinson.  
 
 
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