This entry was posted on
Friday, April 17th, 2009 at
3:54 pm and is filed
under The War on Stupid.

BBC – G20 death was not heart attack: A police officer has been interviewed under caution for manslaughter after a new post-mortem overturned the cause of Ian Tomlinson’s death… Now a fresh examination has found he died of abdominal haemorrhage, not a heart attack, as originally thought. Lawyers for the family said the new post-mortem raised the likelihood of a manslaughter charge… “Dr Cary’s opinion is that the cause of death was abdominal haemorrhage. The cause of the haemorrhage remains to be ascertained. Dr Cary accepts that there is evidence of coronary atherosclerosis but states that in his opinion its nature and extent is unlikely to have contributed to the cause of death.” … The [coroner Dr Cary’s] statement concluded that both the opinions remained provisional and subject to further investigations and tests. In a response, the Independent Police Complaints Commission said: “Following the initial results of the second post mortem, a Metropolitan police officer has been interviewed under caution for the offence of manslaughter as part of an ongoing nquiry into the death of Ian Tomlinson.”

As per the last post, I’m going to need a moment. With you shortly.

Newcomers to this (if there are any) will want to start here, check this category for more, and watch this video:

–

UPDATE – People are going to be very angry about this, but I want to stress that there is something here that has not changed, and I’m going to use a comment I made before this latest coroner’s statement was issued to help others appreciate it:

[Please understand that I normally quote and link to sources, but this was a rare political debate at the site involved, such things are generally (if gently) discouraged at that site, and I’m not entirely sure if “I told you so, Stan!” is a place that I want to go to.]

There were multiple assaults at the G20 protest events. Most of them resulted from the practice known as ‘kettling’, which is claimed to have a calming effect of crowds, but appears to be used to justify the use of violence against protestors… whether that’s at an individual or institutional level in unknown at this point.

(One peek at the medic laying into protestors with a baton from behind the police line is enough to make many worry about the state of Teh State, but further images show a fellow officer trying to restrain him showing that some parts of the system are still working as they should.)

Further, we also have video evidence of two officers clearly abusing/exceeding their authority, and both of these officers had obscured badge numbers.

The officer who back-handed and batoned the woman the day after Tomlinson died was wearing epaulette covers designed for this purpose:

None of this has changed.

But a full, undiluted and independent inquiry into both practices should now be regarded as a certainty. We shouldn’t have to march on any police stations to get it.

[Let’s hear it announced in very good time, please, police and government peeps. Don’t make us stalk chase you.]