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Murder Of Ian Tomlinson By UK Police To Go Unpunished

Saturday, July 21, 2012 7:20

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Despite video showing the murder and proving the attempted cover up that followed UK police continue their streak of 940 deaths all going unpunished.

During the UK G-20 protests the police bashed Ian Tomlinson with a baton and threw him to the ground.

He was an innocent man was doing nothing wrong and died a few minutes later.

Here is the video of the incident.

The Guardian obtained this footage of Ian Tomlinson at a G20 protest in London shortly before he died. It shows Tomlinson, who was not part of the demonstration, being assaulted from behind and pushed to the ground by baton-wielding police

Not surprisingly the police tried to cover it up lying to the news saying they found him lying on the ground and he died because protestors were throwing missiles at the medics that the police tried to get to help.

But then an ambition Guardian reporter who knew the police were lying managed to get his hands on a video of the beating.

The police tried suppressing the Guardian from reporting on the story.

Guardian journalist Paul Lewis was named as reporter of the year at the British Press Awards last night for his series of stories about the death of Ian Tomlinson during the G20 protests in London.

The stories revealed that Tomlinson, who was a newspaper vendor, died last April after being struck from behind and throw to the ground.

Lewis told Press Gazette how his newspaper came under pressure from police to remove from its website a video, provided by a reader, which showed Tomlinson being pushed to the ground by officers.

The police had said earlier that Tomlinson had been on his way home from work at a nearby newsagent when he collapsed.

Lewis said: “The police came to the Guardian and asked us to remove the video from the website and we said no.

“There were definitely attempts I felt, personally, to dissuade me from pursuing this story…There were police officers trying to discourage us from pursuing the story and also trying to discourage the family from talking to us.

“That is in fact what makes it all the more satisfying. What journalists want really, often, is people that aren’t telling the truth and they want to find something out which disproves it.”

Lewis said the story about Tomlinson took six day to emerge as Guardian reporters used social media tools, such as Twitter, to unearth information from those that were present at the disturbances.

“Initially, we didn’t get the video but we were getting stuff that was making us question the official version of events,” Lewis said.

“I had a hunch at the beginning that the police’s version of events wasn’t true. I thought they were putting out misinformation.

[...]

Source: The Press Gazette

Later the police tried interfering with the investigation, initially persuading the director of public prosecutions not to pursue charges.

That changed when an inquest jury found the officer guilty of manslaughter and forcing charges to be officially filed.

Yet despite all of this somehow and astounding verdict was returned in the case today as as the death of the man who died at the G-20 protests in 2009 will go unpunished with the officer being cleared of the killing.

Press TV reports:

G-20 UK protest death goes unpunished

Press TV – On 1 April 2009, newspaper seller Ian Tomlinson died in London as he was walking home from work during G-20 summit protests. First, the British police said he had died of natural causes after suffering a heart attack.

However, the Guardian published video footage showing a British police officer wielding a baton and pushing Tomlinson to the ground.

“In April 2009, along with everyone else, we saw the shocking video of Ian being violently assaulted by PC Harwood, just minutes before he died”, said Paul King, Tomlinson’s stepson.

In May 2011, an inquest concluded that Tomlinson was unlawfully killed by the police officer, PC Simon Harwood, and charged Harwood with manslaughter. Nevertheless, on 19 July 2012, London’s Southwark Crown Court announced Harwood was not guilty of manslaughter.

“After the unlawful killing verdict at the inquest last year we expected to hear a guilty verdict, not a not-guilty verdict, it really hurts”, said Tomlinson’s stepson.

The verdict comes as the British police have never convicted any of their officers for killing people in their custody.

“There have been 940 deaths in police custody since 1990”, said Rachel Harger of Defend the Right to Protest, “and yet not one officer is being convicted”.

Of course Ian wasn’t the only person beaten by the police that day.

Many more were beaten but they just didn’t die.

Fact is this how the police treat people at protests all the time.

You call this Freedom?

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