UK G20 Protestor Killed

Here is a video from the Guardian newspaper in the UK. It shows how an innocent man was killed by riot police. More details are here in the newspaper's website.



The Guardian indicates that the police have covered up their illegal behaviour:

In an official statement on the night of Tomlinson's death, the Metropolitan police made no reference to any contact with officers and simply described attempts by police medics and an ambulance crew to save his life after he collapsed – efforts they said were marred by protesters throwing missiles as first aid was administered.

The tragedy is that there were violent protestors and a number of police were injured. So, the sad truth is that there were violent bullies among the protestors and the police. The police need to be better vetted and trained. The only solution for the crazed demonstrators is if legitimate protestors immediately leave any scene in which obvious nutcases are preparing to be violent or acting violent. The violence helps nobody. If anything, it undermines legitimate protest and allows right wing nuts to associate violence with protest and encourages thugs to act out their aggression.

Update 2009apr17: The death was not a "heart attack". The coroner's report says it was from internal bleeding (i.e. a blow from the police that caused bleeding). Here's a bit from BBC news:

A policeman has been interviewed under caution on suspicion of manslaughter after new tests overturned the cause of a newspaper-seller's death.

Ian Tomlinson, 47, was struck and pushed over by a police officer during G20 protests on 1 April in the City.

Now a fresh post-mortem examination has found he died of abdominal bleeding, not a heart attack, as first thought.

Lawyers for the family said the new post-mortem test raised the likelihood of a manslaughter charge