There English media has been pursuing a series of stories about police abuse, particularly at protests. A new video (below) has surfaced showing the arrest of two such protesters, Val Swain, 43, and Emily Apple, 33, who claim that they were arrested and roughed up after demanding the badge number of an officer.
The women are members of Fit Watch, which focuses on the police forward intelligence teams (Fits), which monitor protests. Fits have been the subject of widespread complaints from civil libertarians.
The video shows officers standing on the feet of the women and pressing on their necks immediately after the women demanded a badge number.
Adam:
Yes, it is *possible*, but highly unlikely. As any reader of Mr Turley’s blog will attest, there is no shortage of thuggish, responsibility-avoiding warranted officers out there. So why bring in non-warranted thugs, put them in uniform, and *pretend* that they were police? And on top of that, put them in uniforms bearing no shoulder numbers, thereby making them stand out?
Furthermore, various officers caught in one instance committing assaults etc whilst wearing no shoulder number or concealing a shoulder number have been subsequently identified from photographs of them in more pacific times, wearing their shoulder number. The instance of the ‘backhanding sergeant’ at the G20 protests in London in April is a case in point; through diligent research FITwatch was able to identify him as a former Forward Intelligence Team officer, AB42 (though by the time of the G20 incident he had moved into the Territorial Support Group).
There is no criminal offence committed if a police officer does not wear or refuses to divulge their shoulder number, though officers up to the rank of sergeant (IIRC) are expected to wear the number wherever practicable, and to give out the number when asked for it; Inspectors and above are expected to give their name and station. Failure to do this would be considered a disciplinary offence unless there were practical reasons for not doing so.
Maybe paranoid, but is it possible the uniformed gentlemen with no number are in fact not police officers?
What is the name of the offence committed by a uniformed police officer who is not displaying a number?
What is the name of the offence committed by a uniformed police officer who refuses to divulge his number and name?
What is the name of the offence committed by a person who wears a police uniform, but has no number in view?
Are there secret laws on the statute books that we are not allowed to know about (for example, because they are hidden by the Official Secrets Act)?
British resistance must resurrect itself and take care of it’s fascist problem the same way it did in 1943, but it can’t today. The English have to realize they’ve been transformed by the right wing media and taken down a no-return path by a government populated with frightened authority seekers.
Suing these thugs and keeping them in court for the duration of their despicable jackboot-licking lives is well deserved, but won’t happen. Britain is a dumbed down police state now, which should make Rupert Murdoch and weapons manufacturers very happy. Mission accomplished.
There English…
@BristleKRS: Oh – nice details. See? This is why I read blogs. Giving the kind of info the local paper used to once provide… before they turned lazy and just started copy/pasting generic AP reports.
I am British and went back for the first time in 20 years last year. My country is gone, man, gone. I was partially strip searched 6 times during my many internal flights and was coerced into having my mugshot taken at the airport. “Why would you want to refuse?” said the security officer, breathing heavily fingering his Taser…
Mike Spindell wrote:
“It’s no so much under the radar anymore, just read some of Professor Turley’s cited instances.”
I’ve seen most of Professor Turley’s postings — I follow this blog and am very grateful for it. Though more of these stories are being reported, the things to which I’m referring are still very much under the radar. What’s going on is shameful, but I still believe that “good triumphs…”, perhaps naively.
ANON,
It’s no so much under the radar anymore, just read some of Professor Turley’s cited instances.
Sadly, it’s not all that different here in the U.S., but much of it is still “under the radar”… May God (and good people) help this world.
Towards the end of the Guardian’s video report, in the bit where one officer is heard mentioning the ‘Blues Brothers over there’ (ie Apple & Swain), you with notice an officer with glasses and a moustache. That is PC EK127 Alan Palfrey, a part-time FIT officer working out of Camden, North London. He is of particular note because he was present at the fatal assault by a police officer on newspaper seller Ian Tomlinson on 1st April.
No police officer came forward to make a statement about the assault on Mr Tomlinson (or the -at least – two prior ‘contacts’ between him and police officers earlier that day) until after the ‘American tourist’ video of the assault was published by The Guardian newspaper. Until the video was made public, the police line was that Mr Tomlinson died of a heart attack, and that officers trying to treat him came under ‘a hail of missiles’ (claims which are demonstrably untrue).
Given that the rationale behind FIT policing is to identify political activists, one wonders about the aptitude of officers so employed if (i) they cannot distinguish between bystanders and political activists, and (ii) they do not think it important to come forward with important evidence of the final moments of a man who died immediately following an assault by a police officer.
“Left Wing Right Wing distinctions are irrelevant to Civil Rights or Freedom.”
Yes, sir. That’s some unadulterated, 100% pure truth there.
From the late, great Roger Miller:
“England swings like a pendulum do
Bobbies on bicycles two by two
Westminster Abbey the sound of Big Ben
The rosy red cheeks of the little children”
I guess those benign bobbies and swinging England have changed since the 1960’s. The saddest part of all is most of this can be laid at the feet of a Labour Government. Left Wing Right Wing distinctions are irrelevant to Civil Rights or Freedom.
Coming soon to a mall near you.
Well the British were of German extraction. Did not the Royals have to change the name during WWII to protect the family? Sig Heil, Sig Heil is the best I can come up with.
Of course we’d never ever let this happen in America. We are far to advanced to allow this right………..