this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2024
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A police officer has been filmed kicking and stamping on the head of a man lying on the ground at Manchester Airport.

The uniformed male officer is seen holding a Taser over the man, who is lying face down, before striking him twice while other officers shout at onlookers to stay back in a video shared widely online.

Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said firearms officers had been attacked while attempting to arrest someone following a fight in the airport's Terminal 2 on Tuesday. It said it had referred itself to the police watchdog.

Anger has grown over the video and a crowd of what appeared to be several hundred people protested outside the police station in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, on Wednesday evening.

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[–] sandbox@lemmy.world 91 points 3 months ago (20 children)

How can we fight back against the police, when they never face consequences, but we do?

[–] octopus_ink@lemmy.ml 149 points 3 months ago (36 children)

How can we fight back against the police, when they never face consequences, but we do?

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[–] Nurgus@lemmy.world 37 points 3 months ago (4 children)

Just for context, this is in the UK so the officer WILL be prosecuted and punished accordingly.

It is worth noting that other officers at the scene had a broken nose and other injuries before this happened. It doesn't excuse what he does but there's certainly a lot more to the story here.

[–] sandbox@lemmy.world 43 points 3 months ago (3 children)

I’m from the UK, and I can’t agree. Most likely, at worst, he will be dismissed from the police force. It is very rare for police constables to face criminal charges, and even rarer for those charges to actually stick.

Jean Charles de Menezes, an innocent man, was reading the newspaper on the London Underground. The metropolitan police shot him in the head seven times. No officer was held accountable.

Ian Tomlinson, a newsagent, was walking home past a protest. The metropolitan police beat him to death. A constable lost his job, but was found not guilty by the court.

A little kid with mental health issues went up to a metropolitan police constable to ask for help. The cop pepper sprayed and beat the child 30 times with a baton. He was dismissed from the police force, but did not face criminal charges.

And you claim that the officer responsible for this is “fucked”? Dream on. At worst he’ll have to get a real job like the rest of us.

[–] Nurgus@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago (2 children)

The only one of those I'm familiar with is Menenez and the officers genuinely believed he had explosives. It was a fucked up situation and I do think they probably should have suffered more consequences. But honestly there's room for a little nuance.

British cops are not routinely armed so shooting generally is a LOT rarer.

[–] sandbox@lemmy.world 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)

If I shot someone 7 times in the head, it wouldn’t matter how many people agreed with me that we all thought it was the devil himself crawling out of a portal to hell, I’d get charged and sentenced for manslaughter.

The police are able to get away with literal murder and people will come out of the woodwork, wringing their hands about all of the nuances of the situation.

No, fuck that, and fuck the police. They’re a legalised criminal gang that exists to be the fist of the ruling class and nothing more. If I could click my fingers right now and make the entire institution no longer exist I’d do it faster than you could blink.

[–] FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

But then who would who call if someone broke into your home and didn’t even bother shooting your dog?

[–] soycapitan451@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

He had been incorrectly identified as a terrorist and an imminent threat. The fuck up was not the person who fired the gun but whoever gave him the order.

[–] gedhrel@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago

That'd be Dame Cressida Dick, later promoted to Commissioner of the Met.

[–] EnderMB@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Afraid that I have to agree. It's nowhere near as extreme an example, there was a case brought against the West Midlands Police a few years ago where the cops intimidated a bunch of fans from Bristol, detained them, and forced them back on the train to Bristol. It took four years to settle the case, and the only way they were able to be taken seriously at all was because a serving policeman in Bristol felt inclined to back them, despite warnings not to do so by his peers.

It's the classic "who polices the police" scenario, and sadly the charges are often so painfully low that it feels like the best way to commit a crime and get away with it is to join the police...

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[–] Deceptichum@quokk.au 15 points 3 months ago (1 children)

But will they really?

Here in Aus at least, 3 cops assaulted an autistic or downs guy in his yard one day. The court ordered them to apologise to the victim and do some bullshit “training”.

[–] Nurgus@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Yes. This is the UK. The officer is fucked. Exactly how fucked depends on the context which we don't really have yet.

[–] Deceptichum@quokk.au 4 points 3 months ago (4 children)

Can any other Brits confirm you actually crack down on cops? Have you followed their trials until the conclusion to see what 'punishment' they actually get?

[–] sandbox@lemmy.world 11 points 3 months ago

I’m British, and I wouldn’t say so. In some higher profile cases cops might lose their job, and in extreme cases they go to court, but it’s really rare for the charges to stick. There was a recent case with a famous sportsman - a pair of cop tased him, beat him with a baton, and kicked him in the head until he died. That was the first time in over 30 years a cop had actually been found guilty of manslaughter, but the other cop escaped with no charges. The bastard that got sentenced will almost definitely be released within a couple of years.

So, yeah, if it’s high profile enough, maybe, to some extent, but otherwise, no.

[–] Nurgus@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/30/police-officers-in-england-and-wales-guilty-of-crimes-up-70-per-cent

This is a soft-left wing newspaper that's generally quite critical of the police. The numbers of convictions amd sackings are quite interesting. I think there's a lot of room for improvement but we're starting from a MUCH better place than the US or even Aus.

The 70% increase in convictions does not mean there's an increase in Police bad actors. It's an increase in pursuing convictions against them.

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[–] soycapitan451@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago

Another Brit here, yes cops do get punished in high profile cases with video evidence such as this.

The contradictory examples listed above were quite complex cases from what I remember.

That said, as a teenager a friend of mine was beaten up in a police van in a case of mistaken identity. He was advised by his lawyer to drop the case as there was little chance of proving what happened as the police had smashed up his phone which he had been recording them with.

Due to the context of police officers being injured prior to what's shown on tape. I expect in this instance, the cop to get a lenient pushiment.

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[–] gnutrino@programming.dev 9 points 3 months ago (2 children)

To be fair, while he will see more consequences than would be likely if this had happened in the US, it's still pretty rare for police officers to be successfully prosecuted in the UK. More likely we'll be looking at an IOPC investigation and internal disciplinary procedures rather than criminal prosecution.

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[–] echodot@feddit.uk 12 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Oh we will be. There is video evidence they can't really get out of this one.

What they never really need to do is stop hiring criminals. And when there are warning signs (there are always warning signs, this is never their first offense), they need to be fired, immediately.

[–] sandbox@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago (4 children)

If they lose their job, but otherwise don’t suffer any repercussions, would that shock you? What would you propose that we should do, if we can’t get justice through the system?

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[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago

How can we fight back against the police, when they never face consequences, but we do?

Mavics with homemade grenades.

Molotov cocktails (can be dropped from copters too).

Also longbows and crossbows with arrows, rock-solid time-proven tech.

You just have to drop this part

when they never face consequences, but we do?

because something like this exists in every conflict. The defending side usually gets punished for the resistance alone.

[–] ArmokGoB@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

No one can hold you accountable if you overrun all the cops.

[–] sandbox@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago

Just once, I want to see a video where the cops are beating on someone and the crowd actually intervenes and turns the table on them.

I would love it if we could make the police feel afraid to do this shit. Not scared of losing their job or having to do paperwork, but scared of the actual people there on the street. Scared that they might not have the monopoly on violence that they thought they did.

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