Charlie Veitch of The Love Police shows up a Police Community Support Officer (PCSO) for trying to illegally detain him merely for speaking loudly on a megaphone. The irony couldn’t have been lost on many on Camden High Street that they should have decided to exercise their power (of which arrest isn’t strictly one, and certainly not in this instance) on Veitch, when drugs pushers are walking past them and actively doing business by the dozen. Welcome to Britain 2010.
- Fifty police officers in riot gear crack down on peaceful protest by migrants demanding respect for basic rights
- Officers declare orders to destroy all migrant shelters in the area
- Escalation in repressive tactics leave migrants with nowhere to go
In a rare show of defiance, around 100 migrants camped around a gym which had been used by local charities to provide urgently needed night shelter over the harshest weeks of winter, before its closure on Tuesday. The migrants, primarily from war-torn Afghanistan, also burned some blankets and banners in opposition to the closure, which comes on theback of the repeated eviction of migrants from their camps. Within half an hour, scores of police officers descended on the site threatening to destroy the makeshift camp on failure to disperse. Following a stand off, the migrants were permitted to leave the area, but were closely pursued as they searched for alternative sites to shelter.
Having actually been advised by some police officers to do so, some men set up shelters on the site of one of the former camps, or ‘jungles’, and were given assurances that the police would not attack. But within hours, the officers had entered the camp several times, arresting six people, in what has now become a daily routine of arresting those without identity documents in Calais in an attempt to flush them out of the area. By midday on Wednesday, 20 CRS (riot police) vehicles had surrounded the new camp, and anything resembling a shelter was destroyed.
Following a relentless routine of police pursuit, arrest and assault this winter, the migrants returned in desperation to the closed night shelter and installed some of the tents that had been discarded by the authorities following the eviction that morning. The police promptly arrived at the scene, announced that they had orders to disperse assemblies and destroy shelters, before seizing the remaining tents.
Throughout the night, the hunt continued as migrants were followed by groups of police, who pre-emptively destroyed any half-erected structures they found.
“The police were quite literally swarming everywhere last night. They were pursuing migrants in case they dare set up shelter, or following any activists who might assist them,” said Joanne, a British activist from the No Borders network who is present at the scene.
“This is all part of a carefully planned strategy by the French and British governments to drive the migrants away from the area. But when you think that many of these people are coming from conflict zones like Helmand province, where else are they expected to go?” Joanne continued.
Alex has been involved in documenting – and directly intervening in – the police harassment in Calais for some time. “As shocking as it is, we find that the presence of European citizens during police raids can make a real difference, because the arrests are so arbitrary. It shows that ordinary people do have the power to help migrants defeat this enormous show of force by our governments. I really think that resistance from the migrants themselves and support from ordinary people is the only hope we have of stopping this horrendous repression.”
Commander Bob Broadhurst, who had overall command of the G20 policing operation, told the home affairs select committee in May that “no plain clothes officers [were] deployed at all” during the demonstrations in the City of London.
It has emerged that 25 undercover City of London police were stationed around the Bank of England to gather “intelligence” on protesters on 1 and 2 April. Broadhurst stands by the evidence he gave to MPs, claiming the deployment of undercover officers was unknown to him.
The proof is on a video on that page. Broadhurst can split hairs all he likes, saying that he was only talking about the Met, when the plainclothes police in question belonged to the CityPolice, but he still told parliament as the man in charge of the entire operation, that no plainclothes police were deployed when there were. And the City Police admitted it:
The assistant commissioner at the City of London police, Frank Armstrong, then told the MP that about 25 undercover officers were deployed during the protests.
Keith Vaz, chairman of the select committee, has written to Broadhurst suggesting the disclosure about plain clothes officers “contradicts” his evidence to MPs. Broadhurst claimed the officers filmed marching among Met and City of London riot police were “evidence gatherers” seeking to identify a certain protester.
It’s a terrible demonstration of just how inept he and the entire operation were that day, particularly when Armstrong continued to undermine Broadhurst:
[Lib Dem MP Tom] Brake said Broadhurst had “inadvertently misled” parliament, thus revealing a “startling lack of co-ordination” in the top ranks. “If plain clothes officers were only deployed to gather intelligence why is one clearly seen brandishing a baton?”
Was the cop in question in the video instructed to brandish that baton or was that rogue behaviour? The fact is the cops were out of control that day, pumped up largely by Broadhurst into an expectation of the need for violence which never resulted from protesters. Today’s report is sorely needed.
The TSG has been the subject of 5,241 allegations since August 2005. They include 376 allegations of discrimination and 977 complaints of “incivility”. More than 1,100 of the allegations concerned what members of the public said were “failures in duty”. However by far the largest number of complaints – 2,280 – were categorised as “oppressive behaviour”.
Just over 2,000 (38%) were “unsubstantiated” by the Met’s department for professional standards, while the rest were resolved at the police station, dismissed, discontinued or dealt with in other ways.
It left just nine complaints ’substantiated’ by the Met. The Met responded to the figures:
Senior Met officers say the TSG’s work, involving drug raids and demonstrations, means they are more likely to face complaints than other officers.
The reasons are clear: the commission continues to rely upon poor-quality local police investigations and adopts a decidedly “arm’s length” approach to its supervisory and management responsibilities. In consequence, it has failed to identify the inadequacies in those investigations at a sufficiently early stage to have any prospect of remedying the evidential deficiencies. This formal system is permeated by a lack of will, and the outcomes stand in marked contrast to the redress achieved by individual victims on their own account in the civil courts.
Compensation claims are a flawed and inadequate response and have proven wholly ineffective in the face of oppressive and discriminatory abuse of powers by the TSG. Officers continue to enjoy an effective immunity from criminal and disciplinary sanction.
Babar Ahmad’s attacker continues to get away with it, and Ian Tomlinson’s attacker has still not faced justice for his actions. For all the Met’s mealy mouthed words about changes in policing after the G20 fiasco, they’re still quite literally getting away with murder.
2pm, Wednesday 30th August 2009. Parc Saint Pierre, Calais
Benjamin: This is Benjamin, I am from Iran. I just came in Calais, like,three weeks ago. From three weeks ago the police authority and Frenchgovernment I think they decide to destroy the jungle. First they destroy thePashtun jungle, after that they destroy the Kurdish jungle. All people, theymoved to the town from jungle. Now we are in town. And Iranian jungle theydestroy as well. Now we are in town and the police disturb us every morningevery night.
Ali: Four O’Clock in the morning. And at night, 2 pm.
Interviewer: Where are you sleeping?
Benjamin: In the parks, under the bridge. Ali: They are all the time taking us in detention for a few hours. They wantto make us crazy. What are they doing? We don’t know. Nothing.
Benjamin: They just trying to disturb us to leave Calais. And now we startto have a hunger strike to get help from other countries. We ask for otherWestern countries to come and help us. And we start hunger strike from today12, at noon. We need help. We need help actually. And we don’t want to stayany more in France because of police and because of government. They don’trespect anybody. They don’t respect anyone in Calais and in Paris it is thesame. Our situation is very bad. We have no good food. All the time we aregetting is the same food, same as yesterday, usually only bread and bananas.We have nowhere to sleep. We are looking for somewhere safe at least tosleep, to get some respect from people, from government, frompoliceauthorities. Actually I can tell you about one day, the police come,just like five days ago, they come, they talk with us; they hit a friend ofmine next to me, they hit him with a stick into his head, and we havewitnesses and evidence of this too. We said stop this, they say they dontcare, they will do anything we we want. And they searched our bags andbaggage and
(interview pauses, as two police vans and more police on footappear from around the corner, gesturing; Video ends here, as interviewer,friends and migrants are asked for ID and dispersed for being a larger crowdthan three people)
A police officer who allegedly struck a woman during the G20 protests in London a woman is to be charged with assault, the Crown Prosecution Service said today.
A CPS spokeswoman said Sergeant Delroy Smellie would be charged with assault of Nicola Fisher and he will appear at Westminster magistrates court on 16 November. He faces up to six months in prison if found guilty.
Smellie, a member of the Metropolitan police’s territorial support group, was suspended from duty two months ago after footage emerged of him near the Bank of England, apparently hitting Fisher, 35, with the back of his arm.
He was also shown appearing to strike her on her legs with a baton as she attended a vigil for the newspaper seller Ian Tomlinson, who had died the previous day. She said the incident left her with severe bruising.
Of course he’ll get off, or he’ll become the scapegoat that his renowned colleague has long been expected to become. What must be remembered is that both officers, although behaving in an unacceptably (and unnecessarily) violent manner, were operating under the presumption that this was acceptable behaviour. Don’t forget how the force trailed its intention to be violent that day. The CPS can’t be allowed to get away with making this their only notable prosecution against the Metropolitan Police after their calamatous handling of the G20 protest.
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