Serve and protect?

[denny]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/07/video-g20-police-assault

Comments

[mejoff.livejournal.com]

Well, fortunately for the police, no such motto or credo is applied to them in this country. To serve and protect is purely an American police slogan.

Of course even where the words are applied, they don't actually apply... (http://www.youtube.com/swf/l.swf?swf=http%3A//s.ytimg.com/yt/swf/cps-vfl87635.swf&video_id=IAHjhtYZpX0&rel=1&eurl=http%3A//cavalorn.livejournal.com/503116.html%3Fnc%3D18&iurl=http%3A//i2.ytimg.com/vi/IAHjhtYZpX0/hqdefault.jpg&sk=_d3wTAFXQfKVxd_OhB2elM59jtuQv6gVC&fs=1&hl=en&cr=US&avg_rating=4.77704918033&length_seconds=244&allow_ratings=1&title=POLICE%20FATALLY%20SHOOT%20UNARMED%20MAN%20-%20Laying%20Face%20)

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

It might not be painted on the side of the cars here, but I think it'd be fair to say it's still their job description. Or at least, that it should be...

[mejoff.livejournal.com]

Would be nice, wouldn't it.

I know.

[danacea.livejournal.com]

Horrifying isn't it?

I don't know what scares me more - the police, or the fucking media who (initially) protested that the cops were 'going to help him'.

Re: I know.

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

I think it's important to stay clear that the original police version of events where they were helping and got 'pelted with bottles' is about the time at which he actually died, which was a few minutes later and around the corner from where this incident occurred - basically he stumbled up the road a bit and then died.

They originally claimed to have had no contact with him prior to that, which is what this video clearly disproves.

Their story re: the scene of his actual death has also been disproven, but with eye-witness statements rather than video as far as I'm awere.

[robert-jones.livejournal.com]

Has the police account of the death scene been disproved? Today's Guardian has fifteen eye witness accounts of the events surrounding the death, and it seems to me that they vary within the usual range of eye witness accounts, IYSWIM. Some people say there was only one bottle (or similar missile) thrown, others that there were several. One witness doubts that the bottle was aimed at the police. Apparently somebody used a loudhailer to inform other protesters that the police were assisting an injured man. I don't think any of that contradicts the police account as such, although it may cast it in a different light.