Various participants in the City of London demonstrations on April 1st have come forward as witnesses to the collapse of a man later identified by authorities as Ian Tomlinson. Four different university students witnessed the collapse of Mr. Tomlinson. "He stumbled towards us from the direction of police and protestors and collapsed," said Peter Apps. "I saw a demonstrator who was a first aider attend to the person who had collapsed. The man was late 40s, had tattoos on his hands, and was wearing a Millwall shirt."While the first aider was helping the man, another demonstrator with a megaphone was calling the police over so that they could help.
Natalie Langford, a student at Queen Mary, said "there was a police charge. A lot of people ran in our direction. The woman giving first aid stood in the path of the crowd." The running people, seeing a guy on the ground, went around them.
Another demonstrator had already called 999 and was getting medical advice from the ambulance dispatcher. "Four police with two police medics came. They told her [the first aider] to 'move along'.", said Peter Apps. "Then they pushed her forcibly away from him. They refused to listen to her [the first aider] when she tried to explain his condition."
The first aider, who did not wish to be named, said "The police surrounded the collapsed man. I was standing with the person who'd called 999. The ambulance dispatcher wanted to talk to the police, the phone was being held out to them, but the police refused."
Another witness, Elias Stoakes, added "we didn't see them [the police] perform CPR."
Other people who had tried to stay with the collapsed man were also pushed away.
All of the witnesses deny the allegation that many missiles were thrown.
According to Peter Apps, "one bottle was thrown, but it didn't come close to the police. Nothing was thrown afterwards as other demonstrators told the person to stop. The person who threw the bottle probably didn't realize that someone was behind the ring of police." All the witnesses said that the demonstrators were concerned for the well-being of the collapsed man once they realized that there was an injured person.
Natalie Langford said "when the ambulance arrived the protestors got straight out of the way."
These witnesses are happy to give media statements.
They can be contacted through this press liasion email: g20witnesses@gmail.com
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4 comments:
There is so much misinformation goign around it seems, and I have no idea what ir truth, but going by trustworthy witnesses and guardian reports i'd say your account is most common, we can't however just say 'cops killed a man there are other questions that need to be asked first:
- Why did it take 15 minutes for an ambulance to turn up when they can quite happily spare five unneeded ambulances to sit out side a squat being evicted? if you have thousands of riot police in place, one would assume that you may at some point need an ambulance.
- Why did the police refuse to speak to the 999 operator
- Why did the police charge first aiders away from him?
- Why did police release a statement saying they were under a barrage of bottles that "affected the quality of treatment he received?"
Regardless of if they did it or not, it was just one of many many terrible things the police did that day. Videos show heavy-handed policement knocking to the floor young girls with their hands in the air (as if to surrender), there was 90 arrests (11 for impersonation of a police officer after the protesters wore a police uniform??) and there are reports of police refusing to help people who were in danger of being trampled form off the floor.
My first thought is that I hope the Socialist Party take note and rethink their 'workers in uniform' policy, but more seriously I hope the liberals take note - peaceful protest will never achieve anything. The police and other state apparatus will never play fair.
Superintendent Roger Evans, who was involved in the Earl Street raid, said intelligence officers had been watching the squats throughout the protests and were hoping to match some of the inhabitants with photographs of those who caused trouble on Wednesday.
"There are all sorts of people inside. People with piercings, people without piercings, people with dogs – the sort of people you might expect to see at a pop festival."
LMAO
You learn something new everyday!
people with or without dogs and/or piercings go to pop festivals! And such people are normally those who cause trouble too, so next time you're looking for troublemakers, look for people with piercings (or without) and a dog (or without one)
Witnesses say they saw Ian Tomlinson attacked by police.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/05/g20-protest-ian-tomlinson
"There are all sorts of people inside. People with piercings, people without piercings, people with dogs – the sort of people you might expect to see at a pop festival." Lol, pop festival indeed. Sounds like the cops are trying to be "down with the kids".
Excellent link, zee zee
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