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CCTV Contradicts IPCC on death in custody
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
THIS POST HAS CHANGED - PLEASE SEE BELOW:
Here it is again, IPCC investigation says one thing, CCTV and compelling evidence says another.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jul/01/faisal-al-ani-police-arrest
There's some commentary on it to be found here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/01/faisal-al-ani-police
My point here isn't necessarily to do with the actions of the officers in terms of the arrest - I'd have no idea how to arrest someone.
The issue that is one of highly suspect information. Prior to the CCTV, the only way the IPCC could have known about the fact that he was carried into the police station was from (I imagine) a police source (where else would it come from?).
This persisted for 4 months after the initial statement?!
Whether or not the officers were responsible, whether or not they did everything right or wrong, now that I've seen the video, I've really got nothing to offer on that one - I don't have the expertise or evidence.
What is still clear, and remains a fact that will overshadow every single one of these incidents, completely correctly in my view, is the disturbing habit that the police seem to have of lying. Of feeding one story to the media, the public, the IPCC or whoever, and then changing it when the evidence shows it to be false.
Again, of the 1000 deaths in police custody between 1969 and 1999 there were no convictions for any of the deaths. Even the one where it was found at the inquest that two police officers body belted a woman, then gagged her with 30 feet of surgical tape, and she suffocated.
That was unlawful killing, and the officers did not face criminal trial, as far as I am aware.
And it's crap, because I'll freely admit that on balance having not seen the tape (when I originally posted I had only read the commentary on the page because the vid doesn't show up at work). I could quite believe the worst interpretation of the story we are here debating (which is clearly not true - and I've stated that from my position at least I couldn't see anything much wrong with it, apart from the possibility of being near a major blood vessel).
But looking back over the awful track record - and it is awful - that the police have of lying, falsifying and manipulating information to cover their own backsides; when they are caught doing it people are bound to assume the worst, in an absence of reliable information.
And maybe, as possibly in this case, they didn't have to.
Here it is again, IPCC investigation says one thing, CCTV and compelling evidence says another.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jul/01/faisal-al-ani-police-arrest
There's some commentary on it to be found here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/01/faisal-al-ani-police
My point here isn't necessarily to do with the actions of the officers in terms of the arrest - I'd have no idea how to arrest someone.
The issue that is one of highly suspect information. Prior to the CCTV, the only way the IPCC could have known about the fact that he was carried into the police station was from (I imagine) a police source (where else would it come from?).
This persisted for 4 months after the initial statement?!
Whether or not the officers were responsible, whether or not they did everything right or wrong, now that I've seen the video, I've really got nothing to offer on that one - I don't have the expertise or evidence.
What is still clear, and remains a fact that will overshadow every single one of these incidents, completely correctly in my view, is the disturbing habit that the police seem to have of lying. Of feeding one story to the media, the public, the IPCC or whoever, and then changing it when the evidence shows it to be false.
Again, of the 1000 deaths in police custody between 1969 and 1999 there were no convictions for any of the deaths. Even the one where it was found at the inquest that two police officers body belted a woman, then gagged her with 30 feet of surgical tape, and she suffocated.
That was unlawful killing, and the officers did not face criminal trial, as far as I am aware.
And it's crap, because I'll freely admit that on balance having not seen the tape (when I originally posted I had only read the commentary on the page because the vid doesn't show up at work). I could quite believe the worst interpretation of the story we are here debating (which is clearly not true - and I've stated that from my position at least I couldn't see anything much wrong with it, apart from the possibility of being near a major blood vessel).
But looking back over the awful track record - and it is awful - that the police have of lying, falsifying and manipulating information to cover their own backsides; when they are caught doing it people are bound to assume the worst, in an absence of reliable information.
And maybe, as possibly in this case, they didn't have to.
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theres also been news of a cancer patient being arrested and taken into custody without any of his medication that he needed to stay alive. luckily he survived but it wouldn't have been so good if his family hadn't turned up...
It's been going on for too many years; the Police have to be more accountable and the deaths in custody must be reduced, and where appropriate, accounted for.
Is it possible that the police treat the people how those people treat them? Why should a copper who has possibly just been sworn at, threatened etc, be extra civil to the person they have arrested.
Because he didn't say that, and innocent until proven guilty is the reason why they should be civil to suspects, especially cooperative ones.
I'm sure they get a lot of shit no doubt - just dealing with all the drunks on the weekend must make them want to hose them down with CS spray, I know I would want to. But that doesnt excuse the complete assumption by many (not all) coppers that if you have got arrested then you must be a criminal and therefore dont deserve to be treated with some respect.
Don't tar each and every PC with the same brush. No doubt everyone that you know that has been arrested has had a little bit more to say than what really happened. Also, just out of interest were they drunk? If so their reasoning and behaviour are going to be different to how they would react and communicate if sober.
Most PCs treat prisoners with respect and look after them fairly. As already said, treat them how you would want to be treated in the same position. However, if you have someone who is drunk, continually unwilling to listen and hurling abuse at you then maybe you will ignore them but that is nothing to do with whatever they have been arrested for it's purely down to their behaviour.
Now unless at the same time he was shouting "I HAVE A HEART CONDITION" "I HAVE A MENTAL ILLNESS" or flashes them a medicalert bracelet, how are they supposed to know???!?!
All the things he was displaying are symptomatic of someone who is drunk or drugged up, not just someone who is ill.
The fact he suffered a cardiac arrest is unfortunate, but because it happened in police custody all of a sudden it's the police's fault?
There's no mention there by the judge of what the police could have done differently, and none here either, just criticism as always.
No it's not ridiculous - they claimed that he'd walked into the station, which is a lie. Not wrong; lies. They lied. Your claim that it was someone who is 'drunk or drugged up - not someone who is ill' is also plainly wrong, and a bit better understanding of this might have allowed for some reasonable doubt to creep into officer minds about the cause of the disturbance.
The last 20 years of research on talking and restraint methods in mental healthcare involving seriously ill people has shown that while restraint still has to be used in some cases, increases in appropriate mediation training bring the number of restraint incidents down substantially. But if you've already decided drink or drugs, as you did, then you wouldn't event think to try that.
He had an altercation with a group of teenagers it says - the way you've got it in your post makes it sound like he was randomly attacking people.
It's against their own guidelines - previous report had criticised them
Again, CCTV doesn't show any 'broken glass' - no independant witness corroboration, yet they corroborate other elements of the police story.
If they apply pressure to sensitive vital areas over a sustained period, against guidelines, restrain and beat him to the point where CCTV evidence shows him being dragged limp into the back of a van, then strike him further with batons while he is unable to defend himself - in far from conclusive circumstances...
Then yes, of course it's the Police's fault. If ten guys can't restrain one man with all the powers and methods available to them then something is wrong.
That and also the fact that the police have been caught lying. Again.
I didn't say he WAS drunk or drugged up, I said the symptoms he showed were similar and almost identical to someone who was. I've worked with people with severe mental illness and I've worked with people who were severely intoxicated. You'd be hard pressed to tell the difference if you didn't already know, and I ask again, how were these officers supposed to know?
This guy wasn't in the care of anyone, the above research is based solely on incidents within a secure environment, so not really relevant to a guy kicking off in the street. If his illness was as serious as it was, where were his family? Where was his medication? If he had medication, why wasn't he taking it?
It appears to me from the CCTV that he is shouting at people in the street. It appears to me that he then turns his attention to a teenager on a bike, grabbing his head before the PCSOs get in the way and seperate them. Shouting at people in the street and trying to hit them isn't an "altercation". An altercation is a minor argument between 2 or 3 people. Trying to hit someone and shouting at people in the street is more than that.
guidelines are just that, guidelines. Nothing they did broke any laws. In the heat of the moment the cop put his knee on the top of his shoulder instead of slightly to the side, it's an easy mistake to make. The jury and coroner have evidently took this into account, especially as there is no evidence whatsoever that it was actually a direct or indirect cause of death.
You saw the quality of the CCTV, I've yet to view CCTV that is detailed enough when zoomed out to get a clear picture of a face, let alone the details of a window breaking.
Sustained pressure? Define sustained. The CCTV is convieniently edited so we don't see how long. We don't see how much pressure. All the CCTV shows is a man's knee just sitting on the shoulder blades for 4 seconds, it's evidence of nothing. The only real danger from this (last time I heard a knee on your shoulders didn't cause heart attack....) is positional asphyxia, we're trained to use this move but to switch position as soon as possible. That being when the offender has calmed down and been restrained.
What van? The CCTV shows 2 officers holding an arm each and putting him into the back of a police car. Where was he dragged......
So you're saying that for no reason at all a few cops decided to stop the car and start beating a man for no reason in broad daylight? I've had people kick off in a car with me, it isn't pleasant. it's even less pleasant if there is only 2 of you, and one of you is driving. TBH they should have used a van, it would have caused less fuss.
10 men? He was arrested by 3 and the process was observed by 3 PCSOs, one of whom handed the cop his cuffs.
There are 2 men holding him before the car.
There are 4 men carrying him to the station, 1 man in front to open the door and the 3 PCSOs following behind.
Yes, there is a discrepancy about the walking issue, i'll give you that but everything else? This was a bog-standard arrest. Who was to know about his condition?
How were they to know?
How would you have arrested him?
Again, lots of criticism, no decent suggestions to an alternative.
Agreed, and my point was that they weren't so they shouldn't have made an assumption - I took the 'not just'
in your statement to imply that you meant that this would be adequate ground for assuming the former. Apologies if I misinterpreted this.
Sure, but following from the thread of logic above (where I guess we've established between us that they could not make a definite judgment on MH/intoxication, very possibly both) they could have made attempts to talk to him (which actually they did, next post will explain...)
Agreed. I didn't actually see that CCTV footage until I got home right now, we don't have Java on work computers. I was going (as you can see from my post) with the commentary, which I assumed (wrongly) was accurate. I don't see a problem with anything they did, from a lay perspective.
I'm neither a medic or a police officer, but I'd venture it's probably dicey to be applying that degree of pressure to what looks perilously close to a major blood vessel, interruption of which from what I know can be a factor in cardiac incidents.
Of course there is no conclusive proof that they caused this, and as such we must assume that they were not responsible.
Sorry that's all me - I think I must have misread the original post, obviously it was a car. I'm also going to change the OP to reflect this, apologies for the confusion.
I appreciate that, but by the same token it seems highly dubious that this wouldn't have been seen?
Again, apologies; this was from the description. I didn't see the video until just now and from my reading of it it sounded like there were far more people involved in the actual physical arrest than first appearances.
Again OP will be changed to reflect this.
I'd have no idea how to arrest someone, and as stated above they weren't supposed to know.
The issue that remains here is not one of discrepancy - it is one of highly suspect information. Prior to the CCTV, the only way the IPCC could have known about the fact that he was carried into the police station. This indicates that it was from information, which I can only imagine came from a police source (where else would it come from?).
This persisted for 4 months after the initial statement?!
Whether or not the officers were responsible, whether or not they did everything right or wrong, now that I've seen the video, I've really got nothing to offer on that one - I don't have the expertise or evidence.
What is still clear, and remains a fact that will overshadow every single one of these incidents, completely correctly in my view, is the disturbing habit that the police seem to have of lying. Of feeding one story to the media, the public, the IPCC or whoever, and then changing it when the evidence shows it to be false.
Again, of the 1000 deaths in police custody between 1969 and 1999 there were no convictions for any of the deaths. Even the one where it was found at the inquest that two police officers body belted a woman, then gagged her with 30 feet of surgical tape, and she suffocated.
That was unlawful killing, and the officers did not face criminal trial, as far as I am aware.
And it's crap, because I'll freely admit that on balance having not seen the tape I could quite believe the worst interpretation of the story we are here debating (which is clearly not true - and I've stated that from my position at least I couldn't see anything much wrong with it, apart from the possibility of being near a major blood vessel).
But looking back over the awful track record - and it is awful - that the police have of lying, falsifying and manipulating information to cover their own backsides; when they are caught doing it people are bound to assume the worst, in an absence of reliable information.
And maybe, as in this case, they didn't have to.
They wouldn't have been criticised for carrying the guy in to the station, in fact after him apparently kicking off in the car he was probably put in leg restraints, even if he wanted to he couldn't have done.
As I said before, this was really a bog standard arrest. With the exception of the dubious knee press everything else really does seem by the book and that is something the coroner agreed on.
I arrested someone a few months ago who was being violent and trying to escape, using the same techniques but without the benefit of handcuffs and it really isn't easy to do unless you're stronger than the offender or there are a few of you.
It is very easy to hit someone, it's very easy to put someone on the ground. Keeping them there, getting their arms behind their back, preventing them from escaping even when they're in handcuffs is extremely difficult.
A lot of the techniques we are taught look violent and over the top when in reality they aren't.
I knealt on my offender in exactly the same way as the cop here, and getting your knee in the right place isn't easy, but unless you put all your weight on them won't result in any injury.
It is very sad that the guy died. I agree that he needed more help than he got. He would have got that level of help once his condition was diagnosed, something that would have been done almost as soon as he was processed, either by the duty doctor or by a phone call home. Neither of those could happen because had already died.
Look at the lies the gavers wanted to spread about Ian Tomlinson. First off they tried saying it was a protester disguised as a copper who'd pushed him to the ground. Then they said first aid was hampered by other protestors.
Both of which are of course rubbish.
The police as an insitution cannot not be trusted.
Thats what I don't understand. There was no need for them to lie. The truth would have been less painful, there's nothing out of the ordinary about carrying someone into custody.
That's a more dubious assertion - too many deaths in police custody due to inadequate attention paid to welfare to assume that would be the case (see previous posts).
In the previous quote it was 'after he was processed' that he should have gotten help. If you have to carry a limp suspect into custody the first thing should be help and welfare check, not processing, as far as I can see.
There is a serious problem in the police service with trust. They lie, persistently - they intimidate at demonstrations and cover up for colleagues. Rarely is an officer prosecuted for serious wrongdoing. Again, 1000 deaths in police custody 1969-1999; no convictions. And we know that police were directly responsible for some of them.
This isn't the thread to develop this point, but there's something in the comments of the HMIC spokesman talking about the G20 yesterday - the police are set up to deal with disorder, not facilitating order or its preservation. Which is why I think there's this us and them bunker mentality in the force, that anyone that are faced with is automatically the enemy. As such, its no surprise that they band together to cover for colleagues.
I hate the fact that I agree with this.
I'm not saying that they are all prisoner beating scum, far from it. I'm just saying that from all the people I know there is a definite attitude change depending on what side of the law they think you are. It doesn't mean they are physical, personally I think thats reasonably rare (especially compared to other parts of the EU) but its an attitude.