Overnight, dramatic new footage was obtained by UK newspaper The Guardian of last week’s G20 protests, showing baton-wielding riot police apparently striking newsstand worker Ian Tomlinson and pushing him over outside the Bank of England (video here).
The scene outside the Bank at 7:30pm was a tense one, with Tomlinson apparently just outside a police cordon that had encased, via a tactic called “kettling”, hundreds of protestors over the preceding hours. After the assault, Tomlinson got gingerly to his feet and walked further down the road before he collapsed and died. These Daily Mail pics record this and the tragic postscript, just minutes later.
The damning video footage, shot by a New York fund manager doing a bit of working holiday sightseeing, has been referred to the UK’s Independent Police Complaints Commission, which is conducting an investigation into the incident. Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats are calling for criminal sanctions.
The latest revelations appear to chafe with official statements issued by the Metropolitan Police in the initial aftermath of the death, with a spokesperson claiming that officers “took the decision to move him as during this time a number of missiles — believed to be bottles — were being thrown at them.” A police statement made no mention of any prior police contact with Tomlinson with these claims faithfully parroted by the local press.
But in the video, protestors are quick to assist Tomlinson.
And other protestors have subsequently told Sky News:
“I looked up and saw a man in his late-40s stumbling along, he looked unable to walk properly,” he said.
“He collided with a door, walked a few more steps and collapsed.”
“It was almost as if he was clowning around.
“He smelt of alcohol and seemed happy, not distressed, but as we were talking he just stopped responding.”
UK authorities were also quick to claim that Tomlinson had died of “natural causes”, perhaps to defuse the prospect of an anarchist backlash in the style of Athens and Genoa.
But the release of the sickening footage is likely to draw more angry feet onto the street in the UK capital in the coming days. Stay tuned.
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