Mr Love and Justice

[f4f3]

Not much posting lately, I'm afraid. Partly it's the continuing firewalling of LJ from work, partly my laziness when I get home at night.
So, some randomness, aided by a particularly fine Talisker and Mr Bragg's last album.

I don't know if everyone is following the Ian Tomlinson killing. At risk of spreading information that you're all too aware of, he was someone wandering home through the G20 protests in London who died, apparently as a result of being roughed up by the police. To some here that won't be a hugely unusual circumstance. I mean, the police didn't shoot him, or torture him, they just bashed him about a bit and pushed him over. He took badly to this, and died.
You might think that this was a bit of bad luck - I mean the average person wouldn't die as a result of a baton strike or two and a shove. Unfortunately, I seem to remember a doctrine that says when you commit a criminal act you take your victim as you find them. If there's a link between your criminal action and his death, then that's murder, or at least culpable homicide. I'm not too up on manslaughter, since that doesn't appear in Scots law, but it would seem to fit the bill here.

I was going to post about "Me and the Polis", briefly saying that where I was born and brought up there was no social contract between police and policed - that I thought of the Polis as thugs with impunity, who would steam in, grab my friends from the streets and kick seven colours of shite out of them in their vans. Somewhere in my 20's (probably around the time I took on my first mortgage) that changed, and I started thinking they were there to defend me against anarchy. This past month I've revisited that. If you give a thug a badge, he's still a thug. If you give him licence, he's a thug with impunity. I fear for us this Summer.

Comments

[nicnac.livejournal.com]

Yes, I vaguely remember the eggshell skull rule from tort. Good grief, some of it did stay in and avoid exiting straight out of the other ear!

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Yup, it's amazing what lodges in there...

[parthenia14.livejournal.com]

Yeah, when did we return to the 1970s? I must have nodded off there.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Maybe we'll get some half decent music out of it?

"Hrrrright now..."

[morgaine-x.livejournal.com]

The Tomlinson thing is the only bit of "real world" I am currently following. Probably because it scares me so much. The whole removing their identifying numbers idea horrifies me.

I hate having thoughts that I have struggled with myself about, arguing that I am being narrow-minded and prejudiced, confirmed. Unfortunately, there is a big element of law & order that enjoys exerting and over-reaching its power. It is a refuge for bullies, and these events, and my only other recent newspaper reading (Hillsborough 20th anniversary coverage) makes that sadly obvious.

[sobelle.livejournal.com]

My father was a cop and as cops go? he was relatively fair minded... not the case with his partner (a criminal with a badge) and any number of other cops in the department. Even my Dad told me that most cops are bullies and just a thread away from being criminals themselves.

So I grew up with a negative attitude towards ~law enforcement~ that only got worse during my activism in Civil Rights and then VietNam protests.

Finally, I retired from a career in indigent criminal defense.

It's hopeless for me. I instinctively loathe cops... and the more ~armour~ they have on? The more I fear their anonymous brutality.

[deililly.livejournal.com]

The difficulty for and with the police is they are the ones standing on one side of the line but so much closer to it than most other people. All too easy to step over it. They spend so much time in the presence of criminals and violence that it often becomes an option. Like career criminals.

I am not looking forward to this summer. The police and this area don't have a good relationship...