Those who saw live TV coverage of the Hunt Ban protest outside the Houses of Parliament some two years ago can rest assured that it was all OK really. The frenzied and indiscriminate beating of demonstraters by police was all justified. The high proportion of head injuries was all in keeping with police using the training they had been given in baton twirling. Those who were beaten were engaged in something we viewers never saw.
Leastways, that is the opinion of the Independent Police Complaints Commission set up to look into the way police (over) reacted. I just wonder who is pulling their strings. We have had their 'findings' into the hapless Brazilian shot dead at the tube station, the case of the man shot dead when "armed" with a table leg and now this. One hears that the law is an ass (and there have been a few funny verdicts there recently) but the Commission is not just an ass but also a donkey and all those other words one might get from a thesaurus.
This sort of result just further widens the gulf between citizen and police officer. Once the perception spreads that the police are not accountable, sympathy is lost. Cooperation ceases. The police recently changed from being referred to as a "Force" to a "Service". What I saw on my television was very much the actions of a "Force". Equivalent to the worst excesses of the French Riot Squads dealing with African immigrants. "Service" such as I viewed would not attract any gratuity from me.
