National News Sarah Everard

QR said:
According to the BBC 10 pm news it was peaceful until the police tried to move the people on.
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An activity that they should be doing to uphold C19 laws. I haven’t seen any footage and so cannot comment on how they did this or the attendees reactions but the police were right to seek to disperse a crowd that were meeting in contravention of current legislation.
 
Scotchegg said:
Please provide any evidence of physical abuse, spitting, assaults or criminal damage.

Anything to support your assessment that this was idiots attacking the police?

Because without any evidence to the contrary, we are left with images of women being pushed and restrained by predominantly male police officers at an event to highlight the vulnerability of women in society. Disagreeing with that narrative is one thing, but making up assumptions or inventing events to justify these actions is actually a little shameful.
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Come on @Scotchegg , don’t accuse
me of making stuff up, that’s playground rhetoric, you’re better than that.
 
https://twitter.com/x/status/1371033385762705410

So the woman seen in various images under arrest was not spitting, pushing, punching or engaged in threatening behaviour. She, and a couple of others, were on the band stand and (presumably) refused to leave. There were dozens of police and a very small number of passive women. It would have been exceptional easy to arrest and remove these ladies without needing to put anyone in a prone position to put cuffs on. It was completely unnecessary and heavy handed.

It may be true that police vans were damaged, that there was verbal abuse, pushing and shoving, and minor disorder (although not caught on camera), but it certainly wasn't done by these 3 or 4 women.
 
unification said:
www.bbc.co.uk

Sarah Everard: What went wrong at the Clapham vigil?

Maintaining public order at protests is one of the hardest jobs in modern policing.
www.bbc.co.uk

This is an excellent summary of the timeline of what went wrong and may answer some of the bickering that my thread has caused ([emoji51]). It’s well worth a read.

Another group group who’ll avoid any criticism but deserve it is social media who needed to push the message that attendance to a vigil was in breach of Covid regulations. Seemingly Reclaim The Streets message wasn’t heeded. The courts also need looking at too - pushing the decision back to the police and organisers only led to confusion.

Anyway, it’ll be sorted soon once great political powerhouse Priti Patel has it on her desk ... [emoji57]
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Any word on the ACAB banners ?
 
RyanioBirdio said:
When you train society to split into teams and fight each other for as long as we have in this country, it inevitably spills over into every area and every aspect of life. You can’t condition people to be angry at each other and to fight and argue until they’re blue in the face 24/7 and then expect there to be any sense of control over where that aggression is trained. After a while you just have a bunch of seriously pissed off people wanting to take on another bunch of seriously pissed off people. It’s the same as the Covid conspiracists and the anti-vaxxers. Telling people they can make their own truth and decide what’s real and what isn’t based on their own desires, and that facts and evidence don’t really exist, created the environment for it all to thrive. So I would say that what you’re worried about will almost certainly happen, unfortunately, because you can’t keep encouraging society to set fire to everything in the name of ‘winning’ without it eventually becoming the default course of action. Everybody is completely and utterly furious, all the time. The policing bill that is being jammed through parliament in the coming days won’t do much to help, because obviously when everyone is angry the best thing to do is try to put them in a cage and gag them by force.

Game’s gone, Jeff. I don’t know what the answer is.
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Be nice human`s is the answer........... toke?
 
Junior_1 said:
Any word on the ACAB banners ?
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What’s the significance of this? The article says that there were troublemakers in the crowd. It doesn’t surprise me that some attended with the intent to cause trouble. My issue was and remains why this event took place in the first place when the group who organised it put forward an alternative. This is not just a policing failure but one of organisation, the courts and social media.

Also, the article does mention:

‘The Metropolitan Police Federation, representing frontline officers, says 26 of them were assaulted yesterday at Clapham - punched, kicked and spat at.’

It was mentioned in the thread earlier so there is evidence that such instances occurred. Again I raise my earlier point - failures earlier down the line led to this.

A series of wrong decisions is a clusterfuck and that’s exactly what happened from the day Sarah Everard was kidnapped and murdered to the evening of the vigil.
 
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Scotchegg said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1371033385762705410

So the woman seen in various images under arrest was not spitting, pushing, punching or engaged in threatening behaviour. She, and a couple of others, were on the band stand and (presumably) refused to leave. There were dozens of police and a very small number of passive women. It would have been exceptional easy to arrest and remove these ladies without needing to put anyone in a prone position to put cuffs on. It was completely unnecessary and heavy handed.

It may be true that police vans were damaged, that there was verbal abuse, pushing and shoving, and minor disorder (although not caught on camera), but it certainly wasn't done by these 3 or 4 women.
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I don’t know how much simpler this needs to be explained...you can see the footage.
Police are asking them to move, they are not, they are holding on to whatever is in front of them. They had a chance they refused. Police move them.
Next protester please.
When in breach of the law, do what the police tell you to do or expect to be arrested. If you don’t like being physically restrained, don’t resist arrest...
 
unification said:
What’s the significance of this? The article says that there were troublemakers in the crowd. It doesn’t surprise me that some attended with the intent to cause trouble. My issue was and remains why this event took place in the first place when the group who organised it put forward an alternative. This is not just a policing failure but one of organisation, the courts and social media.

Also, the article does mention:

‘The Metropolitan Police Federation, representing frontline officers, says 26 of them were assaulted yesterday at Clapham - punched, kicked and spat at.’

It was mentioned in the thread earlier so there is evidence that such instances occurred. Again I raise my earlier point - failures earlier down the like led to this.

A series of wrong decisions is a clusterfuck and that’s exactly what happened from the day Sarah Everard was kidnapped and murdered to the evening of the vigil.
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So many other peaceful vigils across the UK, and online, yet the minority here spoiled it for the majority. That’s all there is to it, it didn’t need to be violent but the few made sure it was.
 
It's all part of the great Marxist conspiracy I'm sure.

Just haven't worked out whether it's the police or the vigil-goers, or both, who are the secret Marxists.
 
Eaststanding said:
I don’t know how much simpler this needs to be explained...you can see the footage.
Police are asking them to move, they are not, they are holding on to whatever is in front of them. They had a chance they refused. Police move them.
Next protester please.
When in breach of the law, do what the police tell you to do or expect to be arrested. If you don’t like being physically restrained, don’t resist arrest...
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You know both attendees and the police can be wrong.

Based on the Covid rules and, dare I say it, common seems, the vigil shouldn't have happened. (I appreciated there is a claim that this is contrary to human rights legislation but I ain't going there).

But also based on the (alleged) death of a woman at the hand of a serving police officer, the fact that it was a vigil highlighting violence against women the police were also wrong to used force against women in the way they did.

I do struggle to see why people find it difficult to hold both these views.
 
QR said:
You know both attendees and the police can be wrong.

Based on the Covid rules and, dare I say it, common seems, the vigil shouldn't have happened. (I appreciated there is a claim that this is contrary to human rights legislation but I ain't going there).

But also based on the (alleged) death of a woman at the hand of a serving police officer, the fact that it was a vigil highlighting violence against women the police were also wrong to used force against women in the way they did.

I do struggle to see why people find it difficult to hold both these views.
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Quite right.

Sarah Everard is kidnapped and murdered by a serving member of the Met Police Wayne Couzens - this was wrong.

Hundreds attended a vigil at Clapham
Common on Saturday throughout the day despite Reclaim The Streets (who put forward and encouraged an alternative way to mark your respects) saying not to as the event would not be Covid compliant - this was wrong.

The courts pushed back against making a decision essentially pitting the police and RTS in a one word against another. Social media does nothing to push the ‘stay at home’ message so the encouragement to attend Clapham Common continues to be pushed - this was wrong.

A minority of troublemakers under the guise of activists then attach themselves to the vigil - this was wrong.

The Met Police deal with the vigil in an unnecessarily heavy handed way - this was wrong.

As I said above, a clusterfuck. One event after another went wrong and could and should have been prevented if some degree of common sense been applied somewhere down the line not just from authorities but individuals too (vigil attendees and police officers operating at the scene too).
 
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QR said:
You know both attendees and the police can be wrong.

Based on the Covid rules and, dare I say it, common seems, the vigil shouldn't have happened. (I appreciated there is a claim that this is contrary to human rights legislation but I ain't going there).

But also based on the (alleged) death of a woman at the hand of a serving police officer, the fact that it was a vigil highlighting violence against women the police were also wrong to used force against women in the way they did.

I do struggle to see why people find it difficult to hold both these views.
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Anyone can be wrong, anytime, of course.
The vigil should have happened, the organisers had a plan that seemed appropriate and with an proportionate policing response it could have been win win.
I don’t know exactly why the Met didn’t allow it and in two weeks we’ll know more but this vigil was always going to have potential for disorder more than any others.
If it’s found the Met did anything wrong on Saturday let them learn from it.
Personally I just can’t see what they’ve done wrong at this vigil turned protest so far. Dealt with what presented itself in the way they deemed appropriate. If that makes uncomfortable viewing that’s more your problem than mine but we’re back to the old use of force continuum that raised its head in discussions about George Floyd, and that’s what the Met applied, escalating their response options according to the level of resistance, verbal and/or physical.
Please don’t tell me should they have said sorry ladies for being nasty to you and trying to prevent you unlawfully protesting and in breach of Covid guidance, our mistake, you carry on we’re off now?!
 
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