As someone who has seen a lot of action in public disorder situations as a photographer and who has attended dozens maybe hundreds of different demonstrations either as a reporter, a participant or very occasionally an organiser, I’ve seen a lot of public order policing. Some of it has been good and good natured to such an extent that I’ve extended my hand to senior officers for keeping the demo safe after the event. Other times I’ve seen the police protect the democratic rights of others, including those I despise, such as when the police facilitated a BNP rally in Tower Hamlets. The police allowed the BNP to have their grubby little meeting but I know for a fact having overheard the warning from an Inspector to one of the organisers, that the Metropolitan Police would ‘eat them’ if they caused any violence. The police on this occasion facilitated the meeting but closed off any potential for violence or public order problems from the BNP types. I admired that.
I’ve seen and experienced a lot in this field. I’ve been pushed, shoved, had my feet stomped on and been elbowed by police. I’ve also taken the occasional baton hit.
I’ve seen some shit policing especially public order policing in my time but I’m extremely concerned about some of the policing aspects of a ‘Raise The Colours’ march in Sheffield recently.
According to some of the reports that I’ve seen on one particular incident the behaviour of some South Yorkshire Police officers was disgusting. The way they treated a man whose head the police had allegedly pushed into a bollard was reminiscent of how the police behaved in the Henry Nowak case. The man who the police had pushed into the bollard was on the floor, obviously injured but officers piled onto this man and handcuffed him. In another aspect of this incident that has worrying similarity to the Nowak case, officers are alleged to have dragged this handcuffed man across the floor despite the man being injured. There were initial reports that the man had died but this turned out to be incorrect. However it’s likely that this man was very seriously injured.
The actions of South Yorkshire officers is questionable enough but it’s worse when you realise that Britain’s two tier police forces would not dare to treat one of the government’s or the Left’s client groups like that. They wouldn’t push a Muslim’s head or the head of a ‘Palestine’ obsessive or an Extinction Rebellion type into a bollard, the thought to do so probably would not cross any officer’s mind. However for indigenous Britons they will do that and much more.
Here’s two of the videos that have been published concerning this incident:
https://x.com/MrsBr0wn_82/status/2066235592803807556
and
This one that shows one particular officer launching himself at the man who was injured prior to the man sustaining the injury.
https://x.com/MityaAreskin/status/2066244618786623546
Is it any wonder that public confidence and trust in the police is heading lower all the time? Is it any wonder that normal people, law abiding Britons mostly, now increasingly use the term ‘filth’ for the police an epithet that used to only be used by those who were criminal or criminal adjacent. Sadly it is by the police’s own behaviour that they are now referred to by this word.
