The Police Are Lying Again
I miss the good old days of UGS where I would in real time point out the errors in police statements around such incidents as the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes.
After the student protests last week there were a couple of gems in the news. The most indicative single article though is this one from the Guardian.
There are two statements of note in this article.
From the Met
The legal challenge came as the Met said more than 180 people have been arrested concerning the student protests. Senior officers said most of the 182 suspects were aged between 17 and 25 and had no records of violence or crime.
According to Theresa May though
the home secretary blamed violence on “an organised group of hardcore activists and street gangs”
So there are a three statements you can take from these if you take them at face value.
1. The police arrested a number of people
2. There were a number of members of street gangs there intent on violence.
3. The majority of those arrested had no criminal record
So this leads to a number of conclusions you could draw
1. There were violent thugs there, but the police did not arrest them and are therefore incompetent
2. There were violent street gangs there, none of whose members had any criminal records
3. There were violent gang members there but people with no criminal record were behaving in such a way that they were a higher arrest priority than the gangsters.
Of course the other stories from the protest are Jody McIntyre being dragged from his wheelchair for the second time on the day by police and then being interrogated by Ben Brown about what he had done to provoke it. The most disgraceful line being that he had menacingly rolled his wheelchair at the police throwing things. He cannot move his wheelchair on his own and due to Cerebral Palsy the chances of him throwing things at the police are remote. The other being Alfie Meadows being given a brain injury by the police