“No offence but honestly who gives a shit about some Jew in Germany.” Nowave, Melbourne Punx Forum, October 2008
“If Nazis are so interesting to you, move to Naziland.” ~ Fruitsalad, Melbourne Punx Forum, October 2008
“As I stated on the Bombshell forum Andy, you are a liar, a hypocrite and no better than the trash that you fight against.” ~ Dion, December, 2007
“Anarchy is a fag. Thanx to the people who have supported us… and to the random people letting us know about this anarchist knobjockey Mr Moran.” ~ Chunga (The Worst), September 2007
Established in March 1933, the Dachau concentration camp was the first regular concentration camp established by the National Socialist (Nazi) government. Heinrich Himmler, in his capacity as police president of Munich, officially described the camp as “the first concentration camp for political prisoners.” It was located on the grounds of an abandoned munitions factory near the northeastern part of the town of Dachau, about 10 miles northwest of Munich in southern Germany.
During the first year, the camp held about 4,800 prisoners. Initially the internees consisted primarily of German Communists, Social Democrats, trade unionists, and other political opponents of the Nazi regime. Over time, other groups were also interned at Dachau, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses, Roma (Gypsies), homosexuals, as well as “asocials” and repeat criminal offenders. During the early years relatively few Jews were interned in Dachau and then usually because they belonged to one of the above groups or had completed prison sentences after being convicted for violating the Nuremberg Laws of 1935.
In early 1937, the SS, using prisoner labor, initiated construction of a large complex of buildings on the grounds of the original camp. Prisoners were forced to do this work, starting with the destruction of the old munitions factory, under terrible conditions. The construction was officially completed in mid-August 1938 and the camp remained essentially unchanged until 1945. Dachau thus remained in operation for the entire period of the Third Reich.
The number of Jewish prisoners at Dachau rose with the increased persecution of Jews and on November 10-11, 1938, in the aftermath of Kristallnacht, more than 10,000 Jewish men were interned there. (Most of [the] men in this group were released after incarceration of a few weeks to a few months, many after proving they had made arrangements to emigrate from Germany.)
…
On ANZAC Day (April 25), neo-Nazis will be gathering in Perth under the auspices of international neo-Nazi network ‘Blood and Honour’ (named after the inscription ‘Blut und Ehre’ which the Hitler Youth had inscribed on their daggers) in order to attend a gig by local band ‘Quick & the Dead’ and Melbourne band ‘Ravenous’. B&H’s representative and spokesperson in WA is Murray Holmes of Harvey. “Every one [in Harvey] hates blacks and Asians” reckons Murray, and “Australian immigration has been letting in so called refugees from all these sand nigger countries now for years… the numbers have increased to an epidemic proportion”.
His comrade-in-arms in Victoria is the vocalist for Ravenous, a Hammerskin named Jesse. Jesse has a YouTube channel (‘genocidal88’: 88 = HH = Heil Hitler) and also dabbles in business. You can help Murray and Jesse promote neo-Nazi ideology by purchasing items from Jesse’s online nutzi emporium 9percentproductions.com. Some of my favourite album titles are ‘Der ewige Jude’ (The Eternal Jew) by Volkszorn (In the song “Der ewige Jude” (Eternal Jew) on the CD of the same title, the band Volkszorn sings: “Eternal Jew, he is still around. Eternal Jew, the worldwide danger. He poisons and bribes the entire wide world. The Jew must die or our days are numbered”), ‘Fetch the Rope’ by The Klansmen, ‘Freezer Full of Nigger Heads’ by Grinded Nig and ‘Alcoholocaust’ by Jew Slaughter.
Jesse also flogs swastika flags and other nutzi kitsch.
As in the manner of all other public events organised by B&H over the last 15 or so years, the venue for the gig is undisclosed. B&H once held annual and semi-annual events at a pub in Fitzroy, Melbourne called The Birmingham Hotel. 2006 was the last time B&H used the pub for this purpose, and it was subsequently subjected to a boycott. The boycott was successful in bringing about a change in management and ownership in early 2008.
The great majority of the police, seemingly ever-patient and self-controlled, stood for hours as kids baited and yelled, shoved and provoked. A handful of officers used well-placed elbows while batons were raised only in response to the vandalism.
~ G20 protesters strike at London’s heart, Paola Totaro, The Age, April 2, 2009
Paola Totaro is the London-based Europe correspondent for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. In this capacity, Totaro recently authored a series of articles on the G20 Summit in London:
Not unexpectedly, Totaro’s writing assumes the attributes and perspectives of her presumed readership. To be precise, the liberal middle class: “Compared to the Herald Sun, The Age attracts 72,000 more AB readers across Mon-Fri, 163,000 more AB readers on Saturday, and 75,000 more on Sunday.” (See also: December 2008 Circulation and Readership [PDF].)
Thus “[i]n eastern and central Europe” there were “years of boom in the wake of the fall of the Iron Curtain”, while “Protesters are using Twitter, the fast, mobile-phone based social networking tool, to stay ahead of police”. Like Ian Bone’s decision to wear “a well-cut dark overcoat, [a] scarf tied nattily at the neck, [and] an elegant gold ring”, the ability of ‘protesters’ to utilise technology is — apparently — remarkable.
In December, Totaro described ‘YouTube, Facebook fan fallout over slain Greek teen’ (Sydney Morning Herald, December 12, 2008). According to Fairfax’s Europe correspondent — and contrary to the mountains of evidence to the contrary; remarked upon for at least the last decade or more — anarchist and other troublemakers only discovered teh Intertubes when Facebook and YouTube did. Mind you, Paola also writes “In Turkey, 12 [sic] protesters were reported to have painted the Greek consulate in the same colour red used on the Turkish flag”; alternatively, in the colour of blood. Which has, like, symbolic resonance?
As for G20, while Totaro believes police were extremely patient, never aggressive, and employed violence only when themselves subject to assault, the death of Ian Tomlinson and, moreover, the existence of video footage which demonstrates that he was the subject of an unprovoked assault, renders her account slightly silly; a product of privilege, not experience. That she should then proceed to blame protesters for pissing on the streets when, in reality, access to public toilets was denied them by police, further suggests that Totaro is not only naive, but genuinely ignorant of police tactics; tactics which, largely as a result of Ian’s death at the hands of an extremely patient police action, are now subject to rather widespread criticism.
The Met police treated the demonstrators as criminals, corralling thousands in socalled “kettles” of containment for several hours. They were also reliably reported to snarl: “Now for the fun” while putting on riot gear. A witness saw three coppers smash a man against scaffolding and beat him with truncheons. When he escaped, a riot officer chased him shouting: “Do you want a piece of this, huh, do you want to come and get some?” ~ Act Quick to tame the police, Paul Routledge, Daily Mirror, April 10, 2009
I was a part of the G20 protest in the peaceful Climate Camp, and we were rushed by police, and beaten despite having our hands in the air chanting ‘this is not a riot’, I was brutally assaulted for NO reason, knocked out and was taken to hospital via ambulance just for sitting on the floor. People there were hurt for NO reason and so was poor Ian. ~ littletreepixi, YouTube, April 10, 2009
Today was a pretty shameful day for the Metropolitan Police. During a peaceful static demonstration at Climate Camp in Bishopsgate, Metropolitan riot police stormed through the barricades without warning and unprovoked. They batonned unarmed protesters who were holding up their hands and chanting “Peace not Riot” in a show of non-violence. Many were knocked to the ground and numerous individuals injured in this disgraceful act of brutality.
These protesters, who were exercising their democratic right to demonstrate, were then barricaded into the street unable to leave until around 11.30pm. ~ G20 Climate Camp ‘Riot Police’, woo-war, flickr, April 1, 2009
Bristle’s Blog from the BunKRS has excellent coverage. Another blog, What I saw, provides eyewitness accounts of the actions of the ever-patient-and-self-controlled-police-who-stood-for-hours-as-kids-baited-and-yelled-and-shoved-and-provoked.
In a Melbourne street, just before dawn on Tuesday 12 September 2000, television cameras recorded a significant event in Australia’s political history. Baton-wielding police, from the paramilitary Force Response Unit, swooped upon 50 citizens who were holding a political assembly on a major public issue. The police wore helmets and visors, making their faces unrecognisable. Furthermore, most had removed their personal name tags from their jackets, thereby becoming unaccountable.
The 50 civilians were sitting passively and quietly on the pavement at a vehicle gateway outside Melbourne’s Crown Casino. The FRU police, assisted by mounted police and others, surrounded the civilians, making it difficult for anyone to escape the kicks and blows.
The police had given these 50 citizens no forewarning about this baton-charge and had not directed them to move. Police regulations permit officers to use enough force to make an arrest or to prevent a crime. However, this attack resulted in no arrests or charges. At worst, the citizens were obstructing a vehicle thoroughfare but the lawful penalty for this is perhaps a fine, not a thrashing. Punishments are supposed to be administered by the courts, not by police. And corporal punishment is not normally practised in Victoria.
No police were injured in this incident but ambulance paramedics treated the injured civilians, sending some to hospital.
The attack is also significant because the civilians included two members of the New Zealand Parliament. This may well be the first time that Victorian police have physically attacked members of a parliament.
Twelve hours later, after dusk, the Force Response Unit carried out another baton-charge at the same gateway against an assembly of about 100 civilians. The police also targeted news photographers, injuring some and smashing their equipment.
The success of this day’s police operations is measured not in arrests but in the number of civilians injured. The media reported that about 70 people were injured in the two attacks, including 24 who were taken to hospital.
However, newspaper stories and television news scripts during the preceding three months had built up an expectation that these 70 injured civilians were criminally “violent” and that they deserved “what was coming to them”.
The purpose of this paper is to examine the articles and scripts about “violence” in the light of the available television footage…
New ‘bossnapping’ case in France The Age
April 10, 2009
A senior manager at French auto parts maker Faurecia was being held late on Thursday by workers angry at plans to restructure a factory southwest of Paris, a union official said.
The official in the CFDT union said the boss of a plant in Brieres-les-Scelles, about 45km from Paris, had been detained by workers in the latest incident of “bossnapping”.
A number of managers in France have been held hostage overnight by workers in recent weeks over planned job cuts. In each case, they have been released unharmed, often after a promise to restart negotiations.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has vowed to put an end to the practice, saying workers angry over layoffs must nevertheless obey the law and not hold executives captive.
“What is this business of sequestering people? We have the rule of law, and I will not let matters go on like that,” Sarkozy had said in a speech.
“We can understand that people are angry, but this anger will subside with answers and results, not by aggravating matters with actions that are contrary to the law,” he said.
Recent polls show that up to half of French people believe workers are justified in taking executives captive to seek better redundancy packages during the economic crisis.
IN the immediate aftermath of the G20 demonstrations — as well as for several months prior to the summit, and in relation to this and every other major summit and non-summit protest — the general consensus shared by this blog was — and indeed remains — that the police had done a relatively good job in managing the demonstrations and containing any potential acts of violence not previously authorised by the state (cf. ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’). Indeed, if there was any blame attached to the death of Ian Tomlinson, who was selling the Evening Standard, from a heart attack on the day, it was and always would be associated with protesters who had, allegedly (but in reality not), thrown missiles at the police as they attempted to resuscitate him as he lay dying at Cornhill. This perspective was developed many months prior to the protest itself, and applies in almost all circumstances. Sadly, Tomlinson’s death takes on a very different aspect now that we know more about the circumstances that preceded it, and especially since video footage — revealing police lied about the circumstances surrounding his death — has been made widely available to the public.
This footage, which was made available by a New York fund manager who was attending the demonstrations out of curiosity, makes tragically clear that Mr Tomlinson was forcibly pushed to the ground from behind by a policeman, who may also have hit him with a baton. The assault was, it seems, entirely unprovoked (see below). Other witnesses have suggested that before this episode, he had already been hit with batons and pushed to the ground by police who barred his route home. This evidence is now being considered by the completely independent police complaints commission under the management of the City Police, but it does not take a lengthy report to conclude that, while assaulting non-ordinary members of the public may be necessary, even laudable, on the face of it, this was a disgraceful way to treat an ordinary member of the public, especially in the presence of non-corporate media not blocked by his fellow officers. Certainly, the police are under a good deal of stress during demonstrations, but it is their job not to over-react to provocation, let alone vent their frustration on passers-by. That said, if it weren’t for the protesters, the police could have stayed at home, enjoying a well-deserved rest. Alas, for sheer bloody-mindedness, few other groups can outrank The Professional Protester.
Mr Tomlinson was not an anarchist nor a protester. If he were, his death would be tragic, but not entirely undeserved. Rather he was helping to sell the Evening Standard and was going about his ordinary business as he made his way home. Unprovoked assaults on those whom those occupying responsible positions of authority in the relevant government department deem to be legitimate protesters are not justified either, but the wilful mistreatment of a law-abiding member of the public is particularly shocking to those of us who’ve not examined in any detail or with any seriousness the history of modern policing.
Granted, Mr Tomlinson did not die as a direct result of police violence but it is at least possible that his heart attack was occasioned by his treatment. This death should give rise to immediate reassessment of police tactics, in particular isolating groups of protesters and hemming them into a confined space. Thanks to us, the public are constantly bombarded with the message that they may need protecting from violent demonstrators, and that protecting property belonging to the corporate and state sector constitutes the best guarantee of their life and liberty; productive workers ought not to need protecting from police.
Generally speaking, the best form of defence is attack. The Daily Mailleads the way:
We don’t yet know how drifter and alcoholic Ian Tomlinson provoked a policeman to attack him minutes before he collapsed and died of heart failure. We may guess he was uncooperative or said something offensive, at a time when police nerves were frayed by the G20 riots… The Mail has huge admiration for the great majority of Britain’s police. Our society demands a great deal of them — including that they treat even drifters and alcoholics with courtesy and restraint. But equally, if the police are to remain worthy of our trust, it is vital that when incidents like this occur, they are investigated with the utmost transparency and rigour.
Congratulations to the anonymous hack @ The Daily Mail for the above.
Bonus!
Word on the street is that a Lancashire policeman is currently under investigation for allegedly acting in a similar fashion to the policeman who felled Ian Tomlinson. PC Paul Carbery (see Blackburn ‘CCTV Cities’: only available in the UK) is accused of suddenly and violently throwing a 65 year old disabled man to the ground from behind. Two other officers are under investigation for deliberately failing to retrieve the video footage that would have provided evidence of the assault.
Following Adolf Hitler rode out of fashion about the time the VFL’s leading goalkicker was Ron Todd of Collingwood and 7,000 Jewish refugees fleeing Europe, following the German occupation of Austria and Czechoslovakia, arrived in Australia. Now, writes Lisa Pryor, there has been a renaissance.
When genteel ladies grew bold enough to throw themselves into the class struggle earlier last century, it seemed the elegant art of following a dead, foreign, incestuous, coprophiliac dictator with both mind and soul discreetly placed to one side might die out.
It was so terminal that after World War II out-of-vogue copies of Mein Kampf were thrown on bonfires. But the tradition has been revived by a new generation of female worshippers.
Mitzi Gaynob, 24, has been following Hitler for two years, donning a period Nazi costume sewn by her mother to successfully compete in royal monocultural shows around Australia on her political hobbyhorse, immigration.
“When I got this idea, it was an ideal way of establishing some political legitimacy, a platform, with the right temperament and mannerisms,” Gaynob says. “Seeing you’ve got a phantasy of white racial supremacy, you don’t want them to be too crazy.”
The rules are strict: black friends are a no-no and chinks in character armour that resemble human capacities such as compassion, empathy, or simple fellow-feeling are a complete faux pas. Their distinctive ideas – or “batshit” – are traditionally borrowed from a failed novelist (and successful propagandist) called Goebbels.
In recent times rules have relaxed ever so slightly, as competitor and enthusiast Nicole Hanley says. “The flag should be a swastika but we do allow the Celtic or Southern Cross now. You always have a gun and if your criminal record is too long for a gun you put on a fake gun, then you’ve got the various Internet forums. It’s a silly look but that’s what makes it attractive.”
What may look like garden variety xenophobia is actually a more complex pathology which conceals Nazi jodhpurs underneath. This limits the risk of macabre “accidents” common in mid-20th-century Germany. “Ladies who supported Nazism, when it failed to come off, their vicious anti-Semitism could get tangled in the changing tides of history, and they’d get dragged under,” Hanley says.
Following Nazism had its heyday in Germany during the Second World War, she says. At that time only brazen women would have dared to stem the fascist tide, and too few men – including mutinous soldiers – ever entered the struggle.
“It’s been a thing that men really have done, and there are still men with injuries, missing limbs preparing for a future race war,” she says.
Today only a handful of Australian citizens follow Hitler, and only one, Carl D. Thompson, in Brisbane, specialises. His opinions were made in Nazi Germany, are worth little and take about 6 seconds to counter.
Hanley, a veteran of 14 years, is having a child-sized model made up for her baby daughter Charlotte who, it is hoped, will keep up the tradition: “It’s a lovely, elegant way to live … I’d really hate to see it die out or disappear.”
Several days ago, Nicole Hanley, a Canberra woman employed by the local branch of the French TNC ‘The Thales Group’, was suspended from her position as a ‘logistics manager’ at the company. This followed the public disclosure of her role as the moderator of an Internet forum maintained by Blood & Honour, an international network of neo-Nazis. Hanley’s suspension was followed by further reportage on B&H’s attempts to spread neo-Nazi ideology by organising a gig in Perth on ANZAC Day (April 25).
In response, the Perth organiser of B&H WA, veteran bonehead Murray Holmes, has thrown a sop (jdn. beschwichtigen) to the local RSL by announcing that the two bands scheduled to jackboot on stage — Murray’s band Quick & the Dead and Melbourne band Ravenous — would delay their prancing for four hours — from 8pm to midnight.
According to the above, Murray contacted his comrade in Victoria to discuss the possibility of delaying the gig. Murray’s comrade is presumably Jesse, who warbles tunes for Melbourne band Ravenous. Jesse is a Hammerskin (another foreign import, the Hammerskins ((see below)) work in close collaboration with B&H in Australia) who also dabbles in business. You can help Murray and Jesse promote neo-Nazi ideology by purchasing items from Jesse’s online nutzi emporium 9percentproductions.com. Some of my favourite album titles are:
‘Der ewige Jude’ (The Eternal Jew) by Volkszorn;
‘Fetch the Rope’ by The Klansmen;
‘Freezer Full of Nigger Heads’ by Grinded Nig and;
‘Alcoholocaust’ by Jew Slaughter.
Jesse also flogs swastika flags and other nutzi kitsch.
In the latest exciting installment, Murray “said there would be no bouncers, but that anyone wishing to disrupt the event would have to deal with the consequences. “It would be a suicide mission to do that,” he warned. “Everybody’ll be arriving at once. Don’t incite mob violence when the mob isn’t on your side.”
Perth is on the side of neo-Nazism, apparently.
In the US, the Southern Poverty Law Centre provides the following summary of the madcap antics of neo-Nazi skinheads in the year 2008:
The total number of racist skinhead crews, driven by the addition of a couple of new organizations, rose from 90 in 2007 to 98 last year.
Relatively inactive in 2007, Hammerskin Nation, long a force to be reckoned with in the racist skinhead subculture, came back in a big way in 2008. The diminished tally of Hammerskins chapters (which dropped from 15 to 12) is misleading, as it represents the merging of smaller chapters and Hammerskin leaders weeding out weaker outfits, rather than a real drop in the organization’s strength and membership. On the contrary, the Hammerskins last year stepped up recruiting while forging new bonds with other bonehead groups and hosting dozens of hate rock concerts, white power cookouts, Mixed Martial Arts prizefight viewing parties and other widely promoted events.
The Confederate Hammerskins (CHS), the organization’s southeastern regional division, kept particularly busy, beginning last March with a St. Patty’s Day concert in Central Florida that was heavily attended by bones from across the country. Represented crews included Volksfront, Blood & Honour American Division, Atlantic City Skins, Troops of Tomorrow, and The Hated. Members of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club, a notorious biker gang, also attended.
A close Hammerskins ally, the Portland, Ore.-based Volksfront, held its first annual “Althing” gathering last Aug. 29-Sept. 1 on private land purchased by Volksfront in rural Missouri, about an hour’s drive north of St. Louis. Part three-day hate rock blowout, part bonehead summit, the Althing was held in the “Samuel Weaver Memorial Hall,” named after white supremacist Randy Weaver’s son, who was killed by federal agents during the infamous Ruby Ridge standoff in 1992 (Weaver’s wife and a U.S. marshal were also killed). Among the white supremacist leaders who attended was veteran bonehead organizer David Lynch, leader of the resurgent Sacramento, Calif.-based crew American Front.
Last December, more than 100 boneheads from at least five states gathered in Florida for a “Martyr’s Day” party, co-sponsored by CHS, Volksfront and American Front, that featured a keynote address phoned in from prison by Richard Kemp, a member of the white supremacist terrorist group The Order. Martyr’s Day commemorates the 1984 death of Order founder Bob Mathews, who died in a shootout with the FBI…
Oddly enough, the leader of The Order, David Lane, is in Perth at the moment. Well, parts of him anyway. See : The Battle for the Ashes (March 14, 2009).
“Ian Tomlinson assaulted by riot police at G20 Protest in London (extra footage!) – 2009-04-01” is the (presumably ironic) title of this video. If you watch carefully, you’ll notice that, following Tomlinson’s collapse — one triggered, presumably, by exhaustion after having spent a day throwing urine-filled balloons at police — the men in blue come under a barrage of bricks and stones…
EASTER RISING! SOLEMN PROCESSION TO PROTEST THE KILLING OF IAN TOMLINSON. EASTER SATURDAY, ASSEMBLE 11:30AM, BETHNAL GREEN. MOVE OFF AT 12:00 NOON TO LAY FLOWERS WHERE IAN WAS KILLED, CLOSE TO BANK OF ENGLAND. WEAR BLACK. CALLED BY G20 MELTDOWN. PLEASE CIRCULATE WIDELY. BY ORDER OF THE GOVERNMENT OF THE DEAD. Please copy and paste and tell your facebook friends.
He came, he covered his face, he shimmied up a two-storey Corinthian column – and conquered the mighty Bank of England.
And when the protester’s black-and-white banner unfurled over the stone scrollwork, reading ‘Stop Trading on our Future’, the spontaneous roar and cheer of thousands said more than a million essays.
More than a million essays written by Paola Totaro, perhaps. Her early enthusiasm for the event slowly evaporated as the protesters reverted to type:
Unfortunately, the walls of the banks and every available corner were also used as urinals.
Typically, these carbon-hating clean-earth types trashed the place:
Protesters were still in the square burning effigies as night fell.
The cesspool they would leave behind, however, was probably the worst damage of the protest.
Back on Planet Earth, the Cesspools in Eden were the responsibility of the police, who employ a tactic known as ‘kettling’.
Outside the Bank of England, thousands were held for up to eight hours behind a police cordon, in a practice known as “kettling”. Parents with children and passers-by were told by officers on the cordon that “no one could leave”. According to witnesses, when they were finally allowed to go on Wednesday night, they were ordered to provide names and addresses and have their pictures taken. If they refused, they were sent back behind the cordon.
Paola failed to notice this; she did, however, assemble enough evidence to conclude that, on the whole:
The great majority of the police, seemingly ever-patient and self-controlled, stood for hours as kids baited and yelled, shoved and provoked. A handful of officers used well-placed elbows while batons were raised only in response to the vandalism.
For reportage see: Schnews, Friday 3rd April 2009 | Issue 671:
Despite the media’s apocalyptic predictions, the four horsemen (See SchNEWS667) did at least make it to the Bank of England. Whether this was a good idea or not is open to question. It certainly brought a measure of mayhem to the financial heart of London, which seemed largely closed down for the duration. Our numbers were impressive – given the short notice and the media hype of extreme violence. But tactics adopted gave the Met free rein to place a huge cordon around the entire demo – the so-called kettle.
As soon as the final Black Horse (ironically the one symbolising land enclosure) arrived, police lines rapidly snapped into place across the streets surrounding the plaza that the bank sits on. Unfortunately – although many did successfully make a break for it – the majority of the crowd, with little idea of what to do (unless they’d read last week’s SchNEWS public order guide obviously) stood around as this manoeuvre was executed. Whilst we know that the protests were organised on very short notice, there seemed to be little aim other than simply getting into the area – there were no bust-cards, and no attempts at crowd co-ordination.
At first most seemed happy to be inside the huge kettle – a few soundsystems were blasting out and there was even a bizarre outburst of contemporary dance in front of the The Royal Exchange. As the hours wore on and the few city types caught in the circle had shown ID and got themselves extracted, it became obvious that if the police had their way no-one was getting out ‘til long after dark. No water, no food, not even a toilet. The reason given? – ‘to prevent a breach of the peace’.
By around half-one the kettle had been truly brought [to] the boil and fighting had broken out along Threadneedle St. A line of police were pushed back by a crowd shouting, “Let us out”. A few bottles were lobbed but even without these the cops were forced to give way to the sheer physical pressure. Alerted by the noise, support streamed over from the other exits to reinforce Threadneedle and push the cops back to the junction with Bartholomew Lane. This left the windows of Royal Bank of Scotland exposed. They were duly smashed, although rioters were outnumbered by photographers by around fifteen to one. However police lines here were too strong to breach.
At around 2.30, the crowd facing a thinner police line across Victoria St suddenly surged forward and by sheer weight of numbers pushed their way through. One of the shovers told SchNEWS, “It was amazing – we were resigned to being in the kettle until midnight but the lines broke right in front of me and confused police were shouting asking each other, ‘What’s the plan?’”. Despite the rapid deployment of riot cops, possibly up to a thousand people escaped at this point. Soon the windows of HSBC on Cheapside had gone in.
SchNEWS has heard reports that others managed to sneak or blag their way out over the next few hours but during the afternoon the noose was gradually tightened with baton charges. Eyewitnesses reported a sense of panic developing inside the pen. People were not allowed out until after 8pm and only then after being photographed.
One man, Ian Tomlinson is known to have died inside the cordon. SchNEWS has heard conflicting reports as to whether he was struck by police. Perhaps a coroner[‘]s inquiry into his death will expose police tactics to public glare (unless they invoke their handy new powers to keep it all secret of course).
…died of natural causes. Further, anarchist protesters assaulted police, who bravely endured the attacks of the violent mob while they scrambled desperately to save the apparently injured man’s life.
“City resident Ian Tomlinson, 47, was on his way home from his job at a newsagent’s. He suffered a suspected heart attack but officers had to move him away from the front line after bottles were thrown at them” (Squats raided in hunt for G20 rioters, The Australian, April 3, 2009).
Walking home, hands in his pockets, this video shows the moment newspaper seller Ian Tomlinson was attacked from behind by a baton-wielding police officer.
Hours later Mr Tomlinson, aged 47, who appeared to be playing no role in the G20 protests that brought parts of London to a standstill last week, was dead.
The dramatic film shows that Mr Tomlinson, who was married, did not speak to police or offer any resistance, before police – some in riot gear, others with police dogs – surge up behind him.
Then a Metropolitan police officer appears to strike him from behind with his baton, hitting him on his upper thigh.
The same officer then rushes up behind him again and uses both hands to push Mr Tomlinson along the floor…
The Guardian obtained this footage of Ian Tomlinson at a G20 protest in London shortly before he died. It shows Tomlinson, who was not part of the demonstration, being assaulted from behind and pushed to the ground by baton-wielding police.
Two Greek anarchists are making molotov cocktails. One says to the other: "So who will we throw these at then?" The other replies: "What are you, some kind of fucking intellectual?"
