More stories & what to do next
There’s a site which is aggregating people’s accounts of the day & police behaviour here.
If you are completely outraged by all of this, the site has a number of suggestions, and there is a very active Facebook group about all this.
I’d encourage anyone who has any grounds whatsoever to make a complaint to the IPCC about police behaviour on the day. I’ve complained about the officer who ‘arrested’ me, and whoever was in charge when the cops charged & trampled us. The IPCC is a really flawed setup – the police generally carry out their investigations & they were basically parroting the police line in a very pliant way until they were forced to admit otherwise. Disgracefully, the first thing they did when the Guardian published the video of his assault was to turn up at the newspaper’s offices with City of London Police and ask that it be taken off their website.
However, for all its failings, the IPCC is the established route, and if we are going to properly hold the cops to account for their behaviour, we need to show that we are taking all the ‘correct’ steps. The word I’ve had from climate camp legal, is that they don’t have very much faith in the IPCC process, and they see policing like this as a political issue. Insofar as the Met (who were in operational command during the G20) is accountable, it answers to the Mayor, the Home Secretary, and the Metropolitan Policing Authority. A number of Greens & Lib Dems in the London Assembly sit on the MPA, and both parties have been very active on this & I have heard from the Greens that IPCC complaints are of much more use to them, because they are sworn statements, which carry more weight. So, complain to the IPCC, but don’t hold your breath for them to do something.
Most of all – if you weren’t there on April 1st, you are disgusted by how the police behaved, and you know that something needs doing on climate change, come to the next climate camp between 26th August & 2nd September. Bring friends, cameras, media, lots of happy feelings and don’t be intimidated by the police. They took us on because our numbers were smaller and the cameras had gone away. Most importantly, help make it happen. Let’s make sure they can’t do it again.
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