On Foto8 you can read the story by Vu photographer Michael Greive of how on 1 April last year he photographed Ian Tomlinson in his dying minutes. His first picture of the incident shows Tomlinson sitting on the ground shortly after the fatal blow by PC Horwood in the pedestrian street behind the Royal Exchange; Tomlinson, seen from behind, looks up towards police who appear to be ignoring his pleas. After taking this frame, Grieve turned towards a group of police standing to the right to take another picture as a record of the whole scene, and at the back of this picture is the officer later identified as Horwood, two hands holding a club with his face partly covered.
A few minutes later, Greive saw the same victim, clearly in need of urgent medical attention. Police had prevented protesters – including a third year medical student – and a news photographer from coming to his assistance; one of the protesters had called the ambulance service, but they asked to speak to the police and the request was ignored.
Grieve took further pictures as Tomlinson, finally attended by police medics, was dying. It was only several days later, when a friend told him that he could be seen taking a picture of Tomlinson on the film of the unprovoked assault by Horwood which a US investment manager had taken and later sent to The Guardian that the photographer realised exactly what he had witnessed.
Grieve was advised to contact the Tomlinson family’s solicitor with his evidence and was later interviewed by the IPCC who were investigating the case. He decided to cooperate fully with them, supplying high-res scans of his images, in the hope that these would help in ensuring a conviction. Among other things his pictures showed conclusively that PC Horwood was not wearing his serial number.
In his feature, illustrated by a number of the pictures he took, Grieve records his disgust at the failure to prosecute Horwood. It’s hard indeed to disagree with his final paragraph:
“But photography did not fail that day. It recorded evidence as best it could from professionals, amateurs, to the unauthored CCTV. All photographers acted with total professionalism, doing their job, and not, as the police may these days accuse us, acting like potential terrorists or paedophiles, or whatever they decide to pull out of the hat. It goes with out saying that the only individual who unleashed terror this particular day at G20 was wearing a police uniform with his face partially obscured and failing to wear his serial number. And though he may be reprimanded internally by the police force he has, in effect, got away with it. And we citizens have to fight our corner and watch our backs.”
As the farce of an investigation into this case and others has shown, the police are effectively above the law – particularly in dealing with protesters and with the working class and ethnic minorities. The law at every level is still very much a law for the rich and privileged.
My Own Day
I wasn’t around when Ian Tomlinson was killed, although I had been with the protesters as they made their way to Bank in the morning. By the time I’d followed a second group there the area was packed with people and it was impossible to move down past the Bank of England. As well as the protesters there were literally hundreds (if not thousands) of photographers and I decided my time might be better spent covering the other protests going on around London.
So I left the the demonstration at Bank a little after noon, going to photograph the Climate Camp as they arrived to set up camp in the middle of the street a quarter of a mile away in Bishopsgate. As I left, police had started to “kettle” the protesters, refusing to let them leave but were still allowing press to go out through their lines. Later I went to photograph the ‘Jobs Not Bombs‘ demonstration at the US Embassy and march to a rally Trafalgar Square – and police were by then refusing to let journalists back into the area around Bank. And by the time of the police violence against the Climate Campers I was back at home and in bed.
Earlier I’d seen a few minor incidents as police snatched some masked demonstrators apparently at random out of the crowds and stood among the TSG as some of them paced from foot to foot obviously itching for some action. They seemed to me more than eager for confrontation, and it was obvious that they were out to cause trouble and to have no interest in keeping the peace.
Police grab a masked protester at the Climate Camp
The murder of Ian Tomlinson (and despite the CPS decision it is difficult to describe it as anything but murder) didn’t surprise me, although I was shocked by it, as well as by a number of other non-fatal incidents recorded on other videos, including attacks on several journalists as well as protesters.
Prof Chris Knight, one of the G20 Meltdown Organisers, and the officer responsible for the policing at Bank meet at the start of the Ian Tomlinson Memorial March
Later I attended a number of protests against the killing, including a march in memory of Ian Tomlinson organised by the people who had organised the event at Bank, now working with the Tomlinson family. Later came a candlelit vigil with the family and, after the announcement of the failure to prosecute, a further demonstration outside the offices of the DPP.
I think we haven’t heard the last of this case, either in the courts or on the streets. Perhaps it will even lead to action to curb police excesses by our parliament. But given the record that doesn’t seem too likely.