Anniversary of a Death

Today is exactly a year since a 47 year old newspaper seller, trapped by police in a “kettle” around the Bank area in the centre of the City of London while trying to make his way home from work, was assaulted by a police officer and collapsed and died a few yards away on the street from his injuries.

Most of us feel that if the assault had been carried out by anyone other than a police officer, the person concerned would by now be convicted and serving his sentence. Of course the police are in a different position to the rest of us, licensed to use reasonable force where necessary but in this and in many other cases, including the execution of Jean Charles de Menezes in a tube train at Stockwell Station and the almost 200 a year poorly investigated deaths in custody highlighted by the United Families and Friends campaign raise important concerns over their actions and accountability.

The situation in the UK is less extreme than that exposed to the world by the censored Crossfire exhibition in Bangladesh, and we do things more subtly in this country where essentially our class system, land inequality, constitution and laws date from the Norman conquest in 1066 – with of course many later amendments and adjustments.

I left Bank on April 1, 2009 before the situation became violent to photograph elsewhere and so only know about the events later through the published accounts and also personal conversations with many of those who were there, including several photographers who were also injured by police attacks.

© 2009 Peter Marshall.
Sisters of Sean Rigg, killed in Brixton Police station, march in memory of Ian Tomlinson, April 2009
I didn’t go to this morning’s anniversary laying of flowers by the family and others on the pavement where Ian Tomlinson died, partly because of pressure of work, but also because I thought it would be an event suffering from media overcrush, with photographers and videographers elbowing for limited room.  Although I usually manage to hold my own in such scrums (anticipation and getting there first fairly often is a great help, though not when some TV crews simply barge rudely in front of you) I seldom enjoy it and often, particularly with events such as this feel it is too much of an intrusion.

I felt that particularly strongly at the last event commemorating Ian Tomlinson and in particular about the laying of flowers by the family.  And I was as intrusive as most of the others, though I was appalled by the apparent lack of any sensitivity of one TV crew on the spot.

© 2009 Peter Marshall.
Ian Tomlinson’s widow and family members where he died in Cornhill, Dec 2009

I’m pleased that – for once – the mass media are taking an interest in the kind of issues that many of us have worked on for years and met with a blank wall from editors.  But that means there will be more than plenty of people there to take pictures. There are still many events of some importance that few of us cover.

So despite my sympathies for the Tomlinson family and interest in the issues around Mr Tomlinson’s killing I decided this was one event I would not make the journey to cover.

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