London student 'struck by truncheon' has brain injury

London student 'struck by truncheon' has brain injury

www.bbc.co.uk

A student suffered bleeding to the brain when he was struck by a police truncheon during the tuition fees protest, his mother has alleged.

Alfie Meadows, 20, of Middlesex University, was hit on the head as he tried to leave Westminster Abbey area, his mother Susan Matthews said.

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As some of you may or may not be aware, London was the scene of some of the worst civil unrest seen in the UK for some time last night, with students of universities ,colleges and schools , protesting about the rise in tuition fees. Having been "kettled" which effectively means having thier march stopped, blocked in, and compressed, students decided to alter thier original plan, and rather than ending up in the area of Embankment, wound up outside parliment, in Parliment Square. There they were subjected to hours of immobility, police charges on horse back, charges by police on foot, and individual incidents of police brutality.
The police and the government here, along with the BBC , are attempting to make out that the students merely went beserk without provocation, forcing the police to act, but witnesses who were there at the time report this very differently , pointing to the kettling or herding of the students by police, and the fact that children as young as eight years of age, were made to stand in the freezing cold because of the kettling, as the flashpoints of the violence that took hold last night.
The stark realities of the results of police tactics on the night were revealed this morning, when it turned out that one protestor was struck on the head by a police truncheon, resulting in a brain bleed, which thankfully recieved emergancy treatment in time to save his life, and hopefuly his solidarity of mind ( the fellow was a top student according to his tutors).
In what manner can this be called effective policing?? How is charging down a group of children, teachers and students,with police on horseback, with riot shields and truncheons anything other than brutality ?
I understand all to well the need for the police to stand against people who go out to cause genuine and unprovoked damage to property , but what the police did here goes further than that. They stopped a peaceful march, harrased the protestors, and then had the audacity to act confused about the motives of those who kicked off in response to that.
They are tools and nothing more, there to protect the Prime minister and his cadre of megalomaniacs and ecconomic vandals, from a justly furious population.
David "Just call me Dave" Cameron spoke out against the protests, and particularly against an attack on the Prince Of Wales's vehicle last night, as it came under attack with the Prince and his wife inside it. However, Mr Cameron refused to comment on the issues being protested about, and made no mention of the fact that the unrest only begun once the police had started thier meddling.
Not suprising really though, since I have no doubt that he had a hand in deciding the policing tactic on this occasion. There is literaly a war brewing on the streets of London right now, and the police are fighting the wrong side of it.

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My prayers are with the student and his family. How terrible. Thanks for the on-the-scene coverage.

The Police had every right.

Not only where those students out of control, they urinated on the statue of winston churchill, pulled off flags off the war memorial.

A beat down was required, to keep law and order.

Interesting newsclip in addition:

Originally posted by Haydn_17
The Police had every right.

Not only where those students out of control, they urinated on the statue of winston churchill, pulled off flags off the war memorial.

A beat down was required, to keep law and order.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/f94dbb7da7cc.jpg[/atsimg]

winston churchill, that old plank who sent thousands of men to there massacre with his failed tactics in ww1 and the same winston churchill that was hated country wide for years after ww2.
we can say we were the good guys in ww2 to some extent but it doesnt mean that the british soldier was any better a person than the german one, it all differs person to person and history changes as the years go on, as we see in the movies were america defeats the germans.

Poor chap. The police officer who got knocked out and had to be dragged out of a dangerous situation by his collegues as they came under attack, that is. Everyone seems to have forgotten about him and the other officers injured in the incident. A student thug gets what was most likely a well deserved thump and the world ends.

I think the students should try protesting in other countries as part of a "cultural exchange". They might appreciate the fact that the UK police are one of the few who don't use water cannons, baton rounds or CS gas to disperse riots, which is why they are left with only a few options.

Some of the biggest protests to happen in the capital in recent years managed to occur without any violence, damage or arrests. One of the 2003 anti-war protests brought in between one and two million people depending on who you ask. None of this anarchy rubbish. Why? Possibly because they weren't spoiled kids acting like pricks.

These student protests have probably done more to damage their cause in the eyes of the general public that anything else. If the rabble hadn't of jumped on the chance for a bit of anarchy then a well ordered respectable march would have gathered a massive amount of support. As it is, they just come across as toddlers having a tantrum. Which they pretty much are. Very big, dangerous and violent toddlers.

At least this student dipstick got smacked in his least vulnerable spot

and a lil piggy got stamped on by his own horse... isn't karma great

i can see the argument coming .. police too heavy handed in riot. Please really? As much as i dislike our government but for christ sake, your going to protest and the student has got too close to the front. Do you think that the police are going to throw flowers at people. if you view some of the footage of the riots there are one or 2 lines of police holding back thousands of protesters (not all of them are friendly) if the police line is broken then all hell is going to errupt. These police officers are face pieces of metal, flares, paint bombs and people who are there just to cause trouble. What in gods name are the police meant to do. As someone posted our UK police dont use CS spray, water cannons or baton rounds in a riot. There is only a certain degree the police can drop to before someone (police or protester) is going to get hurt. As someone else also said, you dont hear about the police officers getting pulled off their horses and attacked ..

at the end of the day youve gone to a protest, your stupid to get near the front and have a tear up with the police

reply to post by ThePeaceMaker

What in gods name are the police meant to do.

Stay out of the way.
If they see someone with a great big sledge hammer going at an old statue or something, arrest them.
I don't see these people in this particular situation as being any kind of real threat, unless it is to people (such as the police) going at them just to punish them for being there, which seems to have been the case.

"Stay out of the way"? They tried that at the first riot a week or two ago. As a result the headquarters for a political party got ransacked and some nutjob started throwing fire extinguishers off a rooftop at the police. It was a miracle no one got killed - seriously.

The students had a chance to prove they could do this peacefully. They couldn't do it. If you give a kid the chance to be an adult and they stab you in the back with it, do you keep on giving them the chance or do you treat them like kids again?

Edited to add pics:









Yep, "stay out of the way" should work just fine.

reply to post by EvillerBob


the last protest i remember an innocent newspaper salesman was killed by police as he walked by, it was caught on camera but i dont think anything happened to the police officer.
do not believe anything you here about the police as most of them are very bad people, i used to get in trouble as a kid and i was even sent to juvinile prison for a self defence that the supposed victim said he made the first hit but a police officer made up a story about me chasing him about that didnt even match up with this supposed victims story and the officer said it was an unprovoked attack, i was sentenced to a year but it was lowered to 2 months in the crown court as the judge said i had overeacted although he understood that it was self defence he thought i took it too far. i was 15 and on ecstacy so not in my right mind but the police and the majistrates are basically the same and they even have the ability to refuse appeals in crown court now .
all through my youth i hung around with the wrong crowd but we used to get searched every day and sometimes more than once, i have been arrested on more than 3 occasions for things i had nothing to do with, twice without interview and one of the times i had proof on me in a bus pass i had bought 5 minutes beforehand in a shop around the corner but they threw me on a car handcuffed etc and refused to even listen to my defence.
the crime was car theft and they had just chased the car and i was in a populated area where it had just ended.
they took all my clothes and even my walkman, didnt interview me and when they asked me to sign for my property they had put a jacket that they had found in the stolen car on the list and said can you sign again to say this isnt yours, obviously only a fool would of signed as there was no indication on the property list to say this wasnt mine, i was 16 at the time of this event, this was one of the times they didnt interview me and then they said they would call me when i needed to come in. about two months later they brought my clothes,walkman and trainers(sneakers/kicks in us). i also had my head rammed into the concrete and had my shin truncheoned by police when i used to live in the north east of england(moved to london/surrey at 13) and i still have a scar.

the main thing was me and my friends would shoplift beer and wind up the staff if it was too hard. but i remember a security guard for a co-op wouldnt let us in because of past arguments etc....
we called him names and he went into the shop and got the pole for pulling the shutters down, my friend who was the smallest but loudest got hit a few times with the pole and he put his hand up in defence and his hand ended up broken, we saw a police car passing and we waved it down and the crazy jamaican security guard started slicing his hand open with a knife that he pulled out his pocket. the police came over and we told them exactly what happened but they did not arrest the security guard as they said he was not an immediate threat and that we could make a complaint down the police station if we wanted to press charges with my friends hand swolen to the size of frying pan. i just wonder what would have happened if my friend beat the security guard with the pole.

reply to post by lewman


And what exactly did urinating on a statue of Winston Churchill achieve? What exactly did David Gilmour's highly priviledged son achieve dangling from the flags on the war memorial?

Some of them were protesting peacefully, but vocally, while others I have no doubt just wanted to cause havoc.

However some of the police tactics were questionable and some officers clearly get heavy handed.

I can see both sides of the argument to be honest.

Too bad. Stuff happens when you place yourself in the middle of a riot. There was a police officer who got his neck broken, too. As for an eight year old who was "forced" to stand in cold weather, who was responsible for bringing an eight year old to a gathering like that? And what's this whole thing all for? An increase in tuition where the student need not even consider paying it back unless he winds up eventually making L20,000. If the salary is modest, so are the payments, as low as L9 per month. It is estimated that only 40% of students will fully pay back their tuition.

So what we have here is a bunch of students who expect the government to pay for their every need in education so that they can benefit from it now being expected to pay for their own education. Boo hoo.

reply to post by Kram09


nothing but we cant tarnish every student or teacher with the same brush and i bet a few wierdos who arent even affected by this got involved too. i think the students feel really let down especially by nick clegg and some of the ones who have been fed with a silver spoon all their lives may have not experienced this type of double crossing before and they will just lose it. maybe they dont understand the laaws of cause and effect, as who is going to pay for prince charles new paint job.

reply to post by EvillerBob

...some nutjob started throwing fire extinguishers off a rooftop at the police.

And?
If they were not there in a threatening manner then they would not have been a target.
What you are asking for is for people to stop acting like humans.
If there was one policeman who was a real man, he would have stopped then from damaging the ceiling tiles.

Originally posted by jmdewey60
reply to post by EvillerBob

 

...some nutjob started throwing fire extinguishers off a rooftop at the police.

And?
If they were not there in a threatening manner then they would not have been a target.
What you are asking for is for people to stop acting like humans.
If there was one policeman who was a real man, he would have stopped then from damaging the ceiling tiles.

Right. First, the police were holding back. And how in the hell can anyone think "Oh look at that policeman, a few hundred feet below me and looking in the other direction. He's threatening me! I better throw this at him for my own protection."

If people can't stop acting like animals then perhaps they should stay home until they grow up enough to act like humans. Murderers and rapists are only humans as well. Oh noez! We're oppressing their rights to be human by asking them not to murder and rape!

There are a lot of policemen there with more moral fibre, good character and balls than the vast majority of the students. They did what they were instructed to do, which was stand back and let it happen. I bet they didn't like holding back but, unlike the yobs, the police are not an unruly mob and actually have some idea of acting responsibly.

Personally i thought the police were very heavy handed in that they could contain but without charging in horses, dogs, batons and shields these are the young people of our future protesting for their and their kids futures and this is how we treat them by kettling them beating them and charging them, and then for the police inspector to come on sky and call the student protestors thugs when they were the ones kettled beaten and charged with horses and batons swinging, this will only heighten the hatred for next time. Trust me it will.
And then David Cameron going on about Prince Charles and that the riots were unlawful and that those responsible will pay, without even a mention on why the students were there, the almost split vote meaning big divisions within their own party, 9000 pound a year fees. Not a single word, and this from our own prime minister Mr David Cameron, what happened to his pledge of openess.
The people have had enough, what does my 450 pound tax last month pay for as i am stuck to where it goes, I pay more tax per month than the rent on my house? Now Vat is going up, Crazy politicians, they are causing these riots yet dont accept the blame.

The students are reacting to a heavy handed snuffing of what they once thought may be some kind of a future.

Their tuition was raised approximately 200%,many will not be able to continue school.

I would be a bit pizzed off too.