UK Student Protests: Wheelchair-bound student dragged across the road by police officer, BBC defend

[Dastardly]

snip

Seriously, take another look at this video, people.

It's clear that he's in the middle of the street (or something like a street), with nearly everyone else on either side of this street. The cops seem to want him out of the middle of the street.

There is one cop behind him, seemingly hoping to move the chair. He is flanked by other cops, but take note of the one to his left--or in "front" of him (audience perspective). As they try to move the chair to get him out of the road, the "front cop" is holding him steady. A few seconds later, the kid clearly dives for the ground. While "front cop" still has hands on the kid, you can see that he's being pulled by the kid's movement toward the ground, rather than driving it.

After this point, you now have a handicapped person in the middle of the road on the ground, who has made it pretty clear he does not want to go willingly. Rather than put him back in the chair and repeat the same performance again, and rather than try to pick up a fighting, angry person, it's easier just to pull him out of the middle of the road and follow up with the chair (which you can see the cop behind the chair trying to do, likely having simply forgotten that the brake is still on).

After the incident, the kid clearly uses his disability to try to claim he's "no threat," and that he was victimized. This video, when looked at critically, tells another story. He was in the middle of the road, he needed to not be, he wouldn't go willingly, and he dove when they tried to wheel him. The cops then did what got him out of the road the fastest.

The kid victimized himself. He embarrassed himself. Having CP doesn't mean he's stupid or incapable of manipulation of the circumstances.

 

[Fetzenfisch]

How comes it that my common sense gets tingling, telling me that all that "he must have done something or the police wouldnt do anything" never ever get their own arses up and joined a demo ?
And that not just because of some ACAB attitude, some wrong reactions are quite understandable if you think about what a big chaotic and ironically anarchic mess it gets from the second police decides to take action.
No one really knows whats happening around you, and the nonpolicepeople are usually way more in numbers, quite frightening i guess

Spoiler

reminds me of the children and retired oldpeople beaten and injured this year on a demo in germany. (One of the old people turned out blind, i guess someone needs to die till the majority of the population decides to react and storm the representatives with demands of doing their job representing them)

 

[Gearran]

look, the fact of the matter IS THIS!: it does NOT matter WHAT an offender says to an officer, there is NO WAY IN HELL it can justify physical retaliation like that! police officers are meant to be PROFESSIONALS! and part of their PROFESSION is being able to cope with verbal abuse. arrest them, by all means charge them, but DO NOT take physical action just because you're pissed off!!

how many times do we get told "one punch can kill!"

yet if a cop does it, they will go in front of a 'hearing' and at worst, be fired...

DO YOUR F***ING JOB PROPERLY!

I don't care about your sob stories about how hard it is and how little you get paid... if thats the case, DO SOMETHING ELSE!

unless they through talking, they reveal they have a weapon on them, I cannot see any reason why verbal abuse can reasonably be responded to with physical action.

Couple of things here. One, the "wheelchair-bound" individual is not only a radical pro-Palestine rabble-rouser, the guy can walk on his own. He doesn't deserve any sympathy. Two, I can't really see how moving an individual out of the way (particularly one who's trying to cause trouble) is "physical retaliation;" it's not like they beat him with their nightsticks, or something. Three, to paraphrase your own statement, they are doing their job properly. The individual is the source of the trouble, so they moved him out of the way. Maybe you should learn what their job actually is before you start spouting off at the metaphorical mouth like a villager shouting for the witch to be burnt. Or, better yet, find out more information about the situation than a crappy one minute video clip.

can you please point out where I felt sorry for him for being in a wheelchair?

I'm not talking about that! I've seem similar videos, where someone can just be standing there, they say something to a cop, and next thing they are on the ground getting hit with a night stick. explain to me how dragging the guy across the ground is in any way necessary. I bet if I wanted someone to move, was in my right to have them moved, A cop wouldn't look to favorably on me pushing him to the ground and dragging him away. as I said, if they refuse to move along, arrest them, don't bash them. they 'moved him out the way' in the same was as someone might 'deliver you a pizza' by throwing it at you.

It is a rational response to an unknown element. The idea is to immobilize the target (sorry if it sounds impersonal to call an individual a "target," but it is what it is) as quickly as possible to both subdue them and keep them from getting hurt in subsequent events (given how police deal with riots, that's generally a good thing). Then, once the target is subdued, you move them out of the way so other officers can get on with their job. I think it's a little misleading the way people say he was dragged (yes, he was, but that's not the point I'm getting at). Listening to them, you'd think they rail-ground the guy halfway across the freeway on his face; as it is, he was moved by an approved single-person movement technique (remember: regardless of whatever else he is, the guy is a full-size person and weighs quite a bit, not to mention being an awkward object to carry) while the other officers moved to address the rest of the disturbance. While it may seem undignified (and probably embarrassed the guy in question) the police moved him quite effectively, without excessive use of force.

As for the feeling sorry for him because he's in a wheelchair bit, that was more generally directed at the other posters who had that reaction. I'm sorry for aiming it in your direction.

 

[Eekaida]

On the one hand, the way these protests have been going, they needed no incentive to riot, as they've been doing a fine job of it on their own. The police have been heavily criticised in the media about their mishandling of the situation.
On the other, these tactics seem heavy handed. Not only in a wheelchair, but with cerebral palsy too? What's he going to do, hurt their feelings? Whatever the story is, I think its a misjudgement on the part of the police.

On a related note, speaking as a student in Britain, I absolutly do not condone these riots. I was really shocked when the first march up in London turned into a raid of the Tory Party headquaters. To me, that was the point where w elost our moral high ground - not surprisingly, its proving to be less and less students rioting and more teenagers who either don't go to uni or can actually afford the new tuition fees and don't need to protest.

Makes you think.

 

[Hookman]

Hahahahahahahaha!!!...What? I'm not laughing at the guy in the chair, I'm laughing that the officer thought it was necessary to drag him! What the fucks a man with cerebral palsy gonna do in a riot?! Even if he was shouting and inciting violence it really wasnt necessary to do that! I've got nothing against the police but what the hell do they know about riot control?!

 

[Sneeze]

We have no proof is the guy did (or didn't) do anything to provoke the police, but whatever he did or didn't do this kind of reaction is completely unwarranted. Unless he was a threat to anyone there really is no coherent argument for dragging him out of his chair and across the street. Yes some of the questions were evaded and some of his claims were bold but that still doesn't warrant this treatment.

And will people stop saying the cop was doing his job and if he did it is must have been needed... WHY must it be needed? Since when were cops unable to physically harm someone unless it was needed? For all we know he might have just been up for a bit of blood, some people are just twats like that.

This incident needs a thorough investigation to find out just what the guy did, but regardless of what it was the policeman should be punished in whatever way seems fit, this kind of behavior shouldn't be accepted regardless, unless the person is armed. A few years ago just after the 7/7 bombings there was a situation with an innocent man getting shot and killed (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4713753.stm) so it's not like its unheard of for the police to make the odd error of judgment and there was a public outcry here too so...

 

[Zenron]

I really felt like talking about this matter, and of course, as soon as I step into the Escapist I see several topics concerning it. I'm a college student myself who will be effected by not only the rising university tuition fees, but also the revoking of EMA. I've found my views on protesting to clash consistently with my need for tuition fees to stay as they are. I don't agree with violent protesting whatsoever, but I do agree with the cause. I'll try to stay as impartial as possible in this post.

So, Jody Mcintyre has Cerebral Palsy. Getting right to the point here. The guy cannot walk himself, push his own wheelchair or even speak that well. I see no reason for that amount of force to be used on him. The guy couldn't have possibly been a physical threat, that much I can be assured. He can be an annoyance obviously, but what do you really expect, and physical force is totally unnecessary when it is quite easy to just wheel him away. He shouldn't be there in the first place to be honest.

Which brings me onto my next point. Why was he there? Well, watch the clip and there you go. I'm going to be honest here, he was at the front of the crowd. Has nobody asked themselves why this is? The guy can pull out the disabled card because the police were stupid enough to tip him out of his wheelchair and drag him across the floor. No matter which way you look at it, this was a bad move by the police. Some people here are saying that the police were just moving him out of the way, but that's not what it looks like, and that is what matters. Picking on someone who is relatively vulnerable is a very easy way to just incite a riot by the other students. Not to mention the fact that all these events are filmed and press coverage is exactly the opposite to what the police want. Way to feed the trolls police people...

But then again, people need to realise that policemen are still human. They make mistakes like the rest of us, it doesn't make him evil or anything along those lines. It was a mistake though, and I can't think of any reason as to why it wouldn't be so. Maybe there is something I haven't quite grasped here.

Anyway, lets end this with a good ol' photo:

 

[hey_iknowyou]

Generally when these things crop up I try to side with the police. It is impossible to know exactly what happened without having been there, typically news reports won't be telling the full truth and I like to have faith in the police force as a whole that whatever was going on there was at least some form of valid reason for behaving as they did. I'd be interested to see the outcome if this went to court and was investigated properly. My bet is the kid wouldn't have a leg to stand on.....

wow.....

I didn't notice that the first time I read that post, i just agreed with the overall message so I guess I wasn't motivated to try to find an ironic and most likely accidental pun in an attempt to discredit the poster. But now that you point it out, I think that is hilarious. Mostly because I believe that the poster is correct in his guess, but also because I'm not one of those polical correctness nutjob, I just actually believe that we should treat people the same. this allows me at jokes that make expense of both others and myself, and my life is better for it.

I was being serious in my main message but I assure you it was a very intentional pun