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

[SturmDolch]

So police drag a disabled guy to the ground and across the street, then the BBC bullies him on live, international TV? That's pretty sad.

What could he have done to the cops? Unless his brother pushed him into a group of cops and he was trying to bite them, I don't really see it.

Of course, where's his brother? If I was his brother, I would have gotten beat down by a couple of so-called bobbies because I would have tried to stop them from dragging my crippled brother down the road.

 

[Bobzer77]

Thats pretty fucking bad... I mean, why not just push him wherever they wanted to take him in the wheelchair? Not like a guy with Cerebral Palsy is going to be able to do much to stop them.

Doesn't seem like he actually did anything bad anyway, from the video it looks like the guy at the start says "The guy in the wheelchair just gave a talk about the *something*". Didn't sound like he was trying to incite violence or was shouting abuse.

My question, while you make a very good point, is just how exactly police are supposed to handle these things well? Looking at past examples, I'm sure you can see that no one is ever happy.

1. If the police stand by and wait to react once things get out of hand, people whine that they could have prevented it.

2. If police prevent it by ordering the crowd to disperse, people complain that they're trampling on the rights of the people.

3. If the police order them to leave and the people refuse (It is a protest, after all), what then? If the make them leave, it's brutality. If they don't, it's an impotent police force.

4. If anyone is taping the incident, who do you think it's going to be? Protesters. Who else would be there, generally speaking? Cops and protesters. And cops might be recording, but they've got all kinds of policies and legalities and delays surrounding what footage they can and can't release, so they can't offer up a video defense in a timely manner... and when they can, it's dismissed as fake because they "should've released it sooner."

These sorts of things are always stacked exactly so that they're against the police, who are constantly in a defensive role even when trying to be proactive. I'm not saying the cop was right, though. I'm just saying we need to consider the possibility that what we're seeing is biased coverage of the situation.

The main issue that I had was that the guy was in a wheelchair, why not just wheel him away?

Dragging him out of it and along the ground showed a complete lack of judgement on the part of the policemen.

 

[C95J]

The worst part is that this happened to him twice. This was way out of line from the police officers, they should have dealt with the situation properly, there was no need for what they did, with the only reason being to induce violence.

I already referred to the afternoon incident earlier in the thread. An amateur photographer had been observing McIntyre. He acted like a complete tit to the police officers who took great care to remove him and his chair from the path of a planned horse charge.

yeah I was talking to someone else who had been looking at his own site, he does get out of hand a lot of times so I wouldn't be surprised if he was being a tit. But I still think they could have wheeled him away instead of taking him out of his chair.

 

[Talshere]

Even if we assume that the cop was in the wrong in his actions, if everyone says "yeah the cop was wrong" very little in the way of constructive arguments and discussion comes out. to some extent, the BBC HAD to defend the cop because otherwise it would have just been t blokes going. "Was bad, should have happened", "Yeah it was terrible abuse of power".

 

[Defective_Detective]

This man is a fucking god. He pwned that reporter he pwned the police. A-men to him and A-men to the student cause. Even though I disagree with all the long haired, dirty, alchoholic, scabies infested students I agree that education should be free to all and these rises in fees are ridiculous.

Why should education be free?

Surely if anything should be free, it should be bread and water?

 

[SCAFC Chimp]

Welcome to life: it's not fair.

Yes, we all know that. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't identify the many problems and injustices in life and try to change them.

You're right, life isn't fair. Unfair is not getting the girl, or your computer breaking for no apparent reason. Being repeatedly fucked by your government because their generation cocked up hugely is beyond unfair. Our generation has been saddled with their bullshit, and we shouldn't have to take it.

 

[Contun]

The police were in the wrong. He'd have to be doing something completely awful to justify dragging him across the road. Based on the video, he may have done something that required the police to step in, but the they took it way too far.

This kinda stuff makes me angry considering my Uncle has Cerebral Palsy. I'm not a jerk-face.

 

[spartan231490]

snip
What I was saying, and I may seem a bit repetitive, is that whatever he did, he did not deserve being dragged across the street. The police could have handled it in a much easier and peaceful fashion, but they chose the method that would have provoked the protestors near by them. I'm guessing that because most of the protests seemed to have been rather violent about this, they just we assuming the worst of him.

I'm assuming the worst about him because the police considered him a threat.

... 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...

It is extremely hard to see what is happening in that video. I'm sure they officers wouldn't have just done it randomly; there has to have been a reason.

So... much... naivity - can't understand this blind faith in the status quo. "All police are nice guys who only use violence against violence" - wake up, Jesus -.-U

I didn't say that all police are nice guys, I said that in the absence of other evidence, that is what we should believe. Because they are more credible than some random kid with nothing on his side other than the fact that he's in a wheelchair.

snip

But what could he have possibly done, you can see he is just sitting there, what possible threat could this hadicaped person have done to warrant being draggeda across the road.

In my opinion he might have done something, as the video is not that clear a the start and it doesn't show the before hand, but if he actually did something, it shouldn't warrant taking him from his means of transportation and dragging him across the floor.

I'm confused as to what you mean. If the kid did something that could have incited a riot, which would have resulted in property damage, and possibly even death, he doesn't deserve to dragged across the road? If he was a threat, there are much less reasonable ways they could have acted to stop him, like shooting him.

Or, you know, they could have arrested him? If he was actually doing anything illegal and warranting of action. I mean, he wasn't in a crowd or anything, he was just sat there. NO excuse to physically abuse him. Angry words at a demo are no excuse to do that - he was no danger, no threatening posture (from a wheel chair, lol), did no violence himself, NO excuse. If you advocate the sort of behaviour that that police man exhibited, you're advocating a most basic level of thuggery from the people that are meant to be protecting us and UPHOLDING our rights. They aren't meant to be inciting violence and fear in the crowd - that's a violation our right to protest.

You have no idea what he did or didn't do. It's a god damned 1 minute video with a biased reporting link. There is absolutely nothing on this video to suggest that this kid didn't deserve exactly what he got, and a few things taht suggest he deserved exactly what he god. Like the fact that the police officer could have had no alterior motive for, as you sensationally say, "physically abuse" the kid. What, do you think the police officer got run over by a speeding wheelchair and now hates all the cripples. the kids handicap would have identified him as low threat, and therefore the cop would have had pretty compelling evidence to go after him, and that's not even accounting for the fact that in that crowd, it was obviously going to be caught on camera, if not film, so he would have to be retarded to act without a reason. THe only evidence that can be inferred from this video is that the kid deserved it. any other reaction is a projection of your own mistrust of authority, or your own patronization of people in wheelchars by automatically raising to thier defense, even if they may be wrong, based on the belief that they can only be victims.

 

[Gothtasical]

snip

But what could he have possibly done, you can see he is just sitting there, what possible threat could this hadicaped person have done to warrant being draggeda across the road.

He could have been trying to incite a riot/violence or anything like that.

A CRIPPLE really?

 

[spartan231490]

snip

But what could he have possibly done, you can see he is just sitting there, what possible threat could this hadicaped person have done to warrant being draggeda across the road.

He could have been trying to incite a riot/violence or anything like that.

Yea. Because any amount of goading always justifies beating on a guy with cerebral palsy.

Don't even try to justify this. Unless the fucker was holding a gun this was a 100% overreaction.

I don't have anything against the police. The majority of these people have been stuck between a rock and hard place, just trying to do the best they can with a bullshit situation. But there is no explanation on this Earth that can take away from the stupidity of what that particular officer did.

My God, thank you! Someone else who doesn't think the disabled activist 'got what was coming to him' by having a different political opinion. Anyone would think these threads were from Cold War era USA (or maybe even the USSR), the way people support and encourage oppression sometimes :/

There is absoulutely no evidence in these videos. The only thing it shows is that a cop restrained an individual. If he wasn't in a wheelchair, this wouldn't even be a discussion. all evidence(the very loose assumption that most cops are neither evil dickhead sociopaths nor cripplingly retarded) points to the fact that the kid deserved it.

 

[MarsProbe]

if the cops tell you to do something, do it, or else you'll have it done for you and you won't like it.

And is that morally right?

Doesn't matter whether it is morally right or wrong. It's the law.

So we should all bend over, accept, never question or do anything about it?

Why should we choose laws over morality?

Indeed. Sounds like a painfully spineless attitude to me. Still, if somebody wants to go through their life without a backbone then leave them to it. Just as long as they don't try to foist their yellow-bellied stylngs on the rest of us.

 

[No_Remainders]

Saw the BBC report on this just there a second ago...

"Did you shout anything provocative or throw anything that could have provoked the police?"


Seriously, are the BBC news reporters into cranial penetration with drills?


Disgraceful.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Even with crazy-unrealistic CSI style image enhancing I doubt I could make out what was happening in that clip.

 

[Delusibeta]

Welcome to life: it's not fair.

Yes, we all know that. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't identify the many problems and injustices in life and try to change them.

You're right, life isn't fair. Unfair is not getting the girl, or your computer breaking for no apparent reason. Being repeatedly fucked by your government because their generation cocked up hugely is beyond unfair. Our generation has been saddled with their bullshit, and we shouldn't have to take it.

And when our generation screws up, we'll load the next generation with our bullshit, and the cycle continues. This isn't new. This isn't going to end.

 

[spartan231490]

Snip

The police say he gave them reason to think he was a threat. Do you always believe everything cops and the government say? I don't know how many cops you've met but a lot of them are just assholes with a superiority complex. All I'm saying is that it's just as naive to assume the cop had a legitimate reason to do that as it is to just assume the cop was completely in the wrong.

My personal belief, however, is that whatever cop it was should face some kind of repercussions. You don't drag a crippled person out of their wheelchair unless they're literally about to kill you or something like that. On top of that the cop was just a fucking moron for doing that in front of so many people; of course something like that is going to make a whole lot of people angry. If anything he should face charges of inciting violence.

I tend to believe most of what the police say, cuz otherwise our entire system of law and justice is not only priciply flawed, but crippleingly retarded. Let me say it one more time. There is not enough evidence in this video to support any conclusion. based on lack of evidence, my BENIFIT OF THE DOUBT goes to the cop. do any of you actually know what that means? it means that without any evidence, I trust a cop more than some random kid who's only provable cause for being more trustworthy is that he has cerebral palsy. Do we automatically assume that every speeding tickit was given by a cop who lied about how fast you were going? No. So why does this kid having cerebral palsy entitle him to being automatically the victim. That's discrimination, just so you know.

How should the cop face charges of inciting violence, you do realize that his actions not only didn't cause any kind of violent reaction in the video, but quite possibly, NOTE: POSSIBLY, could have averted violence.
So let me sum this up with two simple words:
PROVE IT. Until you can do that, any reaction against either party is baseless and more indicative of the person making it, than of the facts of what happened.

 

[spartan231490]

Prove it. It's a one minute video, you have no proof as to what happened that caused the cop to act this way. For all we know, the cripple deserved it. He is a cop, if you can't trust him not to abuse cripples, how can you trust him to uphold justice and the law? Interesting philisophical question right there. Why do we allways assume the cop is at fault when one of these show's up, and not the other way around? My bet is on projection. We identify more with the non-cop, therefore we project ourselves onto the non-cop and think "I wouldn't have done anything wrong so it must be the cop's fault" sub-consciously at least. That's my two cents, not that I have any reasonable credentials for that to be taken as fact, but it IS my opinion.

I just felt that this needed to be said again, because a massive number of people just don't seem to be getting it.