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

[KEM10]

I am in agreement that he might have been trying to start a riot. This isn't his first time being forcefully removed from his wheelchair by the police and is a political blogger who was described as "cyber radical" and even states in the interview that the fight needs to be taken into the streets.

Hell, in the first video the cameraman even said that he is a martyr. My bet was he was starting something and the police just wanted to get him out of there so they could disband it.

Yep...

And the Tiananmen Square demonstrators were terrorists. Along with Gandhi, Mother Theresa (Psycho Sadistic behind the mask...) and Martin Luther King.

I would be very careful in trying to label someone. Merely labeling someone for differing opinions is a quick way to misjudge their intents and purposes along with not seeing the actions that lead up so a situation.

Hyperbole != valid argument.

Also, how do you know what his intentions were? The video clip was mostly him being taking in custody with a few seconds of what happened before being aired. Listen to the interview with him on BBC that the OP link as well. His reactions to some of the questions make me doubt his noble actions that you are claiming he has.

 

[JoshGod]

Even if he was trying to incite a riot, there are other wise to deal with him, after all using violence to stop violence isn't the best idea.

 

[TheLaofKazi]

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

Why is the police's judgement automatically more valid then others?

Why was it excessive, how was the kid hurt any more badly than any other protester who became violent would have been? Because he's in a wheelchair it endangers his life to be removed from it, does it? is he a fish out of his wheelchair, so to speak?

Once again, you are assuming he was violent, just because the police took action against him. Honestly, I know it was hard to see what was happening in the video, but he was a wheelchair bound person who suffered from motor and verbal skill impairments. What fucking threat could he have posed to an armed police officer? With his speech impairment, it would have been pretty damn hard for him to instigate something verbally.

Why do we allways assume the cop is at fault when one of these show's up, and not the other way around?

Others may, I will admit that. But I don't, or at least try not to. I do have a tendency to be at odds with authority, but that's because I don't like the idea of someone else, who, like me, is just another human being, with flaws, biases and ignorances, has power over me. But I try to be fair, and I have seen many situations where I either sided with the cop, or could understand where he/she was coming from, even if I disagreed with their actions. In many, many cases I disagree with both sides, but can understand why they acted in such a way. Police officers are people too and like anyone else, are imperfect.

But in this situation, like other ones, I'm using my brain and analyzing the situation, and I just really can't see how that person could have been a threat to the police.

All other things beign equal, we should have faith in the officer of the law who had to pass whatever screening process, not some kid who just happened to be born into with a terrible disease. It isn't just healthy people who cause trouble and break the rules, sick people do it too.

So we should automatically trust the police because they passed a test and went through training? Should we do the same for other authority figures? Teachers? Politicians?

Even if the police are more likely to be in the right because of their training (which I don't necessarily agree with), it's still illogical to assume they are in the right because of that.

 

[Grigori361]

Please... Look up Cerebral Palsy. HOW can he do anything from a wheelchair and loss of motor skills?

I know eh? I can't imagine how anyone would suggest he could do more then wipe his ass and he may not even be able to that.

 

[captain underpants]

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.

Here's how it should have been handled:

The govenrment shouldn't have put a 300% increase in university fees in the first place. The students have a valid grievance that is being ignored by the government in their ivory towers. THAT is the direct cause of these incidents. Any attempt to blame this on the students OR the police is completely missing the point.

 

[Undeadenemy]

freedom to protest is okay in my books but really come on i hate the Royals for everything they stand for and if you really wanted the police to be more brutal what would happen if more rights got taken away by force i'm sure you wouldn't care much for it but i would.

It's certainly your right to hate the royals, though I would argue they are an important part of your culture, and that England is a constitutional monarchy and not a republic. As for the government taking your rights away, in the US we have three things to prevent that (at least in theory): the Constitution, the Supreme Court, and guns. The Constitution lays out the rules, the Supreme Court interprets the rules, and ultimately, guns enforce the rules.

I am in agreement that he might have been trying to start a riot. This isn't his first time being forcefully removed from his wheelchair by the police and is a political blogger who was described as "cyber radical" and even states in the interview that the fight needs to be taken into the streets.

Hell, in the first video the cameraman even said that he is a martyr. My bet was he was starting something and the police just wanted to get him out of there so they could disband it.

Yep...

And the Tiananmen Square demonstrators were terrorists. Along with Gandhi, Mother Theresa (Psycho Sadistic behind the mask...) and Martin Luther King.

I would be very careful in trying to label someone. Merely labeling someone for differing opinions is a quick way to misjudge their intents and purposes along with not seeing the actions that lead up so a situation.

Regardless of what your opinions are, if you riot or fail to obey the commands of police you can expect to be dealt with harshly. Since the guy was a political blogger, you can bet that he intentionally tried to make the news knowing full well what would happen. As far as his excuse that "I WAS NOT A THREAT TO ANYONE!!" it was pretty lame. It doesn't matter if you're a threat or not, if the police give you a command and you disobey, you will be dealt with simple as that.

 

[RamirezDoEverything]

Bastards, picking on a cripple.
But I commend the UK students, we here in America(with a hell of a lot more costs) should stand up.

 

[lacktheknack]

Well, the police were excessively violent during protests. I did actually go to some of the Bristol protests, and they seemed a little baton happy. And kettled people in for a day in sub zero temperatures.

I'm not usually one for the 'POLICE R EVVVILLZ!' thing, but they can't handle protests properly at all.

This. I love my city's police, but from what I can tell, it's because there's never any noteworthy protests.

 

[Rational-Delirium]

Why are we talking about getting more "info" about the situation and determining the "reason" for the policeman to do this? Everyone knows that if you want to move a paraplegic off the road, the most *sensible* way to do it is to push the wheel chair that he's on. The policeman wasn't being sensible though. He was angry.

Now I see people trying to justify his anger, suggesting that there was a rational reason behind it. But here's the problem. Anger isn't rational. Nor should it be justified. It was a mistake by the police force and they'd be wise to own up to it. But they won't; because they have an image to protect.

How would you feel if your dignity was shattered just for the sake of protecting another's image. Not good, I bet.

 

[Stephanos132]

life is not fair
these politicians deserve something to truly show that they cannot fuck with people

i hope that a future prime minister was in these riots and keeps this in his head when he acts
i hope democracy becomes the ideal goverment not just the one with the lowest death toll

All the ones we have would've been students back in the day, and they might've been involved in protests of their own. In short, I wouldn't get your hopes up.

 

[Weaver]

I'd guess the police did it just to provoke violence from the crowd so they could "disprse" them. At least they didn't use agent provocateurs.

 

[TheLaofKazi]

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.

 

[domble]

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. I'm going to put my benifit of the doubt with the police on this one, they'd have to be pretty stupid to drag a cripple across the street at a riot full of college students with cell phones, if they didn't have a damn good reason.

Surely during a riot you need to prioritise your targets? No offence meant to the disabled, but a guy in a wheelchair saying stuff isn't going to be the guy I'm worried about. And even if he was inciting people, mercilessly dragging a disabled person through the street is going to start a riot anyway.

It's true that there's not much background information to the clip, but its not like the police are actually explaining what happened either.

 

[Defective_Detective]

This kid isn't exactly an angel. Whilst the OP is referring to an event in the evening, Mr McIntyre was proving to be disruptive all day.


Check this out:

http://www.mitchell-images.com/#/jody-mcintyre/4546538655



It's the website of an amateur photographer, who happened to be watching Mr McIntyre's conduct earlier in the day, when police officers removed him from the frontline of the protest, as there was going to be an attempt to move the crowd using horses.

The ungrateful git thanks the officers by trying to antagonise them, before throwing a punch, which is stopped by a helpful passerby.



My personal speculation? I think he intentionally fell out of his chair, and acted up for all the cameras.

 

[MagicMouse]

He has a disability, so instantly there has to be a controversy. How patronising. To be honest I don't even care.

This.

Shit happens at protests, every time. Why should I care that a person got treated the same way everyone else does, just because he has a disability?

 

[Siberian Relic]

I'm willing to bet the vocal onlookers wouldn't have thought twice about kicking over that same sort of person under lesser circumstances. And yet, such behavior is unjustifiable during a protest and when executed by law enforcement.

 

[TheLaofKazi]

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?

 

[lee1287]

SCUM, SCUM SCUM. Al the cops in that riot want to hurt people

Most cops here in the UK were school bullys and just want more power. Id kill every cop who hit me with a baton in an instant, god help the world if i get super powers.

 

[Defective_Detective]

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.

 

[MelziGurl]

I think that if you're going to a protest, whether disabled or not you go perpared for the consequences however, I do think the force in which those officers dragged him from his chair and across the street was unnecessary. I really really highly doubt that the officers had any very good reason for what they did.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_palsy