Is This Kind Of Bullying & Torture Acceptable In America??

[Maria Hall]

I found this really disturbing!! It shows a 'wizard' at a Pagan Music Festival in California who is naked, as Pagan Wizards are expected to be at Festivals, and totally harmless and inoffensive. 3 cops/bullies/thugs try to get him to dress and when he good humouredly refuses amid cheers from the crowd, they then set about him with fists and knees and holding him by his hair and arms twisted up his back, then torture him with tasers! Fascist pricks! Is this torture accepted? All this time the crowd are booing and cursing the police (and filming) yet the cops just continue totally power crazy and confident that they can get away with any crime against civil rights and basic humanity. It's sickening!!

Naked Wizard Tased By Reality from Tracy Anderson on Vimeo.

[Maria Hall]

I think probably the 'authorities' have been literally getting away with murder for years with noone able to prove anything when they 'close ranks' but now everyone has a cam corder or mobile phone vid on them to film what's happening and can put it on youtube etc. and we'll see if it makes a difference to prosecutions of police.

[Maria Hall]

Ian Tomlinson was a newspaper vendor just trying to get home like he did every day, unfortunately, it happened to be in the area of the protest. If you check out the video evidence and then later photo evidence you can see it was a completely unprovoked attack by the police.
Btw, I wouldn't allow people to kill dangerous thugs either. We don't have capital punishment here and also there's the small matter of proving them guilty in court!

[Michael Heath (aka Fledderjohn)]

Now I'm a trusting soul so when I first read about Ian Tomlinson having a "heart attack" I wondered what the fuss was about. The two incidents seemed utterly coincidental.

I am prepared to trust the police a lot of the time. I have plenty of dealings with the police in my work and most of the men and women I meet are simply trying to do their job as well as they can. It's not unqualified trust but it is trust never the less.

The release of the results of the second post mortem showed up what is now a fairly obvious attempt at a cover up. But what were they really trying to cover up? Surely they're not trying to protect that particular officer. The one thing about public service that I do know is that if you can find a misbehaving individual who can be blamed for the whole thing then that is exactly what will happen. Senior public servants love a scapegoat. Nope there must be more.

The worst thing that happened with the whole G20 protest thing was the scaremongering that went on prior to the event. According to senior police there were going to be riots. The police then actually used anti-terror legislation to raid the homes of G20 protesters (maybe they were trying to organise something illegal as a form of protest but does that make them terrorists?). Now what is your average bloke on the police frontline going to think and do? After all, if he's been reading his newspapers then he will "know" from what senior officers have said that he's dealing with violent organised terrorists and will behave accordingly i.e. he will be fuelled by fear and anger. Fear and anger are incompatible with what good policing should be about - a dispassionate commitment to preserve order so that the citizenry can go about their lawful business (which includes protest). In short if you define people as dangerous thugs or worse then that is how they will be treated.

[Halley Hall]

Wow I must live in a cave! This is the first I hear about this. Very sad/maddening indeed! :(

[Maria Hall]

Actually here's the update on that video evidence, with the news that the 2nd postmortem showed he died from internal injuries within minutes of that attack.. NOT from a heart attack as the police tried to have us believe!!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/17/ian-tomlinson-g20-protest-coroner

[Maria Hall]

I'm so depressed by this so soon after the unprovoked, police assault on Ian Tomlinson, an innocent bystander, just trying to walk home, causing his death at the G20 protest. What is becoming of our so called 'civilised Western society'?? It just makes me feel sick that I'm so helpless to do anything about it :(
You can see the vid of that on the Guardian News page;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/07/video-g20-police-assault

[Stoo Nicol (DJ Profile)]

I really hope Karma is real... cause these guys are idiots

[Lew Bear]

I agree that it is horribly shocking to see such brutality when someone is being peaceful, but also agree with Rick that my first thought was "wow, mine aint so small after all"

[Emberto Groucho]

I'm too interested in my own to worry about anyone elses Rick :P

[Djay Buddha]

Yeah here too and I am shocked at you emmett not mentioning the size of his appendage :)