British cop kills innocent bystander in a fit of rage

Not mentioned below is that the cop already had "form" for aggressive behavior

A riot squad officer ‘whose blood was up’ after he was humiliated by a protester killed a defenceless bystander during the G20 demonstrations, a court heard yesterday.

PC Simon Harwood, 45, is accused of lashing out at Ian Tomlinson, 47, in a ‘gratuitous act of aggression’ after he ‘lost self-control’.

Harwood hit Mr Tomlinson with a ‘forceful baton strike followed by a powerful push to the back which sent him flying to the ground’, a jury was told.

Mr Tomlinson, a newspaper vendor, had been walking home from work but had been prevented from taking his usual route due to the protests in the City of London in April 2009.

At the time, Harwood was said to be bristling with aggression after a protester had scrawled ‘all cops are bastards’ on a police carrier.

Prosecutor Mark Dennis QC compared Harwood to a thug during the opening of the trial at Southwark Crown Court.

He said: ‘It was a rush of blood to the head. It was unnecessary aggression more akin to thuggish behaviour than proper reasonable policing. ‘There had been no need to use any force upon Tomlinson, let alone a forceful baton strike followed by a powerful push to the back that sent [him] flying to the ground.

‘The display of force has all the hallmarks, we submit, of a gratuitous act of aggression by a lone officer whose blood was up having lost the self-control to be expected of a police officer in such circumstances and who was going to stand no truck from anyone who appeared to him to be a protester and to be getting in his way.'

Mr Tomlinson was not posing a threat to anyone and was ‘ambling along’, oblivious to the protests and ‘simply minding his own business’ when Harwood set upon him, Mr Dennis said.

The court heard that Mr Tomlinson was stood with his hands in his pockets and his back to the police lines when Harwood is said to have suddenly struck his thigh with a baton and violently pushed him to the ground.

Mr Tomlinson was sent crashing to the pavement, causing catastrophic internal bleeding.

Mr Dennis said: ‘Having struck Tomlinson and sent him flying to the ground, the defendant simply turned away and ignored him.’

The riot squad officer, who is part of Scotland Yard’s Territorial Support Group, failed to alert anyone or make a note of the incident.

Tomlinson was helped to his feet by two bystanders, but he collapsed and died minutes later after staggering only 70 yards away from police lines. The alleged assault might never have come to light but for an American tourist who captured it on film.

An initial post-mortem examination suggested Mr Tomlinson had died of a heart attack, despite his ‘unusual’ leg injuries. But after the tourist’s video footage was released, two subsequent examinations found abdominal bleeding caused by trauma to be the cause of death.

Mr Dennis said: ‘Tomlinson was not posing any threat to the defendant or any other officers. ‘He was displaying no aggression towards anyone nor even making provocative comments towards anyone.’

Harwood denies manslaughter, claiming that his actions were ‘necessary, proportionate and reasonable’ in the circumstances.

Original report




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