The masked policeman caught on film hitting and pushing a man who later died at the G20 protests has been questioned on suspicion of manslaughter.

The Metropolitan Police officer was interviewed under caution earlier this week after a second post-mortem examination concluded that Ian Tomlinson died of severe internal bleeding — contradicting an earlier finding that he had had a heart attack.

Video footage and photographs showed Mr Tomlinson, who was not a protester, being harassed by police dogs, struck by a masked officer and shoved to the ground minutes before he collapsed and died on April 1.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission, which is investigating his death, said: “Following the initial result of the second post-mortem a Metropolitan Police officer has been interviewed under caution for the offence of manslaughter.” The officer, a constable in the Territorial Support Group who has been suspended from duty, attended the interview voluntarily and has not been arrested.

Scotland Yard is under intense scrutiny with four reviews or inquiries into G20 policing and two officers suspended from duty for alleged police brutality that was caught on film. In the immediate aftermath of Mr Tomlinson’s death, police said that medically trained officers who tried to help him were pelted with bottles by protesters. The IPCC is in the spotlight after saying initially that Mr Tomlinson had had no contact with officers before his death, and leaving the conduct of the initial investigation to police.

But, as in the case of Jean Charles de Menezes, the Brazilian engineer who was mistakenly shot dead by police in July 2005, the full story of how Mr Tomlinson died is emerging bit by bit and calling into question the accuracy of official accounts.

The second post-mortem examination was carried out by Dr Nat Cary, one of the country’s leading forensic pathologists, over a week ago at the request of Mr Tomlinson’s family. The IPCC asked that details were withheld until it had interviewed the officer.

The family was concerned that the first examination was carried out by Dr Freddy Patel. He had previously been disciplined by the General Medical Council for passing sensitive information to journalists about Roger Sylvester, who died in police custody in 1999. He was given a reprimand that did not affect his fitness to practise.

The City of London coroner’s court said yesterday that Dr Patel had found Mr Tomlinson had “a number of injuries” and a diseased heart and liver. He found a large amount of blood in the abdominal cavity but concluded that cause of death was heart disease.

Dr Cary’s provisional finding was that Mr Tomlinson died from an “abdominal haemorrhage”, the cause of which was yet to be determined. The coroner’s court said: “Dr Cary accepts that there is evidence of coronary atherosclerosis but states that in his opinion its nature and extent is unlikely to have contributed to the cause of death.” It added: “The opinions of both consultant pathologists are provisional and both agree that their final opinions must await the outcome of further investigations and tests. These are likely to take some time.”

Paul King, Mr Tomlinson’s stepson, said after the second results: “First we were told that there had been no contact with the police, then we were told that he died of a heart attack; now we know that he died from internal bleeding.” An inquest has been opened and adjourned but a full hearing will not take place until the IPCC investigation, a possible prosecution and any potential appeals are completed.

Scotland Yard said it was co-operating fully and proactively with the inquiry. A spokesman added: “The Metropolitan Police Service wishes to reiterate its sincere regret in relation to the death of Ian Tomlinson.”

Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London and chairman of the Metropolitan Police Authority, said people around the country had been deeply disturbed by the circumstances of Mr Tomlinson’s death. “There must now be a fast and transparent conclusion to the IPCC investigation,” he said. “The Met receives and deserves the overwhelming support of the people of London, but the family of Ian Tomlinson need answers.”

Source: Times Online

any ‘peace officer’ can demand i.d. any time, doesn’t say exactly who qualifies as a ‘peace officer.’

Papers please!!

The Texas Senate has approved a bizarre measure which would require citizens to show some sort of identification to any police officer who demands it, at any time, for any reason, 1200 WOAI news reports.

Currently, it is illegal for a person to give a false name to police, but there is no law rewiring a person to provide i.d. at an officer’s whim. And State Sen. Tommy Williams (R-The Woodlands) doesn’t like the sound of this bill.

“We still live in a free society,” he said. “I don’t want police officers to be able to pull you over and ask that you identify yourself.”

The bill would also require individuals to provide their date of birth and ‘residence address’ to police.

Supporters of the bill, like State Sen. Juan Hinojosa (D-McAllen) says there are safeguards.

“A police officer would not have the discretion just to come over and ask for i.d. on just anybody,” he said.

Hinojosa said the officer would have to have a ‘good reason’ to demand identification.

The bill is sponsored by State Sen. Dan Patrick (R-Houston), who is a strong supporter of individual rights.

“It is illegal for them to falsely identify themselves, but it is not illegal for them not to tell you who they are,” Patrick said. “In this era of national security issues, if we have a police officer detaining someone at a high profile target, it is in the best interests of the safety of that officer and this community to be able to quickly determine who that person is.”

Other lawmakers say if a person is bent on committing a crime, the individual is not likely to be deterred by the possibility of a misdemeanor charge of failure to identify.

Patrick’s’ bill does not specify exactly who a ‘peace officer’ who is authorized to demand papers is. It doesn’t say whether it would be limited to TCLOSE certified police officers, or would apply to constables, security guards, or neighborhood watch members. It also doesn’t specify what passes for ‘i.d’ and wither it would have to be a photo i.d.

The bill also does not spell out any safeguards or recource for citizens who are asked at random to identify themselves to police.

Source: WOAI

Sixteen years ago we were reminded of the deadly danger of having the left-liberals in charge of the police state. The largest massacre of American civilians by the US government since Wounded Knee climaxed on April 19, 1993. The siege that had begun on February 28 with a botched ATF publicity stunt ended when the Branch Davidian church and home went up in flames, after an FBI-operated tank on lease from the military was driven through the building, pumping flammable CS gas for six hours into the place where women and children were cowering in fear. Chemistry professor George Uhlig later testified that the high concentration of the gas combined with poor ventilation subjected the women and children to conditions “similar to… the gas chambers used by the Nazis in Auschwitz.”

On April 12, the FBI had ruled out using gas because it was dangerous to children. A week later, Bob Ricks, FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge, said the gassing was “to make their environment as uncomfortable as possible until they do exit the compound.” This excuse came after weeks of throwing flash-bang grenades at the building when people tried to leave.

Attorney General Janet Reno said the gas attack “was not meant to be D-Day. This was just a step forward in trying to bring about a peaceful resolution by constantly exerting further pressure to shrink the perimeter.” This militaristic lingo was characteristic of the feds’ approach throughout the siege. The government had waged psychological warfare by blaring obnoxious music, shining glaring lights and cutting the Davidians off water, electricity, their friends, attorneys and the press. Firefighters were not permitted near the scene as the flames continued engulfing the home. When it was all over, the ATF stuck its flag up on the building to declare victory.

At a press conference on April 20, a day after the FBI gassed American civilians, President Clinton said he did not believe “the Attorney General should resign because some religious fanatics murdered themselves.” The press corps, in an unusually naked expression of solidarity with the government, applauded Clinton’s statement.

This underscores the dynamic of having this crop in power. If even the liberals are for a show of force, it must have been necessary. The blame was put on the “religious fanatics,” not the government fanatics, and the press and most Americans ate it all up.

The media slavishly pushed war propaganda in Bush’s first term, but they will prove even more sycophantic of Obama. Fair-weather left-liberals who often criticize the most violent side of the Republican state look the other way as their leader jails people without trial, builds civilian surveillance systems, and kills innocents.

Over the last eight years, muckraking liberal journalists dissected every word and deed of the Bush regime, but under Clinton very few were bothered about the unambiguously atrocious nature of the federal raid at Waco. They did not care that Lon Horiuchi, the sniper who murdered Vicki Weaver at Ruby Ridge in August 1992, had been brought to Waco. They were not jumping up and down about Janet Reno using internationally banned chemical warfare on American children. They did not condemn the FBI for using explosives in addition to flammable gas and then lying about it. They were not concerned what it meant for the militarization of law enforcement, and did not ask why David Koresh, who had befriended federal agents, was friendly with local law enforcement, and had opened the Davidian home up for inspection, was simply not arrested when he was jogging or visiting the bar. The liberals did not wonder why the excuse for the raid shifted from a meth lab to illegal gun ownership to child abuse. They assumed that, as much as the government might have messed up the raid, the fault was primarily that of the victims. The fact that the Davidians were different and armed – though no more armed than the average Texan – was enough to dismiss their suffering and excuse the death of 80 Americans, many of them children, at the hands of law enforcement.

Many mainstream conservatives also backed the administration after Waco, but the weak reaction by the left-liberals, who Americans rely on as the outspoken critics of police abuses, was more important. Incidentally, many libertarians, broadly defined, also took the government’s side. Notably, Objectivist Leonard Peikoff of the Ayn Rand Institute defended the state’s raid and demonized the victims.

When Democratic administrations murder, the law-and-order right is often split. The left is in denial or supportive. And the press tends to spin the story to make the administration seem soft.

The headlines today emphasize Obama’s rhetorical shift from the “war on terror” and his superficial changes in detention policy. The media push the notion that Obama has cut military spending, when he is doing the opposite.

Article Continued at LewRockwell

ANN ARBOR, MI – The Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, announced that yesterday evening it filed a federal lawsuit against Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.  The lawsuit claims that her Department’s “Rightwing Extremism Policy,” as reflected in the recently publicized Intelligence Assessment, “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment,” violates the civil liberties of combat veterans as well as American citizens by targeting them for disfavored treatment on account of their political beliefs.  Click here to read the complaint filed by the Thomas More Law Center.

Napolitano tried to blunt the public furor over the Report by a half-hearted apology to veterans, but she left out of her apology all of the other Americans her Department has targeted because of their political beliefs. In fact, officials in DHS now admit that their internal office of civil liberties objected to the language in the extremism report, but the Department issued it anyway.

Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Law Center stated, “Janet Napolitano is lying to the American people when she says the Report is not based on ideology or political beliefs. In fact, her report would have the admiration of the Gestapo and any current or past dictator in the way it targets political opponents.  This incompetently written intelligence assessment, which directs law enforcement officials across the country to target and report on American citizens who have the political beliefs mentioned in the report, will be used as a tool to stifle political opposition and opinions.  It will give a pretext for opponents of those Americans to report them to police as rightwing extremists and terrorists.  You can imagine what happens then.”

The Report specifically mentions the following political beliefs that law enforcement should use to determine whether someone is a “rightwing extremist”:

• Opposes restrictions on firearms
• Opposes lax immigration
• Opposes the policies of President Obama regarding immigration, citizenship, and the expansion of social programs
• Opposes continuation of free trade agreements
• Opposes same-sex marriage
• Has paranoia of foreign regimes
• Fear of Communist regimes
• Opposes one world government
• Bemoans the decline of U.S. stature in the world.
• Upset with loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs to China and India
• . . . and the list goes on

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan on behalf of nationally syndicated conservative radio talk show host, Michael Savage, Gregg Cunningham (President of the pro-life organization Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, Inc (CBR)), and Iraqi War Marine veteran Kevin Murray.  The Law Center claims that Napolitano’s Department (DHS) has violated the First and Fifth Amendment Constitutional rights of these three plaintiffs by attempting to chill their free speech, expressive association, and equal protection rights.  The lawsuit further claims that the Department of Homeland Security encourages law enforcement officers throughout the nation to target and report citizens to federal officials as suspicious rightwing extremists and potential terrorists because of their political beliefs.

Thompson added, “The Obama Administration has declared war on American patriots and our Constitution.  The Report even admits that the Department has no specific information on any plans of violence by so-called ‘rightwing extremists.’  Rather, what they do have is the expression of political opinions by certain individuals and organizations that oppose the Obama administration’s policies, and this expression is protected speech under the First Amendment.”

The Law Center is asking the court to declare that the DHS policy violates the First and Fifth Amendments, to permanently enjoin the Policy and its application to the plaintiffs’ speech and other activities, and to award the plaintiffs their reasonable attorney’s fees and costs for having to bring the lawsuit.

Click here to read the DHS extremism report.

Thanks to Thomas More Law Center

Female U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan have more to fear than roadside bombs or enemy ambushes. They also are at risk of being raped or sexually assaulted by fellow soldiers.

“The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq,” a book based on 40 in-depth interviews, recounts the stories of female veterans who served in combat zones and tells of rape, sexual assault and harassment by male counterparts.

Some were warned by officers not to go to the latrine by themselves. One began carrying a knife in case she was attacked by comrades. Others said they felt discouraged to report assaults.

“The horror of it is that it is their own side that is doing this to them,” said the book’s author, Helen Benedict, a journalism professor at Columbia University in New York. The book was released in the United States on Wednesday.

One in 10 U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are female, and more women have fought and died in the Iraq war than any since World War Two, according to U.S. Department of Defense statistics cited in the book.

Benedict said the book’s title comes from the isolation female U.S. soldiers experience when combining the trauma of their combat duties with sexual harassment by fellow soldiers.

“Because women are under so much more danger now and actually in the battle, it’s a particularly tragic situation because all soldiers are supposed to be able to rely on one another to watch their backs,” Benedict said.

“And how can you feel that way if your fellow soldiers are harassing you all day or trying to rape you or actually even raping you?”

One such soldier, Marti Ribeiro, was a third-generation Air Force sergeant who served in Afghanistan in 2006 as a combat correspondent with the Army’s all-male 10th Mountain Division. Her story includes an account of being attacked and raped by a U.S. soldier in uniform while guarding a post.

After completing the shift and not showering to substantiate the attack, she reported it to authorities, only to be told if she filed a claim she would be charged with dereliction of duty for leaving her weapon unattended. She left the military.

“I had dreams of becoming an officer one day, like my father and grandfather,” she says in the book. “Unfortunately, because I’m female, those dreams will not come true.”

SURVEYS UNDERSCORE PROBLEM

The number of reports of sexual assault in the U.S. military rose by 8 percent in fiscal 2008 from the previous year and by 25 percent in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a report released by the Pentagon in March.

There were 2,908 reports overall of sexual assault by members of the military. Such assaults include rape, indecent assault and attempted rape, the report said.

Of the 40 women Benedict interviewed who served between 2003 and 2006, 10 said they had been raped, five said they were sexually assaulted including attempted rape, and 13 reported sexual harassment.

A new play based on Benedict’s work was performed in New York and may tour the United States. After a recent performance, real soldiers hugged the actors who portrayed them. Some wiped away tears.

U.S. officials said the increase in assaults was due to efforts to make it easier to report them.

Cynthia Smith, a Department of Defense spokeswoman, said the department was committed to eliminating sexual assault from the military through prevention and response policies and eliminating barriers to reporting assaults.

“The Department of Defense’s goal is to establish a climate of confidence that encourages victims to report sexual assault and get the care they need,” she said in an e-mail.

Benedict and some researchers say U.S. government figures are much lower than their findings because the government only counts those brave enough to report the assaults.

The problem is not new to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

A 2003 survey of more than 550 female veterans who served in wars from Vietnam to the first Gulf war found that 30 percent said they suffered from rape or attempted rape and 79 percent reported being sexually harassed, according to the American Journal of Industrial Medicine.

Source Reuters