WHOSE SIDE ARE THE POLICE ON?

A woman dragged across a police station floor before being thrown into a cell by a sergeant – who has now been cleared of assaulting her – says she believes he should never be put in charge of prisoners again.

Pamela Somerville said Sergeant Mark Andrews’ acquittal on appeal last week appeared to show there was ‘one rule for the police and another for members of the public’.

Statistics

Deaths in police custody, by calendar year:^[1]

Year	Metropolitan Police	Other forces	Total
2007	4	7	11
2006	4	27	31
2005	9	33	42
2004	4	47	51
2003	12	50	62
2002	11	36	47
2001	9	25	34
2000	5	31	36
1999	14	32	46
1998	13	52	65
1997	15	43	58
1996	21	36	57
1995	12	36	48
1994	16	36	52
1993	17	19	36

That's a total of 676 people have died in police custody in 15 years, an average of 45 people per year.  Now I'm not saying that all of these deaths have been caused by the police, but how many police have been up on a charge of manslaughter?  The answer to that is none.  In fact in the last 100 years, no police officer in this country has been convicted with the manslaughter or murder of any prisoner in their custody.


Remember, Ian Tomlinson?  Some poor bastard, walking home after work, having had a couple of pints.  He was knocked to the ground brutally by a police officer, who just happened to have the badge with his number obliterated and died of a heart attack.  Was the officer charged with manslaughter? Nope and they know who it was, but they ran out of time to prosecute him.


Police, at times, do a hard job, but are they getting out of hand?  Are they becoming a private army?  Some would say so and maybe it's time they were reined in.  If that number of deaths were happening in a third world country, we would be shaking our heads, so why is it acceptable here?