My point was that the middle classes are the people you would least expect to come out on a protest.

Wrt the police being human, I think part of the problem is the manner of their training and equipping, particularly the paramilitary riot gear, which tends to increase groupthink and the Zimbardo effect.

Irt your last point, there will always be some bad eggs; however, if it is made abundantly clear that process will be followed and that CCTV and so on will be used even-handedly, it will change how often and how severely those tendencies come to the fore.

xD.

Second, the police are trained, I have presumed, to be able to deal with tense situations and rowdy crowds, and are, in theory, skilled at judging what is a credible danger and what not. That is what makes them different from the non-police officer. So this thing about, ‘well they’re human so what do you expect’, falls down for me.

And, as you’ve also pointed out, there were several officers who watched Ian get hit, didn’t stop the officer and didn’t help Ian after. So while they might not all beat people with batons, at least a half dozen at that time didn’t think it was a problem worth dealing with that one of their colleagues did.

So in addition to the fact that the police needs to lie less, as an institution, which I think you’ve put too generously (providing false information about rule-breaking is lying after all), the police also needs to be less violent. Full stop. To suggest that the lie is the thing we should concentrate on since ‘naughtiness’ will always happen is alarming (is that what you’re doing? Not sure. That’s what it’s sounding like. Like you think that’s where the focus should be).

Just don’t hit people in the first place, thanks.

zohra’s last blog post..Guest post: Time to complain to the ASA again…

The assertion was not that B – to wit, the attack by the police officer – caused A – to wit, the death of Ian Tomlinson – but that the deliberate of intention of B was A. Even if B caused A – which, for the moment, can be contested – that does not prove intention.

Perhaps I wasn’t clear.

xD.

Dave Cole’s last blog post..Ian Tomlinson’s death is not the issue

No, but it does imply a strengthened probability of it. When the timeframe is reduced to 7 minutes, the probability spikes.

Miller 2.0’s last blog post..Quick question to Libertarians