Manchester Airport Assault

I’ve just read on BBC news that the family have instructed a different lawyer, they’ve also voiced their concern for the injured police personnel.

In six minutes?

Interesting that the CCTV footage of the incident around the car park ticket machine has been leaked (by whom?) but not the footage of the incident at Starbucks which is described by the police as a "violent altercation involving members of the public." The airport will have CCTV everywhere. I am not condoning any of the violence involved but we literally do not have the full picture.

petra

Cadeby
What’s not adding up?
Mother tells her sons she has been verbally abused on the plane.
Mother meets sons in Starbucks where she points out the man who abused her.
The sons threaten the man.
Family walk to the parking ticket machine.
At the same time the abuser has called the police and given a description of the sons and their mother.
We all know what happened next.

Ah well,you obviously have some sort of hot line to those invoved.

Jaxjacky that is really good news on the lawyer. Due credit to family. After all, they do have a relative in the police (this was stated upthread)

Merion

. I am not condoning any of the violence involved but we literally do not have the full picture

Why are you so concerned with the ‘full picture’? What has the incident in Starbucks got to do with the police being blamed for this dreadful incident?

The one in blue was obviously about to be arrested when it all kicked off. There will be footage of the Starbucks incident and more and I very much doubt it will show the brothers in a good light. However, nothing that happened in the baggage hall or Starbucks (more violence I imagine) alters the final events.

As for the footage not being released. It’s because this latest video has been leaked; it hasn’t been released by the police. There is more but unless it gets leaked we probably won’t see it until after investigations or court proceedings are finished.

Willow3

Jaxjacky that is really good news on the lawyer. Due credit to family. After all, they do have a relative in the police (this was stated upthread)

Are you saying you genuinely believe this family care about the injured officers? Hmm….more likely they’ve recognised the change in tone since the 2nd video and gone into damage limitation mode.

Why am I concerned with the full picture? The police and IOPC must investigate the sequence of events. It is the police who are asking for witnesses to come forward:

tinyurl.com/bdb7pcan

Imagining is not evidence that would hold up in a court of law on either side.

People really should read Philip Priestley @PublicPriestley thread on X about police conduct. It is the perspective of a former police officer with many years of experience about what should happen when a suspect has been tasered. Some quotes from that:

This has to be held to account. You might think that the man deserved it - him 'deserving it' isn't the officer's role. The role of a police officer has never been to decide who deserves to be kicked in the head or to kick anyone in the head under such circumstances.

The person subject to the taser will have been 'red dotted' and issued with a verbal warning (this warning is to protect the innocent and colleagues also so they know what is happening). The taser is fired and it is not quiet. It clicks very loudly and rapidly and …

The person being tasered gets hit with two large barbs and a high voltage charge. They usually make an involuntary noise as a consequence, they stop talking or shouting immediately. They hit the ground quite stiffly and it is very obvious that they have been tasered.

A taser is not lethal - but it is definitely not discreet. As soon as the man is tasered he certainly doesn't need to be kicked or stamped on. The barbs stay in him and he can be hit with more voltage by the person carrying the taser if required. He is under control.

Exactly what a retired Chief inspector of the MET indicated

It was a lack of discipline.

Cadeby

petra

Cadeby
What’s not adding up?
Mother tells her sons she has been verbally abused on the plane.
Mother meets sons in Starbucks where she points out the man who abused her.
The sons threaten the man.
Family walk to the parking ticket machine.
At the same time the abuser has called the police and given a description of the sons and their mother.
We all know what happened next.

Ah well,you obviously have some sort of hot line to those invoved.

Not a hotline as such. Just chit chat from ne’er do wells listening into police radios.

Whitewavemark2

Exactly what a retired Chief inspector of the MET indicated

It was a lack of discipline.

I'm inclined to agree.

I repeat I am not condoning the violence on either side but a picture is emerging of excessive police force not just on the two men involved in the fight but against bystanders for no apparent reason than that they were filming - which is not illegal.

One of the things that is bothering me is how the bystanders were dealt with. There seemed to be an indiscriminate use of PAVA spray by female and male officers.

The leaked video shows a tall, thin man, wearing a dark grey top with white writing on the back. He is then seen in a group of male bystanders who have been corralled. One waring red is saying over and over that they have done nothing. The one in dark grey is then sprayed in the eyes with PAVA by a male officer, kicked, put in a headlock and wrestled to the ground. PAVA causes severe pain. Police policy is that PAVA spray should only be used on violent people who cannot otherwise be restrained so where is the justification for that?

Whitewavemark2

Exactly what a retired Chief inspector of the MET indicated

It was a lack of discipline

That must be the retired officer another high ranking retired officer was condemning for his comments on tv this morning.

Ultimately they’re talking heads paid to give an opinion and you go with the one that reinforces your stand on the issue.

The one I listened to complained that your man had retired some time ago and had no knowledge of today’s policing and it’s inherent difficulties.

I just hope that officer is ok as his head took a pounding from both of them. I’d be interested to see the state of his face, even though we can’t. The thug in blue didn’t have so much as a graze.

Merion

The video you mention hasn’t been leaked; it’s been posted on social media. It was taken by a bystander with a phone, like the first video of the kick.

The video of the real events is leaked cctv footage. Maybe when we get the ‘full picture’ you want we’ll see all is not as it seems on the second one you mention.

Time will tell.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp38e4r2rz5o

was up on I player 6pm tonight

This gives views/analysis of all 5 available videos including footage not yet seen on this thread and up to date information as alluded to above on lawyers and the family.

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202407/medium-442645-men-pava-sprayed.png https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202407/medium-281235-pava.png https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202407/medium-988365-pava2.png

I am talking about the film which shows the three officers approaching the man at the ticket machine. The footage is taken from a height and at an angle so it must be airport CCTV. Someone has leaked that, either airport staff or police. In that you can clearly see a man in a grey top with white writing on the back. He is standing behind the woman in the mint head covering and them moves around. He is a bystander as is the man in red.

Yes, the films of them after they have been corralled are from amateur footage but my point is that these men are not behaving violently. Had they behaved violently off-camera they would have been in handcuffs or been tasered themselves. There is no justification for using PAVA spray, headlocking and forcing the man to the ground. The man in red is saying: "We haven't done anything." and yet an officer is pointing a taser at him.

I think the police were annoyed that these men had filmed what happened - which, as I said, is not illegal. Unless any evidence emerges to the contrary, the behaviour of these officers appears brutal and completely unjustified.

Merion

You have repeatedly said you don’t think we should speculate and you want to know the full picture. Yet here you are speculating.

You have no idea what these other men have or haven’t done. I know they’re stood watching in the cctv footage but it’s possible they were involved in the other two incidents or something after the brawl near the ticket machine.

I also noticed earlier there was a small boy stood with that group when it all started. He must have been very frightened.

I am not speculating. You are.

I am saying what I see in filmed documentation of the events. Two films. Concrete evidence.

In the CCTV film, these men are not involved in the altercation. They may be filming the events but that is not illegal.

In the second film (linked below) they are just standing there. The man in red is saying over and over that they have done nothing. The man in grey says: "It wasn't us". He is not acting violently. He is just standing there holding a phone. He is PAVA sprayed and forced to the ground. A young woman can be heard screaming over and over, Leave him alone. He hasn't done anything.

x.com/Congy99/status/1816194712556167302

This is the policy on PAVA:

Any use of PAVA irritant spray must be reasonable and justified using the National Decision Model (NDM) and only be used against:

• Individual(s) offering a level of violence which cannot be appropriately dealt with by other tactical options; and

• Violent offenders where failure to induce immediate incapacitation would increase the risk to any/all persons present.

I see no violence from these men in either films. There is no evidence that they even know the family involved in the altercation.

There is a WhatsApp audio clip online from a witness who describes the incident on the CCTV. He then says - "another set of officers come along. They don't know what's going on. They just try and get this lot in the corner but it had nowt to do with this lot. They've been locked up for no reason."

The men aren’t filming. They are stood there. I understand you’re confused. I’ll leave you to it.

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202407/medium-786209-screenshot-2024-07-29-at-02-03-26.png https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202407/medium-137011-two-men-filming-kicking.png https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202407/medium-97685-men-pava-sprayed.png

Rude and patroning. I am not in the least bit confused. The men WERE filming.

When the CCTV footage begins, there is a queue of people for the ticket machine: there’s someone with a white shoulder bag, a bearded man in black, a man in a red top and a man in a fawn top. As the incident starts, they move away into a circle.

Picture one. Faces are blurred by you can see the man in black moving back and forth filming.

In the original film that showed the police officer kicking and stamping on the man’s head, you can hear a man shouting, Stop kicking people. You are on camera.

Picture two. The man in black has moved nearer to the wall and the man in fawn is to his right. Both are filming.

Picture three. When the innocent men are corralled, the one in grey is holding up his camera. (You only see his back in the CCTV footage. There is white writing on his top.) What his camera recorded is shown here.

x.com/Resisting_batil/status/1816164574342558032/video/1

You can clearly hear the man in red saying, We haven’t done ‘owt. We are normal civilians. No, no no. We have not done nothing (anything). He isn’t filming as he is using his arms to gesticulate and protect the man behind him, the same bearded man in black from the picture. You see an officer point to the man in grey who is filming and say to another officer … Lock up. You hear the man in grey say: What? Not, me, not me. You see the officer shaking the PAVA before spraying it into his eyes.

That is what the police don’t like; that they are being filmed, which, as I have said many times, is legal. These officers have no evidence that these men have done anything wrong as they did not witness the fighting. The audio witness says they had nowt to do with it.

This second lot of police are out-of-control just as the one who kicked the tasered man was out-of-control. The proof is on the CCTV. When you look closely at it and slow it down you can see the moment that the female officer tasers the man in blue. You can see the barbs like faint lightening. She moves in closer and keeps the barbs on him. She had him under control but a few seconds later the male officer’s boot goes on in. It was totally unnecessary.

x.com/5Pillarsuk/status/1817255074923712627

Again, what Philip Priestley @PublicPriestley, a former police officer said:

A taser is not lethal - but it is definitely not discreet. As soon as the man is tasered he certainly doesn't need to be kicked or stamped on. The barbs stay in him and he can be hit with more voltage by the person carrying the taser if required. He is under control.

Moreover it becomes a breach of the duty of care that police officers immediately owe to someone that they have incapacitated … under such circumstances, the officers must protect the man who has been tasered from further harm.

You may not like it, but these officers were in the wrong.

Manchester airport is one of the worst in the world as far as I’m concerned. Appalling attitudes to their customers. We will never, ever ,go there again after our experience there a few years back. They seem to think all the travellers are criminals.

Merion

You may not like it, but these officers were in the wrong

There you go again, speculating.

The officers using the spray aren’t the ones that were attacked. The one that tapped the earlier thug on the head, described as the hero of the situation by a senior officer today, isn’t involved. He is under investigation.

If, as you believe, the officer using the spray on “innocent” men is being unnecessarily heavy handed why isn’t he suspended and under investigation?

You must know more than the rest of us.

A carefully curated bit of video, comments from randoms on the internet (ex police officers or not - their views have no more weight than anyone else’s) and protestations of not having done nowt prove absolutely zilch either way.

That is what the police don’t like; that they are being filmed

How unreasonable of them to not enjoy having a battery of phones and cameras in their faces constantly as they do their job. It’d be so much better all round if every member of the public had this as well, wouldn’t it? Health care professionals perhaps, in case they put a foot wrong? And of course every school pupil should be encouraged to have their phone trained on their teacher at all times and to post little snippets of carefully chosen footage online to capture a fair view of what goes on in the classroom.

Or maybe not….

We don’t have the full facts. The situation looks different than it did when we only had the first video. My view at that time was the officer who kicked the man in the floor had seen red, lost control, in the middle of what looked like an affray. He looked young and must have been scared and fired up. whilst I condemned the kicking, I was relieved Andy Burnham and the MP for Rochdale were attempting to calm the situation unlike Tice and Lee Anderson who were inflaming it.
Having seen more footage, it’s easy to accuse police of over reacting. My question is let’s look at the level of criticism and assaults our officers face every day at work. No wonder they’re losing good officers regularly

Thanks Maggiemaybe - Ross posted with you there. The police run towards risk, as they did here. Being surrounded by experts filming and shouting criticism in the heat of an incident like this. No wonder officers find alternative employment

When I said earlier that something didn't add up, I meant the apparent abuse on the plane. What was it? Were the people known to her? How could things escalate to a terrifying level of violence so quickly?

I suppose. like a lot of things, we will never know.