‘A mentally ill man died in police custody after officers used “unsuitable” force during an “unnecessarily” long restraint, an inquest jury has ruled.

In a damning verdict, jurors found that unacceptable and inappropriate actions by Metropolitan Police officers contributed to the death of Sean Rigg, 40, in August 2008. The jurors rejected much of the evidence given to the inquest by the constables involved.

Last night, Mr Rigg’s family called for criminal charges against the police, who they accused of “at best misleading the jury or at worst lying under oath”.They also condemned the Independent Police Complaints Commission over its “inadequate and obstructive” initial investigation that found no evidence of wrongdoing.’

‘PC Simon Harwood has been found not guilty of the manslaughter of Ian Tomlinson at the 2009 G20 protest. As Tomlinson walked home from work, hands in his pockets, Harwood hit him with a baton and shoved him to the ground. The court has seen footage of Harwood’s attack on Tomlinson, who is seen walking away from the police line. As a female officer steps forward to talk to Tomlinson, Harwood passes two police dogs in order to hit and push Tomlinson to the ground. Tomlinson barely has enough time to take his hands out of his pockets to protect himself as he falls. He died shortly afterwards.

Harwood told the court that his actions were justifiable within the context of the widespread disorder of that day, and the jury heard conflicting medical evidence on whether Harwood’s attack had caused Tomlinson’s death.

The Human Rights Act guarantees everyone the right to life. In practice, this has been interpreted as requiring the state to investigate deaths linked to the authorities and hold accountable those responsible for unlawful killings. In spite of this guarantee, in reality, it has proved well nigh impossible to hold anyone accountable for deaths in which police officers may be implicated. No police officer has been convicted of manslaughter for a crime committed while on duty since 1986, though since then hundreds have died in police custody or after contact with the police.

Time and again, the CPS has proved unwilling to prosecute police officers. More than 1,000 people have died in police custody since the 1960s (more than 300 between 1999 and 2010) and in only one case, in 1969, has a police officer been convicted. Instead, the families of those killed are forced to take on the state. It is only as a result of the pressure his family put on the government that an inquest into the death of Ian Tomlinson took place.’

‘The US financial system and, probably, the financial system of Europe, like the police, no longer serves a useful social purpose.

In the US the police have proven themselves to be a greater threat to public safety than private sector criminals. I just googled “police brutality” and up came 183,000,000 results.’

‘Chicago Police, wearing UN powder blue helmets and riot gear, treated brutally with the protesters who had come out to picket the NATO Summit. Footage coming out of the city showed these Nazis clubbing unarmed citizens, whom they had determined would be barred from the part of their city where the international elite had gathered to plan for another year of death and destruction throughout the world.

This is National Socialism in its ugliest form. The people who own the streets of Chicago are beaten down like animals by those deceptively referred to as public servants.’

‘In an exclusive interview with Press TV on Monday, Shabazz commented on the murder of Black teenager Trayvon Martin, saying, “There are hundreds of Black Americans who are being murdered in the United States every year with impunity. And police officers serve no time. They always get off.”

Shabazz said this occurs because there is institutionalized racism in the United States. “The United States has more people incarcerated than anywhere else in the world. It has more people incarcerated than China, and China has the most people in the world,” he noted.’

The offending officers, who went on leave on Sunday, have not been identified, The Associated Press reported.

“Videos taken during Friday’s arrests showed that the two officers used pepper spray on peacefully seated students,” the university announced in a news release.

On Friday, police officers violently confronted anti-corporatism protesters camping on the UC Davis campus, spraying the chemical irritant on students that were sitting on the ground and arresting 10 of them.

Many UC Davis alumni, staff, students, and faculty expressed outrage over the incident.

On Saturday, the Faculty Association of UC Davis issued a statement accusing University Chancellor Linda Katehi of “a gross failure of leadership” and calling for her resignation.

Katehi has resisted the calls so far, pledging instead to rigorously probe the incident.

The demonstration was being held in solidarity with the worldwide Occupy movements that began in September after a group of people gathered in New York’s financial district with the motto of “Occupy Wall Street” to protest “corporate greed,” corruption, poverty, and social and economic inequality in the US.’