Mild brutality

That video shows Ian Tomlinson’s treatment by the police at (or rather just next to) the G20 protests.

Did this contribute to his death shortly afterwards? Hard to say without a post mortem, but the coincidence would be staggering. Could the police have reasonably expected this treatment to lead to his death? No: it’s a whack on the leg and then shoving him over; he didn’t seem at all injured. As police brutality goes, it’s pretty mild. Does that matter? Not really: his treatment was an unprovoked assault, and even if he’d been fine afterwards, it would still merit that policeman’s head rolling.

I wonder how many other such assaults took place that day.