April 11, 2009.
Death of Ian Tomlinson
Ian Tomlinson was a British newspaper vendor who died in the City of London, London's financial district, during the 2009 G-20 London summit protests on his way home from work. A first postmortem indicated that he had had a heart attack and died of natural causes.
His death became controversial a week later when The Guardian obtained footage, taken by an investment fund manager from New York, showing that Tomlinson, who was not a protester, had been struck on the leg from behind by a police officer wielding a baton, then pushed to the ground by the same officer. The footage shows no provocation on Tomlinson's part, who at the time was walking along with his hands in his pockets.
A second postmortem has been conducted, ordered jointly by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) and Tomlinson's family, and a criminal inquiry has begun, from which the police have been removed. The IPCC has appointed its own investigators to examine whether the police assaulted Tomlinson, and whether that assault caused his death.
The incident — which is being called "Britain's Rodney King moment"— has highlighted a number of issues in the UK, particularly what appears to be a deteriorating relationship between the police and the public, and questions over the extent to which the IPCC is truly independent of the police. It has also sparked widespread debate about the role of citizens in monitoring police and government activities.
