Second Police Officer Suspended Over G20 Protests.

Today a senior Sergeant from Uxbridge Territorial Support Group has been suspended over allegations of assault stemming from the release of this video;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7999277.stm

Shot at the April 2nd memorial to Ian Tomlinson the video shows a young woman arguing with the officer who has his arms encased in plastic body armour. The woman says "What are you doing hitting a fucking woman?" The officer then backhands her across the face and shouts at her to "Go Away!" The officers then steps back onto the pavement, draws his extendable Asp baton and strikes the woman several times across the legs.

This sort of behaviour comes as no real surprise to experienced protesters because although the officer has removed his identifying epaulet numbers he is well known in protesters circles from his conduct with the Forward Intelligence Team and more recently as a Silver Commander with the TSG. He is widely regarded as a cowardly and violent thug who if he hadn't found work with the police would most certainly now be in prison.

What is surprising is the way the video has been edited down by the media to only show this incident. If you watch this longer video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V23PGWd46MM you can see the incident that caused the woman to be arguing with the police officer in the first place. Around 3min 10sec into the video you can see a black man in a black coat holding a newspaper. This man is remonstrating with the police presumably asking to leave the cordon so he can go about the rest of his day. The police officer respond by grabbing him by the throat and throwing him to the floor.

Choke holds are strictly forbidden as a restraint technique so if the police or anyone else uses one it is automatically considered excessive force and an act of criminal assault. I think this other officers should also be identified and suspended but I'm not sure we want to reward any more police officers for their bad behaviour by giving them a paid holiday.