G20 protests lead to assaults

Thousands of people were held against their will. Pleading didn't work, neither did shouts or tears. Penned in for hours, some were forced to urinate in public. Others phoned spouses and bosses in mounting frustration as police ignored their requests to be allowed to leave.

Terrorists? Nope.

Enemy combatants? Nope.

These were protesters at the G20 Summit in London. Well, some of them. Some were just regular people who were rounded up by the police.

One man, a newspaper vendor who hadn't taken part in the demonstrations, died of internal bleeding shortly after being knocked to the ground by an officer. Other video showed a young woman being struck across the legs by a police baton -- she likened it to being "whipped by the Taliban" -- and another being smacked on the back of the head by a riot shield.

The woman mentioned, who was struck across the legs with a baton, had her assault filmed. The video is below.





Unfortunately, some of the comments from viewers are almost as scary as the act in the video itself.





Yeah...take that hippy! The obligatory derogatory jokes are a nice touch, too.





Indeed. A good tasering would have upped the entertainment quotient of the video...if you are a soulless dick.





Wow. That last guy thinks it is a "pity" the cop didn't have a gun to use on that unarmed protester.

Fortunately, the British police are "reexamining" their methods. I would imagine the fact that these abuses were filmed and spread all over the internet might have something to do with it.

A top government official said Tuesday that some officers had acted in an "utterly unacceptable" manner by concealing their badge numbers during the demonstrations. Worse, several amateur photographs and videos have surfaced showing police officers apparently knocking down and beating mostly peaceful participants.

Unfortunately, there is no body to reexamine the kind of assholes who leave comments like those listed above. And they weren't even some of the worst comments.

Maybe John Hawkins is right to some degree about the internet leading to an acceptance of boorish behavior. Sad.