London Metropolitan police have lost control of themselves

The good thing about everyone having a video is that it's no longer only the police who are recording when something goes wrong. Control over who has done what has been democratized which is great for everyone. The London police assaulted a man (Ian Thomlinson) walking home from work during the G-20 summit and he died minutes later. Despite initially ignoring the event, an American banker happened to be in town and present and filmed the assault.

The following day a group met in London to hold a vigil for Thomlinson and again, the Metropolitan police were unable to control themselves. The video is very disturbing because you see one officer knocking down someone who was talking with the police followed by a woman calling out the police for doing so. Despite having a camera in one hand and an orange juice in the other, she was then backhanded. The officer then pulled out a baton and struck her in the legs.

I normally associate such aggressiveness and loss of control with the Philadelphia police where I grew up. The Brits are going to need to make some major changes in the force to clean this up. It's disgraceful though it's not a surprise in the city that is monitoring every last move. Change has to happen, soon. Suspending officers is a start but it goes much deeper than that.