Scrutable

As discussed in the male violence and harassment of women thread, I've split some posts about the police response at Clapham Common over the weekend.

Oh dear. The Met's handling of the vigil in Clapham Common is a little heavy handed. Well done, lads!

egbert26 wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 13, 2021 9:20 pm

Oh dear. The Met's handling of the vigil in Clapham Common is a little heavy handed. Well done, lads!

Exactly the tone they should be setting when one of their own is the cause of the vigil. Sensitive community policing.

egbert26 wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 13, 2021 9:20 pm

Oh dear. The Met's handling of the vigil in Clapham Common is a little heavy handed. Well done, lads!

A event that could easily have been permitted and sensibly policed for social distancing. But now we’ve got pictures of men dragging women away and a silent vigil for women who have had enough of this sh.t becomes the first gathering affected under hastily made anti protest laws by the Home Office.

egbert26 wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 13, 2021 9:20 pm

Oh dear. The Met's handling of the vigil in Clapham Common is a little heavy handed. Well done, lads!

Their response was absolutely f.cking disgusting. Completely disproportionate and doing nothing other than highlighting that women have no reason to trust the police or think they care about our safety.

I keep thinking about how Avon & Somerset Police handled the BLM protests last summer when Colston came down. The officer in charge said that they decided not to intervene because it would only inflame the situation and put people at risk, so they stepped back and let protestors get on with what they had planned. It was a sensible response that meant that the 10,000-strong protest was peaceful with "no injuries, no arrests and one report of damage".

Just hours after the Duchess of Cambridge visited the vigil site...

Compare and contrast with policing of Rangers fans last week and any number of anti-mask/anti-lockdown protests.

Tessa K wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 13, 2021 10:48 pm

Just hours after the Duchess of Cambridge visited the vigil site...

time for a #NotAllMetPolice hashtag?

Tessa K wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 13, 2021 10:48 pm

Just hours after the Duchess of Cambridge visited the vigil site...

Kind of them to wait for her to leave before they started assaulting women.

I am just so f.cking angry and exhausted.

I was in Aus when Eurydice Dixon was killed in Melbourne. She was walking home across a park when she was attacked by a guy who'd been stalking her for 5km. There was the same outrage, the same vigils, the same reflection on the culture that led to men thinking they had a right to women's bodies. And then nothing changed.

Honestly I suspect a lot of the anger right now is because we know that nothing's going to change. We can scream and shout and protest and write long articles on what should be done and some men will hand-wring and promise to do better and others will downplay everything we've said and blame us for walking unchaperoned after dark but life goes on (for those lucky enough) and the hand-wringers will forget their promises, and the downplayers will stop even bothering to downplay, and women will continue to do all the things we do to try and stay safe, in the certain knowledge that if anything does happen people will scrape through our actions to find any excuse to blame us, and nothing will actually change.

Vertigowooyay wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 13, 2021 10:51 pm

Compare and contrast with policing of Rangers fans last week and any number of anti-mask/anti-lockdown protests.

https://twitter.com/Dr2NisreenAlwan/sta ... 9246959617

Dr Nisreen Alwan Sunflower
@Dr2NisreenAlwan
Normal
0%
Primary school children are “strongly advised against” wearing face coverings in indoor crowded spaces in schools while masked women making a stand for a super important cause *outdoors* are manhandled in the name of covid safety. I’m really struggling with this.

Someone on Facebook described it as policing by contempt

Vertigowooyay wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 13, 2021 10:51 pm

Compare and contrast with policing of Rangers fans last week and any number of anti-mask/anti-lockdown protests.

Risk assessment - while participants in both events may have been breaking various laws - the risk of violence and escalation was far greater if the police attempted to make arrests at the Rangers event, than at the vigil. Because the participants were mostly men - and mostly young men.

Which takes us back to the core problem - male violence. So in a perverse way - the contrast does highlight police awareness of the problem!

Here is the legal advice provided by Reclaim The Streets' solicitors prior to the event. Sounds as if it would have been sensible if the Met had given it more weight.

https://twitter.com/ReclaimTS/status/13 ... 86626?s=20

In guess it's probably worth remembering this story from last year: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-l ... 198702.amp (not a nice story as I'm sure you can imagine).

On the subject of what happened on Clapham Common last night: it was awful, and the Met pushed their line too far this time and it's the same line that's always used, not just by the Met. Whether it's black men being killed by police, protestors sitting peacefully in the middle of the road, black protestors taking to the streets, women holding a protest/vigil in memory of someone who was killed, there is always an excuse: they were resisting arrest, they looked like they had a gun, they were impeding important journeys, they are spreading Covid; there's always something to plant doubt into people's minds to make us turn against the people they are trying to stop/kill/whatever (and obviously this happens with industrial action too, in a different context). And yes often there's a kernel of truth in what they're saying, some times more plausible than others, which is why it so often works and they get away with this stuff time and time again. I think the difference this time is that many more people realise it's b.llsh.t, they pushed their excuse too far, but I wish that collective realisation had happened sooner.

discovolante wrote: ↑

Sun Mar 14, 2021 12:54 pm

On the subject of what happened on Clapham Common last night: it was awful, and the Met pushed their line too far this time and it's the same line that's always used, not just by the Met. Whether it's black men being killed by police, protestors sitting peacefully in the middle of the road, black protestors taking to the streets, women holding a protest/vigil in memory of someone who was killed, there is always an excuse: they were resisting arrest, they looked like they had a gun, they were impeding important journeys, they are spreading Covid; there's always something to plant doubt into people's minds to make us turn against the people they are trying to stop/kill/whatever (and obviously this happens with industrial action too, in a different context). And yes often there's a kernel of truth in what they're saying, some times more plausible than others, which is why it so often works and they get away with this stuff time and time again. I think the difference this time is that many more people realise it's b.llsh.t, they pushed their excuse too far, but I wish that collective realisation had happened sooner.

Actually I want to rephrase that slightly. There's been a fair bit of discussion last night and today about the claim that 'it was a vigil, not a protest', and how that creates a contrast with e.g. BLM protestors peacefully protesting against the murder of a black man/police racism; saintly (mostly?) white women laying flowers and lighting candles vs shouty angry black protestors. In my last post I thought I was making that distinction by saying it seems a shame that people don't remember what has gone on before, but I think I also internalised the idea that there is some kind of qualitative difference between each set of events and that this time the police's actions are somehow less excusable than they have been in the past. So I take that back.

I wanted to discuss one of the videos that did the rounds last night. This one.

Here's a cropped screenshot: We have the woman on the right who is trying her best to ignore the policeman. Her body language is very still and stiff, she's not moving, her eyes are looking away from him, avoiding contact, she isn't doing anything to engage with him, to give him any reason to feel provoked or any reason to think his continued engagement is going to be productive. Then we have the policeman. And I use man rather than officer intentionally, because his behaviour is that of so many men. He's crouched down but he's still standing over her, he's taking into her ear, he's touching her arm, he's trying to get her attention and refusing to acknowledge that it's not working.

The reason I wanted to highlight this video in particular is because the body language of the man and the woman are so familiar to every woman, but I don't know if it is to every man. I mean, many men have been on the receiving end of it but I don't think they appreciate the fear that comes with it. We're doing everything we can to not escalate the situation, because we know we're likely going to be the losers if it does. The fact the man is a police officer is just the icing on top of the intimidation cake. His body language and his behaviour is inherently intimidating. He may see it only as trying to have a private conversation with a woman to try and get her to see the error of her ways, and the arm touch is merely to be reassuring, and the talking in her ear the best way to be heard over the din, but the arm touch is a violation of her personal space, the talking in her ear a way of saying that I WILL have your attention whether you like it or not.

The video is shocking to me in its mundanity. Walk into any club (when they're open) and I bet that in the course of a night you'll see the same scene play out at least once. So I ask men to start paying attention. If you see a woman do this to you, get the hint and leave her alone. If you see another guy doing it to a woman go up to him, interrupt, and distract him so she can get away. Even if this video had been the only awful one to come out of last night's vigil I'd have still been incredibly angry, because it is clear from this that the the police just don't get it.

Fishnut wrote: ↑

Sun Mar 14, 2021 2:27 pm

I wanted to discuss one of the videos that did the rounds last night. This one.

Here's a cropped screenshot:
Police officer and vigil attendee.jpg

f.ck's sake. I tried to write something more coherent but I just keep coming back to f.ck's sake.

discovolante wrote: ↑

Sun Mar 14, 2021 1:36 pm

discovolante wrote: ↑

Sun Mar 14, 2021 12:54 pm

On the subject of what happened on Clapham Common last night: it was awful, and the Met pushed their line too far this time and it's the same line that's always used, not just by the Met. Whether it's black men being killed by police, protestors sitting peacefully in the middle of the road, black protestors taking to the streets, women holding a protest/vigil in memory of someone who was killed, there is always an excuse: they were resisting arrest, they looked like they had a gun, they were impeding important journeys, they are spreading Covid; there's always something to plant doubt into people's minds to make us turn against the people they are trying to stop/kill/whatever (and obviously this happens with industrial action too, in a different context). And yes often there's a kernel of truth in what they're saying, some times more plausible than others, which is why it so often works and they get away with this stuff time and time again. I think the difference this time is that many more people realise it's b.llsh.t, they pushed their excuse too far, but I wish that collective realisation had happened sooner.

Actually I want to rephrase that slightly. There's been a fair bit of discussion last night and today about the claim that 'it was a vigil, not a protest', and how that creates a contrast with e.g. BLM protestors peacefully protesting against the murder of a black man/police racism; saintly (mostly?) white women laying flowers and lighting candles vs shouty angry black protestors. In my last post I thought I was making that distinction by saying it seems a shame that people don't remember what has gone on before, but I think I also internalised the idea that there is some kind of qualitative difference between each set of events and that this time the police's actions are somehow less excusable than they have been in the past. So I take that back.

I've been pointing out that it was at a vigil after Mark Duggan's death that an altercation between police and the people that were there is thought to have been the first clash of the London Riots. The police don't distinguish between vigils and protests in their responses and we shouldn't either.

There's a thread of photos from yesterday's demo here https://twitter.com/Effy_Yeomans/status ... 2602748934

Footage the vigil:

https://twitter.com/paul_clarke/status/ ... 29891?s=20

It looks like that it attracted some people who weren't there to directly grieve/protest Sarah's death. The women were not amused.

So apparently Boris Johnson has said he has "full confidence" in Cressida Dick - so that means she's toast right?

bob sterman wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 15, 2021 1:45 pm

So apparently Boris Johnson has said he has "full confidence" in Cressida Dick - so that means she's toast right?

Unfortunately I doubt it. Has anyone in Johnson's government been forced to resign for incompetence yet? I can't see her being the first.

Fishnut wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 15, 2021 1:54 pm

bob sterman wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 15, 2021 1:45 pm

So apparently Boris Johnson has said he has "full confidence" in Cressida Dick - so that means she's toast right?

Unfortunately I doubt it. Has anyone in Johnson's government been forced to resign for incompetence yet? I can't see her being the first.

The vigil organisers don’t want her to resign, apparently.

Grumble wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 15, 2021 1:59 pm

Fishnut wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 15, 2021 1:54 pm

bob sterman wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 15, 2021 1:45 pm

So apparently Boris Johnson has said he has "full confidence" in Cressida Dick - so that means she's toast right?

Unfortunately I doubt it. Has anyone in Johnson's government been forced to resign for incompetence yet? I can't see her being the first.

The vigil organisers don’t want her to resign, apparently.

They also continued to fundraise without clarifying/deciding where the money would go, and have distanced themselves from the vigil/protest.

Fishnut wrote: ↑

Sun Mar 14, 2021 2:27 pm

I wanted to discuss one of the videos that did the rounds last night. This one.

Here's a cropped screenshot:
Police officer and vigil attendee.jpg

<snip>

Do you mind if I take a screengrab of your post. I've been trying to explain about the issues to a friend who asked me to try and explain what he could do to help, and I was trying to explain it's not only big things like not stalking people, but all the little things as well

This is so much more eloquent that I can manage

CF