Guest Blogger: Alun Jones - Policing in the USA

In a(nother) break from ordinary service this Independence Day, Four Thousand Words would like to present guest blogger and fellow local government employee Alun Jones. His previous observations on Tahrir and Tiananmen Squares can be found by clicking here.

If anyone else fancies a stint in charge of the editorial desk here at FTW, please let me know, I'm delighted when other people want to be involved (not least because it means I can take a day off...)

Policing in the USA

The plethora of films and television series that come from Hollywoodland got me thinking the other day. I know they're not meant to do that, but this isn't going to be another discourse on the mind-numbing qualities of main-stream entertainment. It's just this; how many bloody law enforcement agencies does one country need??

In the course of my brief research on this subject, it seems that at any one time in the home of the 'free', 68 different agencies at federal, state and local level could take an interest in your affairs!! I tried to think of a scenario where you would involve all of them, but that was too much! However, if you were a native american former convict and discharged soldier driving a lorry whilst drunk to deliver contraband alcohol, bush-meat, counterfeit currency and books stolen from the Library of Congress to the University in Fairbanks, Alaska having previously made threats against the President you would be in trouble with at least 13 different agencies! All of them of course would resent the others and mouth the immortal line, "And don't give me any of your jurisdiction crap!!"

Similar counts yield the following information. The UK has 14 layers of law enforcement, whilst the North Korea has only 5 or 6!

Does this mean that we are 3 times as paranoid as the North Koreans and that the USA is 5 times more paranoid still? Not really, as the numbers in each arm are widely different, especially when you take into account the size of population they are meant to serve. But there must be a high degree of paranoia, otherwise why would we have so many different agencies? After all, the right-wing governments in control both here and in the USA are dead-set on cuts.

I'm not a big fan of cuts. I work in the public sector and believe that you need it to make the state run efficiently. For example, how would Mr Cameron's army of 'hungry' entrepreneurs be able to generate wealth if they had to stay at home to look after their elderly parents? Or if that simple cold became double pneumonia because there was no healthcare? However, I believe that both here and in the USA, concern about crime levels and the possibility of terrorist attacks means that we have allowed this proliferation and the erosion of many liberties. So come on Theresa May and Janet Napolitano (Secretary of Homeland Security), make some cuts, save some money and restore some sanity to our law enforcement.

Shame about the films though...

Justice for Ian Tomlinson!

I have been waiting a long time to do a piece on the G20 summit protests of 2009 and as the enquiry has opened into the death of newspaper salesman Ian Tomlinson, this seems to me to be the perfect time to raise the profile of the incident and call for everyone to carefully study the circumstances surrounding the case.

On 1 April 2009, Ian Tomlinson had been selling newspapers in London at the time of the G20 summit protests. At approximately 7.15pm, Tomlinson encountered a police line upon trying to take his usual route home and was turned away by officers. Those same officers would later accuse Tomlinson of obstructing the police line, which was the basis for the events that would follow.

As Tomlinson walked away from the police line with his back to officers and his hands in his pockets, PC Simon Harwood first struck the father-of-nine across the left thigh with his extendible baton. Immediately afterwards, the officer then thrust the full weight of his body into Tomlinson's back, throwing him to the floor.


The events were filmed by an American investment fund manager, who passed the footage to the Guardian the next day. He claimed that he had stopped filming immediately after the event because he was scared that the police might react violently to seeing him film. The footage was subsequently placed on YouTube and can be found by clicking here.

Tomlinson received no assistance from police as he lay in the street - those same officers who had been involved in the assault upon him later shamefully claimed that it was protesters who had prevented him from receiving medical assistance. Conflicting reports subsequently suggested and then denied a head injury that he suffered upon hitting the floor and how dazed he seemed as he walked away.

Tomlinson collapsed less than five minutes later and died.

When footage of the incident appeared in the press, The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) opened a criminal inquiry. Subsequent inconsistencies in post-mortem reports meant that a cause of death could not be agreed on. Tomlinson was known to be a heavy drinker and cirrhosis of the liver was cited as a potential cause, along with the possibility of a heart attack or internal bleeding following the impact when he was thrown to the floor.

PC Harwood came to court earlier this month with a promise that he would not face criminal proceedings as a result of any evidence that he gave at the enquiry. He responded by saying that he wished to do all that he could to try to help. It is small wonder that members of Tomlinson's family left the courtroom as Harwood admitted that Tomlinson was not a threat, and that he struck him for the 'almost defiant' nature of his stance. In complete contrast to the evidence that can be clearly viewed by anyone who watches the video, Harwood then scandalously claimed that Tomlinson 'invited confrontation'.


While the emotive language of death and murder is thrown around with abandon in the media, it cannot be said that Harwood was directly responsible for Tomlinson's death. However, the evidence clearly raises massive concerns about the role of officers in the incident and highlights Harwood's reckless aggression in dealing with Tomlinson. The forthcoming misconduct hearing with the Metropolitan Police may well see the end of Harwood's career, but delays on the part of the Crown Prosecution Service have prevented him from being charged with actual bodily harm in the manner that he so clearly deserves.

The inquiry will reopen debate about the traditional model of policing by consent in the UK, highlighting as it does the continued breakdown of relations between the public and the police forces, particularly when policing large-scale protests within London. If it wishes to regain public confidence, the Metropolitan Police should begin by throwing the book at PC Harwood for the cowardly thuggishness that he showed towards Ian Tomlinson on 1 April 2009.

Ending Badly

So the Raoul Moat story is over, but for a few investigatory ends which have to be tied up. Accusations are beginning to be made that police were the aggressors in the final stand-off, that not enough was done to negotiate with Moat, but the 49-page letter that he sent to police threatening to 'shoot them until he was dead' gave every observer a fairly clear indication of how the manhunt would end.

The news is rife at the moment with different psychologists, eyewitnesses and media outlets analysing the final stand-off and events in the days leading up to it, and as you'll know if you've read my last few posts, I have an interest in the psychology of killers, so I'm officially jumping on the bandwagon. However, I am going to use a different analogy to look at the psychology involved - that of a poker player.

Caught on CCTV with his new mohican hairstyle, trained physique and bright orange clothing, Raoul Moat clearly liked to stand out from the crowd. In that respect, he was no different from a million other wannabes, simply waiting for an opportunity to distinguish himself. However, a man with Moat's ego was never going to be able to cope with the daily frustrations of an ordinary life, and he clearly demonstrated this in his violent actions towards his family and those who he felt had crossed him.

I have no idea if he played poker, but if he did, Moat would have liked to boss the table. He was clearly a man who loved to feel in control of a situation, which will have been necessary to him to compensate for the lack of control he felt over his life. His angle would have been aggression, pure and simple, raises on top of re-raises, and speech play to intimidate his opponent.

As is often the way with wannabes, they get themselves into trouble by biting off more than they can chew. Moat liked to be thought of as a hard man with links to a shady criminal underworld, though that image will be challenged somewhat by eyewitness reports, who had heard him say to police negotiators at the end that he 'didn't have a dad' and that 'nobody cared about him'.

It is an important maxim at the poker table that all successful players are aggressive, and this is definitely true. However, aggression alone will only get you so far, and you must employ it selectively or more techincally-gifted players will play back at you and leave you (to use poker terminology) drawing dead.

Likewise, if the police seemed inactive in the days up to the final events in Rothbury, this was a calculated slow-play designed specifically to trap the unwary. Rumours flew that they had drafted in armoured cars from Northern Ireland, that half of the UK's armed response units were in the immediate area surrounding the town. The message was clear. We are not messing around. All the best poker players know when to fold.

If the shooting of his ex-girlfriend's new partner was a poorly-timed raise, there was still a chance for Moat. He could have handed himself in, served his time under the label of a crime of passion, and possibly begun to rebuild his life. However, shooting a policeman was his suicidal bluff-raise into a player holding unbeatable cards and from that point on, events started an inevitable slide downhill as his chips sailed into a pot he could never hope to win.