Policing - new material (74)
01 November 2005
"La partita di Paolo", by Giuliano Santoro, Carta, n.43, 28.11- 4.12.05, pp.10-11. This is the story of Paolo, a member of a Brescia football team's supporters club, who has been in a coma since travelling to an away match against Verona where his group, Brescia 1911, was among travelling fans who suffered an unprovoked police charge using truncheons after the match as they awaited the train back home in Verona train station. A witness claims that Paolo was taken aside and "was sprayed in the face with something" by police officers who held their truncheons the wrong way round as they subsequently beat him, including blows to the head. Once he had made his way back to the Brescia fans, "he threw up green stuff" and the police called an ambulance which took him to hospital, where he was subsequently operated for damage resulting from a blow to the head. The attack on the Brescia fans continued for almost an hour, leading them to write a letter to interior minister Guiseppe Pisanu, in which they claimed that the officer in charge shouted "Massacre them until I tell you to stop", and other officers goaded them by saying "Remember Modena" (where the Brescia fans were heavily charged a couple of years ago). When official information was made available, it reported that Paolo was "found" near the station, after being injured during "clashes with Verona fans". The article also highlights the problems that a raft of measures introduced at the start of the football season to counter violence is causing fans, including the requirement to buy tickets in advance of games (they are no longer available on the door) and to produce ID cards in order to obtain tickets. Available from: http://www.carta.org
Shot dead by police 30, Officers convicted 0, Robert Verkaik. Independent 21.10.05, pp 1-2. Article on police immunity in gun death cases, that was stimulated by the death of Harry Stanley. The Justice for Harry Stanley Campaign told Verkaik "The CPS and the Attorney General have illustrated very clearly that the police not only have the right to shoot to kill, but they will be afforded total immunity from prosecution”. Daniel Machover, the solicitor representing the Stanley family, said the "evidential bar had been set too high" when it came to considering charges against police officers.
Policing to defend the state, Dr Tom Williamson. Police Review, 4.11.05, p. 15. Article on the paradigm shift from "policing by consent" to "zero-tolerance policing" which considers the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA). On the future of the PSNI Williamson writes: "...the force, like its predecessors, may be destined to remain a paramilitary agency whose primary commitment is to defend the state against the locals rather than police by any notion of local consent." SOCA is seen as another example of how the "consent" model is breaking down: "There is little opportunity for local involvement in the regulation and governance of the new agency, which will be centrally controlled, in this respect." He notes that with Europol, the coordination of crime and justice arrangements across European Union member countries and the European Arrest Warrant "a pan-European paradigm of policing may be emerging."