Comment on 'Palestine Action activist struck officer with sledgehammer', court hears
PhobosAnomaly@feddit.uk 1 day agoI mean, there’s a lot to unpack there and for the most part, it appears to me that your view of policing and mine are vastly different, but you’re entitled to your own view and I’m not arsed one way or the other.
Is it the terrifying, weapon wielding, hark back to the middle ages, violent attack it’s been portrayed by those it benefits to portray in that way? No.
This though? Absolutely not. You’re justifying life-changing violence to fit narrative you’re presenting. If smashing someone - anyone - in the back with a fucking sledgehammer isn’t a “middle ages, violent attack”, then swinging at them again certainly is.
It clearly wasn’t brought just to fuck people up, it clearly wasn’t used at its full potential or there would be officers dead.
I think this is where the disconnect in the logic lies. I’m quite sure it wasn’t brought for violence, but the issue is that the person turned their attention on the cop, and then used the sledgehammer as a weapon. They have made the conscious decision to change their intent from smashing up whatever they wanted to, to intentionally caution injury. Regardless of anyone’s experience using hammers, swinging a bit of heavy metal on the end of a big stick at someone is going to ruin someone’s day at the very least, or in this case, fracture someone’s spine. Anyone who claims that “oh I didn’t think that was going to happen” ought to lodge a special defence of insanity.
All this, and judging by journalists reports, there isn’t any clear evidence of state-sponsored violence to be seen.
Motive or otherwise, some clown has slammed a sledgehammer into someone’s back twice and is now hiding behind Palestine Action’s statement of purpose.
Zombie@feddit.uk 1 day ago
Aye, I understand my disdain of policing isn’t the norm. I’m not even completely against having a police force, but there is a severe lack of accountability and consequences for the current police in their many unjust, often illegal, actions.
I think the only constructive thing left to say, without seeing the evidence ourselves, is two things.
One) is to note this article is written almost entirely from the state’s perspective which illicits an automatic sense of right and sympathy in readers.
Two) is to reiterate that we have, as a society, no qualms about the thought of people being smashed over the head with a police baton, but when the reverse happens it’s viewed as barbaric.
If the video is released we can judge for ourselves, but at the moment, I’m firmly in the camp of “they do it to us regularly, in the name of preventing genocide why can’t we do it back?”
If video evidence proves otherwise, fair enough. But they’ve not released it and seem to be making a huge deal of the term sledgehammer when it could be any blunt force instrument.