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Witnesses Say London Police Posed as G-20 Protesters
By Robert Mackey
Last month we wrote that a photographer in London had written to The Lede to say that he thought he had witnessed undercover police officers trying to incite protesters to violence during the Group of 20 summit in London. This week, The Guardian reports that Tom Brake, a Liberal Democrat M.P. who observed the protests has come forward to say that “he saw what he believed to be two plain-clothes police officers go through a police cordon after presenting their I.D. cards.”
The Guardian reported on Sunday that Mr. Brake plans “to call for an investigation into whether the police used agents provocateurs to incite the crowds.”
According to The Guardian, Mr. Brake “says he was informed by people in the crowd that the men had been seen to throw bottles at the police and had encouraged others to do the same shortly before they passed through the cordon.” Mr. Brake told The Guardian:
“When I was in the middle of the crowd, two people came over to me and said, ‘There are people over there who we believe are policemen and who have been encouraging the crowd to throw things at the police,’” Brake said. But when the crowd became suspicious of the men and accused them of being police officers, the pair approached the police line and passed through after showing some form of identification.
This account matches the one sent to The Lede days after the protests. The Guardian added that accounts from other witnesses support Mr. Brake’s observations:
Brake has produced a draft report of his experiences for the human rights committee, having received written statements from people in the crowd. These include Tony Amos, a photographer who was standing with protesters in the Royal Exchange between 5pm and 6pm. “He [one of the alleged officers] was egging protesters on. It was very noticeable,” Amos said. “Then suddenly a protester seemed to identify him as a policeman and turned on him. He legged it towards the police line, flashed some ID and they just let him through, no questions asked.”
Amos added: “He was pretty much inciting the crowd. He could not be called an observer. I don’t believe in conspiracy theories but this really struck me. Hopefully, a review of video evidence will clear this up.”
As my colleague James Dwyer reported in 2005 in The Times, undercover New York City police officers have attended protests and rallies in disguised as protesters on several occasions. In New York, video shot by protesters at events seemed to show undercover police officers passing through police lines.
The Guardian reports that a spokesman for London’s Metropolitan Police denied the accusations, saying: “We would never deploy officers in this way or condone such behavior.” The Guardian also notes that Britain’s Independent Police Complaints Commission “has received 256 complaints relating to the G20 protests,” but has “no record of complaints involving the use of police agents provocateurs.”
Source: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/did-undercover-london-police-provoke-violence-at-g-20-protests/?ref=europe