Unnamed: The protester who died. Photo: public domain via Guardian

Photo by Alex Watts.

I’m shocked and saddened that a man died during the G20 protests in London yesterday.

Every death potentially related to police activity is automatically investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission. But while their inquiry is in progress, the truth about this incident needs to surface, and soon.

Mainstream media reporting has spun this story away from its most obvious potential substance — policing tactics — to the alleged behaviour of the protesters themselves who the police say attacked police medics trying to give assistance to the dying (or perhaps, dead) man.

The Telegraph dutifully repeats the police allegations as fact without troubling themselves with any corroboration:

[A]s officers went to the man’s aid, they were pelted with bottles and other missiles, forcing them to retreat.

The Times at least paraphrases its source:

The Met said that as the officers tried to revive the man they came under attack from protesters who threw bottles at them

The Guardian is also happy to repeat the story without corroboration:

A man died last night during the G20 protests in central London as a day that began peacefully ended with police saying bottles were thrown at police medics trying to help him.

Meanwhile over on Twitter, @jdodds writes:

Talking to eye witnesses from yesterday.protester who died had symtoms related to a head wound.was seen to be hit by truncheon

If true, this puts a wholly different light on events. There isn’t any dispute that the man died within the police cordon near the junction of Birchin Lane and Cornhill between 7 and 8pm yesterday. Did he die from natural causes? Were these aggravated by effectively being detained on the street, possibly without food or drink? Did he suffer a head wound and was it caused by the police? Did the cordon itself prevent him receiving timely treatment? How did the other protesters react? Violently? Helpfully?

We don’t know, but given that the police have been very quick to tell the tale about the “attack” on them by protesters but were wholly unable to give any indication as to why the man may have died, it’s about time we found out.

As I write there is a protest against the man’s death taking place near the Bank of England, where tributes have been left.

R.I.P.

You may remember that this is the place where the council spent £15,000 to remove a set of steps on which young people liked to sit. It’s also the place where a housing association sees fit to impose a 9pm curfew on its tenants’ children.

Now the borough’s police and town centre retailers have teamed up to hand out “Positive Citizen” discount cards for local shops and businesses to the area’s youths — which they’ll lose if they misbehave.

Most young people are perfectly capable of staying out of trouble. They need neither a reminder nor an incentive to do the right thing. For those that aren’t, particularly those who misbehave habitually or impulsively, I’m sceptical whether the prospect of a future discount at McDonalds or Top Shop will be enough to prevent the current guilty thought progressing to a guilty act. The very nature of the scheme, which requires youths to apply formally for membership, will likely repel and exclude those already dismissive or suspicious of authority.

But the real problem isn’t that it’s unlikely to work, it’s that it’s likely to further muddle and weaken the notion of citizenship among young people in general. Citizenship works best when citizens have a common collective purpose and mutual respect. The role of the citizen is largely informal, varied and often subtle. Beyond keeping the law and meeting our formal obligations, good citizenship requires our active participation in improving the life of the community. This might mean nothing more than a friendly and positive demeanour in the street, a helping hand offered spontaneously to those that need one, or a more structured effort to work towards the common good. We may feel a sense of satisfaction by doing these things, but the benefits are largely collective and often hard to quantify. The motivation is considerably more complex than a simple economic incentive, instinctive rather than calculated.

Conversely, the effort-leading-to-reward model, particularly when the reward is a discount on the high street, maps directly onto consumerist impulses which we know simply decrease satisfaction and reinforce existing social and economic divides. Beyond a certain level of security and subsistence, the more you shop (or think about shopping), the less happy you are. Tapping into young people’s already considerable status anxiety and offering rewards that can only be realised by shopping is a recipe for a lifetime of misery, not young people growing into adults whose instinct is to ask, “How can I help?” rather than, “What’s in it for me?”

UPDATE 10 August 2008 from the Sutton Guardian:

Dr Roy Bailey, a consultant clinical psychologist, expressed worries that youngsters would need professional support once photo cards were withdrawn.

As always, truth is stranger than fiction.

Coverage elsewhere:

• “Junk food bribes for teens”, a2to.info
• “You won’t fool the children of the revolution”, Londonist
• “Sutton police bribe kids to be good”, This is Local London
• “Experts attack police ‘bribery’ scheme”, Sutton Guardian
• “Sutton police bribe kids to behave”, The Register