1. A four minute video showing police arresting a man and throwing him on the ground at the Sydney Mardi Gras is going viral. In the video, a police officer is seen to throw the handcuffed man to the ground. The 18-year-old man is shouting “I did nothing wrong”.
The man has seen been charged with assaulting police, resisting arrest and offensive language.
2. A second teenager has been arrested over charges relating to the death of Thomas Kelly in July last year. The 18-year-old was charged with hindering the police’s investigation, common assault and stealing. He’ll appear in court at the end of March. Thomas Kelly when he was king hit on the streets of Sydney’s Kings Cross. Another man was arrested at the time and is still before the courts.
3. A four-year-old girl has died in a house fire in the NSW suburb of Claymore. A police statement said the girl’s mother and twin sister managed to escape the blaze. “Initial inquiries suggest the girl’s mother smelt smoke coming from an upstairs bedroom and went to investigate… The woman was able to retrieve one of her two children but was forced back by the flames.” Firefighters don’t know what caused the blaze.
4. A man who disguised himself as Batman and handed a criminal into police in the UK has unmasked himself. ‘Batman’ has been revealed as 39-year-old Stan Worby – who works as a Chinese takeaway delivery driver. Mr Worby said he was wearing the Batman costume when he turned up at the police station on Monday because he’d been wearing it at a football game. He received a call from a friend on the way home asking Mr Worby to take him to the police station because he was wanted for questioning.
5. New research has revealed a mother’s stress levels can impact her unborn baby. Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania found stress can be transmitted to placenta which can then affect levels of protein the development of a baby’s brain, which could explain links to autism and schizophrenia.
6. The Dow Jones has hit a record high, topping levels last seen before the Global Financial Crisis.
Top Comments
Over on the ninemsn site there is now new footage from just before this. I haven't linked to it here as the video doesn't seem to be working on the news report I just read (I did however see a 30second clip which shows the guy trying to kick the police in the face). The new footage from the period before this incident suggests that the guy was 'trading blows' with the police officers before the part of the night that is shown above. The footage looked even worse than 'trading blows' to myself as the guy is lucky he didn't do a serious injury to at least one of the police officers from what you can see in the clip!
I would suggest that the police were actually pretty restrained in finally doing what it took to get this guy to submit.
I'm sorry that it happened, and the above footage does look terrible, but from the moment I heard about it I had to wonder what had happened to start the situation. I still have no idea why this guy came to the police officers attention in the first place, but he was definitely not being submissive and he definitely didn't do 'nothing wrong' in his dealings with the police before the start of the above clip.
Call me crazy, but I have a certain amount of faith in our police officers. I believe they deserve a certain amount of respect even if for no other reason, on this topic, that the police force would have to know that everyone has cameras everywhere nowadays. They would have chosen their officers carefully for a big event like this, and they would make sure that they didn't post any officers who would be likely to start trouble (eg individuals with particularly homophobic views, or a demonstrated lack of patience). I am sometimes amazed at how calm a police officer can restrain in the face of a torrent of abuse, or other inexcusable behaviour.
I don't know who was in the right in this situation. I do know that I don't automatically believe the police were wrong based on this piece of footage. There is more information I would need first before making that call.
I think you need to update the first story with the video that has come out from another bystander, which clearly shows the man who was detained swinging violently at the policemen.