Of Police, demonstrations, dying, etc.

This account may sound familiar.

There is an incident involving the deployment of a number of uniformed police officers. There are also various members of the public present; some violent offenders, some completely innocent and some, no doubt, able to switch either way depending upon how they feel or how much alcohol they have consumed, or what their cultural attitude to authority (specifically the police) might be.

During this incident, a man is pushed over and later dies of a heart attack. The man who pushed him over was trying to push him, of that there is no doubt. But he wasn’t trying to kill him. The Coroner declared that the victim died of natural causes and the perpetrator was never charged with anything even approaching manslaughter or murder.

Sound familiar?

Here is where the story changes dimension.

The national papers cover it as a factual piece, BBC News Websites give it a bit but not too much and national radio is almost silent over the issue. Almost no one howls for summary justice or a special enquiry. Do you know of this incident?

The dead man was PC Chris Roberts, the offender was Patrick Savage and it happened almost invisibly in Brinkburn Gardens, Edgware on Boxing Day 2007. At first, when initial reports flashed out on the wires that a policeman had died during an incident in London, the media ran it as “Breaking News!”. As soon as the circumstances became clear, they binned it pretty quickly.

H/T Inspector Gadget