A police officer has been filmed kicking and stamping on the head of a man lying on the ground at Manchester Airport.
The uniformed male officer is seen holding a Taser over the man, who is lying face down, before striking him twice while other officers shout at onlookers to stay back in a video shared widely online.
Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said firearms officers had been attacked while attempting to arrest someone following a fight in the airport’s Terminal 2 on Tuesday. It said it had referred itself to the police watchdog.
Anger has grown over the video and a crowd of what appeared to be several hundred people protested outside the police station in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, on Wednesday evening.
To be fair, while he will see more consequences than would be likely if this had happened in the US, it’s still pretty rare for police officers to be successfully prosecuted in the UK. More likely we’ll be looking at an IOPC investigation and internal disciplinary procedures rather than criminal prosecution.
I guarantee you that his career in the police is over. It’ll be interesting to find out more about the context, there’s clearly already been a lot of violence happening to the cops before the video starts. I’m certainly expecting criminal prosecution against him.
police prosecutions in the UK are done very quietly, I’m not sure why but you’re lucky to get one small story in the newspapers for even quite horrific crimes. There are perhaps not enough, but they do happen more than people generally think.