page_title: Death of Ian Tomlinson
section_title: Operation Glencoe
hierarchical_section_title: Death of Ian Tomlinson / Background / Operation Glencoe
caption_attribution_description: Crowd at the Bank of England, at the G20 Meltdown protest in London on 1 April 2009
context_page_description: Ian Tomlinson was a newspaper vendor who collapsed and died in the City of London after being struck by a police officer during the 2009 G-20 summit protests. After an inquest jury returned a verdict of unlawful killing, the officer, Simon Harwood, was prosecuted for manslaughter. He was found not guilty but was dismissed from the police service for gross misconduct. Following civil proceedings, the Metropolitan Police Service paid Tomlinson's family an undisclosed sum and acknowledged that Harwood's actions had caused Tomlinson's death.
  The first post-mortem concluded that Tomlinson had suffered a heart attack, but a week later The Guardian published video of Harwood, a constable with London's Metropolitan Police, striking Tomlinson on the leg with a baton, then pushing him to the ground. Tomlinson was not a protester, and at the time he was struck was trying to make his way home through the police cordons. He walked away after the incident, but collapsed and died minutes later.
context_section_description: The G20 security operation, codenamed "Operation Glencoe", was a "Benbow operation", which meant the Met, City of London Police and the British Transport Police worked under one Gold commander, in this case Bob Broadhurst of the Met.
  There were six protests on 1 April 2009: a security operation at ExCeL London, a Stop the War march, a Free Tibet protest outside the Chinese Embassy, a People & Planet protest, a Climate Camp protest, and a protest outside the Bank of England. Over 4,000 protesters were at the Climate Camp and the same number at the Bank of England. On 1 April over 5,500 police officers were deployed and the following day 2,800, at a cost of £7.2 million. Officers worked 14-hour shifts. They ended at midnight, slept on the floor of police stations, were not given a chance to eat, and were back on duty at 7 am. This was viewed as having contributed to the difficulties they faced.
  The Bank of England protesters were held in place from 12.30 pm until 7.00 pm using a process police called "containment" and the media called "kettling"—corralling protesters into small spaces until the police dispersed them. At 7 pm senior officers decided that "reasonable force" could be used to disperse the protesters around the bank. Between 7:10 and 7:40 pm the crowd surged toward the police, missiles were thrown, and the police pushed back with their shields. Scuffles broke out and arrests were made. This was the situation Tomlinson wandered into as he tried to make his way home.
caption: Outside the Bank of England, 1 April 2009
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