Even knowing the babylon as I do, I was appalled if not shocked by their behaviour at the nineteenth annual march of United Family and Friends of those who have died in UK state custody. Their presence was massive, cold and hostile with not the slightest iota of sensitivity to the fact that the people they were trying to intimidate were already traumatized by the loss of loved ones at *their* hands. (and the march was to a large extent made up of these people, not of "the usual suspect" leftist-type groups trying to speak on their behalf - it was organized, led and largely composed of the families themselves.) A helicopter circled photographing our peaceful gathering. They tried to clear us off the street with violence and intimidation and were met with dignified defiance. Especially moving were the testimonies of the mum of Demetre Fraser who supposedly "jumped ten storeys" to his death after contact with the police, although the injuries on his body seem far more consistent with being,um, beaten up by police, as opposed to falling from a great height - the righteous fire of word sound and power that she threw at the po po would've melted hearts less ice-cold then theirs... the son of Cynthia Jarrett whose death after a police raid set off the first Tottenham riots back in the 80s also stood out amongst the speakers, warning the 5-0 and the establishment they work for in no uncertain terms that the uprising was on the way... and all the testimonies from all the families of such people as Jean Charles de Menezes, Habib "Papa" Ullah, Ricky Bishop, Kingsley Burrell, Sean Rigg, Jimmy Mubenga (who died while being violently restrained by Group4Securicor private security working for UK Border Agency) and so many more were eloquent and memorable. The real intimidation began when the families attempted to deliver a letter to 10 Downing Street; this is when the police reinforced their lines and moved forward trying to intimidate us off the streets. It looked like they were beginning to encircle us in a "kettle" (where they surround you for hours and don't let you out) but we saw it coming and slipped out of it. Bro Neville who has racked up quite a few hits on youtube with his eloquent explanation of the London riots (see "clapham junction speaker on london riots" or a similar search term) was picked out of the crowd and violently arrested, clearly targeted as an outspoken person who would not be intimidated by them, and people who attempted to go to his aid were threatened with arrest. While I didn't see it, I heard that several of the actual family members of victims of police violence were also attacked and handcuffed by the police, but were released due to pressure from the crowd. Anyone who had any doubts about the role police play in society or that they are there to protect us or even a "neutral force" "upholding the law" would have had their illusions shattered if they attended this march. It was good to see the unity of so many people of all walks of life in the crowd, and especially to see so many grassroots people, black people and rastafari people standing up to our oppressors with defiant dignity. Even when the organizers directed people to leave at the request of the families, the police continued their intimidatory tactics, with a massive long line of them following us as we left. To sum it up, fire bun the po-lice and the ruling class who are the only people they really "serve and protect." More details are in the article below... having been there I can vouch for the accuracy of all that's said, although I don't share the author's distinction between more "reasonable" police and "bad cops"... to me they're all bad. Even individual cops who might not be as brutal or racist as their collegues and who might genuinely want to help people are ultimately working for an unfair system enforcing unfair laws that exist to benefit the rich at the expense of the poor, so I don't have any time for the "good cops" either. If they were really "good" they would have had enough conscience and character to throw down their badges right there and then and join we the people protesting instead of standing by their vicious mad dog macho bully boy colleagues (which includes black cops, female cops etc. etc. btw).