Passersby and suspects filmed a London policeman being violently assaulted, with one dancing a jig and taking a selfie as the officer struggled on the ground with his attacker.
The act of violence against a British officer comes amidst a climate of anti-police hate, which has so far seen more than 60 of Scotland Yard’s peacekeepers assaulted in the past week during Black Lives Matter protests.
Hackney Police’s Twitter account shared footage of the harrowing incident, which shows a small female officer screaming “Get back!” as young men circled around as her male colleague was being assaulted on the ground.
Hackney’s Basic Command Unit Commander Marcus Barnett said of the incident: “This is truly despicable, and society should never accept such behaviour — we are here to protect you! The officers are safe but clearly shaken and incredibly brave too. Arrests will be made… this must stop.”
The incident occurred after police in the Labour-run constituency stopped to help a member of the public believed to have been a victim of an assault on Frampton Park Road, Hackney, north London. The victim flagged down the police on Wednesday at around 3:30 pm and then directed them to their alleged attackers.
The Metropolitan Police said in a statement that an officer attempted to speak with one of the suspects before he resisted. The officer then attempted to detain him, and both then fell on the ground with the officer under the suspect, the two continuing to grapple.
Other thugs began swearing and shouting, filming the assault. One gleefully danced a jig while taking a selfie. Another appeared to be waving a baseball bat. Passersby also got out their phones to film the incident, with footage reported by Sky News showing one man walking past as if nothing were happening.
The unarmed female officer is seen pushing away other men while trying to protect her colleague; she is then pushed and kicked herself. At several points, she tries vainly to pull the much larger men off of her colleague, and strike another with a nightstick, but to little effect. Eventually, other officers arrived on the scene to conduct the arrests.
The officers are said to have suffered minor injuries and did not require hospital attention. So far two men, aged 20 and 38, have been arrested, according to the BBC.
Home Secretary Priti Patel described the incident as a “disgusting, violent attack” on British officers.
Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage called the incident “truly shocking”, saying: “This is being directly caused by hatred of the police — encouraged by the campaign to defund and abolish.”
Cop Hate is on the rise in the UK as far-leftists in Antifa and Black Lives Matter push to abolish British police forces, in the wake of the death of Minneapolis resident George Floyd while he was in the custody of officers in the United States.
A British academic has called for police to be defunded “immediately”, with Dr Adam Elliott-Cooper of the University of Greenwich calling for funding to be diverted to women’s shelters, mental health provisioning, and to stop targeting criminal gangs.
Black Lives Matter UK has so far raised over £830,000 which they want to spend on “strategies for the abolition of police”.
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