Dalian Atkinson

[Vulgarian Visigoth]

Dalian Atkinson

For some reason, British cops have always seemed to me even more sinister than their American counterparts. It must be that sneaky phoney passive-aggressive middle-class air they have about them, almost like Tories. Well, actually many of them are Tories. At least the Americans have the decency of being obvious bastards.

[Bored Of Education]

Dalian Atkinson

The Met have the decency to be utter bastards. They put on faux-cockney accents as well and swear really badly at you by calling you a "tit'

[Patrick Thistle]

Dalian Atkinson

Le Dragon de Gaziantep wrote: Very early to know exactly what has happened here but it's looking like another black man killed by the police, perhaps the fact that he's relatively famous might make a difference here and prompt some kind of independent inquiry rather than it being swept under the carpet..

You do wonder if the copper(s) with the itchy taser finger(S) knew who he was or if they just thought 'big black guy coming at me, better zap him'.

[Lang Spoon]

Dalian Atkinson

The story will be about our brave Bobbies over stretched by the mentally ill, split second decisions blah blah blah. And nothing will change, and the Guardian will be shocked the next time riots break out over some Duggan style killing.

[Sam]

Dalian Atkinson

Bloody hell, RIP.

Various Artist wrote: That Mirror article Bored links to though makes you bang your head over their 'journalism' when the author hamfistedly attempts to manufacture fake pathos out of Dalian's "poignant last tweet" ("See you later guys! It's been emotional!"), completely free of context, despite the clear datestamp on it demonstrating that it was posted no less than 31 months ago in January 2014. As if the event wasn't sad enough on its own, the manipulative fucking cretin.

I was about to post exactly the same thing. The article almost seems ready to imply he might have committed suicide by cop, and then you notice the date stamp and realise it was just a way of saying 'I'm not going to use Twitter any more.'

[tracteurgarcon]

Dalian Atkinson

Was very saddened to hear about this today.

Dalian was one of my favourite Ipswich Town players when I was a teenager.

I'd missed most of the glory years, being 5 in 1978 and only 8 when we won the UEFA cup and my dad only took me to a few matches in the Robson era, so my main early memories are of our awful late '80s team of which Dalian was one of the few bright sparks.

He burst into the team, all power and pace, scoring the sort of goals you only saw in "Roy of the Rovers".

As a youngster, growing up in rural Suffolk, I'd never seen anyone like him.

He shone brightly at Ipswich for a season or so and then he was off to Sheffield Wednesday for the paltry sum of £450,000. Even then we knew we'd been robbed in typical Ipswich fashion and so it proved a year later when Ron Atkinson sold him to Real Sociedad for £1.7M.

RIP Dalian and thanks for the memories during a particularly shite period of Ipswich's history.

[Ray de Galles]

Dalian Atkinson

Lang Spoon wrote: The story will be about our brave Bobbies over stretched by the mentally ill, split second decisions blah blah blah. And nothing will change, and the Guardian will be shocked the next time riots break out over some Duggan style killing.

Oh yeah, because The Guardian is the paper with questionable coverage on events and issues like this? What a fucking pathetic diversion to take, for fuck's sake.

[jeanmid]

Dalian Atkinson

The Mail, Express, Telegraph and Times would of course report this accurately.

[Lang Spoon]

Dalian Atkinson

Was talking shite I know. I meant the general media ie from BBC and ITN to the majority of the inky press would excuse the cops (but I didn't write that- baked and not used to it now, logic not even fuzzy). The Guardian is probably best at coverage of these police killings, comment was made more that a lot of op-eds they ran post 2011 riots seemed surprised like It Couldn't Happen Here. Their reporting of US police brutality is impressive and in-depth and follows stories up (like the Chicago warehouse evil).

But UK killed for being Dangerously Black in Custody/while being arrested stories just seem mainly reported at the time/during hearing in the main and not really given background or follow up. There certainly seems little investigation post-Lawrence of systemic issues within police forces from eastern scotland to most points south.

And apologies for the diversion. RIP.

[NickSTFU]

Dalian Atkinson

My brother is a cop in Telford (it was members of his team involved in this incident). He insists that using tasers is the safest why of incapacitating an individual. I disagree with him because giving anyone an electric shock isn't safe. He argues that only those with underlying health problems are at risk. Well that's okay then.

If a person is in a high state of anxiety they are liable to sweat, this causes a break down in skin resistance and increases the risk of a harmful electric shock. This and a whole host of other factors, drink and drugs for example can reduce body resistance. It doesn't actually take much of an electric current to stop the heart, particularly over a few seconds. Current and time are the killers.

I suggest that tasers are non-lethal is frankly ridiculous.

I came across Dalian Atkinson a few years ago in a pub in Shrewsbury. He was then a football agent. I was having some lunch with my wife when he came and sat at a the table next to us.

He was loud, and swore a lot. It made my wife uncomfortable and so at after a short time I asked him if he minded toning down the language. He looked at me as he was going to rip my head off, I thought fuck, and then he apologised. He bought us a drink and when I said I recognised who he was we talked football. That must have been tedious for him, but he was sound.

But, yeah what a waste.

[Patrick Thistle]

Dalian Atkinson

He might be thinking safest in terms of his own safety rather than the people who might get tasered.

[NickSTFU]

Dalian Atkinson

Both. Which is why I scoff at the suggestion that using a taser on members of the public is safe.

[sw2borshch]

Dalian Atkinson

A female neighbour interviewed on BBC yesterdat teatime reckoned she saw the bobbies kicking him as he laid on the ground post the tasering.

[Paul S]

Dalian Atkinson

Updated reports on the Mirror website make for disturbing reading. Some quotes from that piece:

"My brother had lost it. He was in a manic state and depressed - out of his mind and ranting.

"He had a tube in his shoulder for the dialysis and he had ripped it out and was covered in blood," he told the newspaper.

"He got Dad by the throat and said he was going to kill him. He told Dad he had already killed me, our brother Paul and sister Elaine and he had come for him.

and

According to The Sun when the first Taser shot of 50,000 volts did not stop Atkinson he shouted: “It’s not working.”

It was when a second Taser also failed Ernest, 85, said his son then yelled: “I am the Messiah.”

A third Taser round left him unconscious in the middle of the road outside the house.

He was rushed to hospital where he later died.

Not good reading. Hopefully the inquest will reveal what actually went on and what the police did or didn't do.

[Jah Womble]

Dalian Atkinson

sw2bureau wrote: A female neighbour interviewed on BBC yesterdat teatime reckoned she saw the bobbies kicking him as he laid on the ground post the tasering.

Saw a similar interview on BBC News at Ten - the woman seemed happy (well, comfortable) to be on camera, named - and was very convinced by what she'd seen and heard.

Horrific story, however it pans out. RIP, Dalian.

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

Dalian Atkinson

NickSTFU wrote: My brother is a cop in Telford (it was members of his team involved in this incident). He insists that using tasers is the safest why of incapacitating an individual. I disagree with him because giving anyone an electric shock isn't safe. He argues that only those with underlying health problems are at risk. Well that's okay then.

If a person is in a high state of anxiety they are liable to sweat, this causes a break down in skin resistance and increases the risk of a harmful electric shock. This and a whole host of other factors, drink and drugs for example can reduce body resistance. It doesn't actually take much of an electric current to stop the heart, particularly over a few seconds. Current and time are the killers.

I suggest that tasers are non-lethal is frankly ridiculous.

Quite.

Weird that people trained in physically apprehending people would feel the need to discharge a taser, three times, at an unarmed man.

Like, it's the sort of treatment you'd expect to see delivered to an escaped zoo animal, rather than a distressed, unarmed man in his late forties.

The whole thing calls to mind a whole heap of racist tropes encountered whenever the police murder someone. The superhumanly strong, crazed black man bearing down on the terrified policeman.

[Satchmo Distel]

Dalian Atkinson

The witness was Paula Quinn and her account is horrific:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/dalian-atkinson-shot-three-or-four-times-as-he-lay-on-the-ground-claim-eyewitness-a7192441.html

[Mr Beast]

Dalian Atkinson

I can't see what justification they have for sticking 50,000 volts into him once, let alone 3 times.

[Vulgarian Visigoth]

Dalian Atkinson

Just get rid of them. The fact that they're not guns surrounds them with an air of frivolity. I think they're even more dangerous in the hands of officers who, not being used to carrying guns, haven't interiorised the concept of proportional force.

They're awful distopian things that make humans into cattle.

[Patrick Thistle]

Dalian Atkinson

The Times and The Sun both include the detail of the policemen kicking him while he was on the ground.

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

Dalian Atkinson

Re: earlier comment about the Guardian's coverage of police and state violence regularly being piss-weak, here's what the Guardian reports Paula Quinn as saying

Another resident, Paula Quinn, said Atkinson appeared to be “almost staggering” in the street before he was Tasered. She said he went down “like a lead balloon” after being hit by the stun gun.

Quinn said: “I heard shouting and something smashing, which is what alerted me to look out of the window. I am feeling a bit sick knowing that the poor lad has passed. I don’t care what anybody has done. Nobody deserves to die as a result of something like that.”

Here's Buzzfeed News quoting the same witness.

“He was staggering, and as he staggered towards them they opened fire with the taser and he fell to the ground like a lead balloon,” Paula Quinn, who lives opposite, told BuzzFeed News. “I could actually hear him hit the ground, and as he hit the ground the two officers just piled in on him and started kicking 10 bells out of him.

“That probably went on for a minute or two – it seemed quite long at the time, everything appeared to be happening in slow motion.”
According to Quinn, one of the officers then told his colleague “back off, back off” before they ordered the man to put his hands behind his back. “But I don’t think he was conscious,” she said.

“They reactivated the Taser about four or five times on him while he was on the ground,” she said. “I could see it very clearly – there was absolutely no threat to him whatsoever and I am absolutely shocked.”

Quinn, who said she had a “birds-eye view” of the scene from her third-storey home across the street, said: “I don’t know if he was perhaps inebriated or something but he certainly wasn’t threatening.

“I can still hear the boots kicking him, I can still hear it. It makes me feel quite sick.”

Same witness, similar language but the Guardian leaves out the most serious allegations of indefensible behaviour by the police.

[Vulgarian Visigoth]

Dalian Atkinson

I hope the family sues the cunt and there is a very high-profile trial.

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

Dalian Atkinson

Aston Villa are organising a minute's applause in the tenth minute of the match tonight.

https://www.avfc.co.uk/News/2016/08/15/atkinson-tribute

Is it just me or is this a grossly inappropriate way to mark the violent and tragic death of a former player at the hands of the police?

It's as if they're saying "let's ignore the injustice and anger felt about the killing of one of our ex-players at the hands of the state and politely remember that goal he scored".

[Bored Of Education]

Dalian Atkinson

Well, it was also the shirt number he wore for a lot of his Villa career.

To be fair, Villa are stuck between a rock and a hard place here. They would, of course, do this for any ex-player that dies and can't really be expected to pass any comment on the manner of his death. It would be for Villa supporters to, perhaps, also hold up banners during the applause or demonstrate at a different time. Whatever the manner of his death, the club and supporters will want to celebrate his life and mark his death.

There has been a lot of criticism about people sharing videos of his goals (or, let's be honest, that goal) instead of calling out the police brutality. I also think this view is harsh as people are going to want to celebrate him as a player in the same manner as they would any other player that died. I think that it is possible to do both, even if it is only adding the blacklivesmatter hashtag to their posts.

[Lang Spoon]

Dalian Atkinson

Bizarre Löw Triangle wrote: Re: earlier comment about the Guardian's coverage of police and state violence regularly being piss-weak, here's what the Guardian reports Paula Quinn as saying

Another resident, Paula Quinn, said Atkinson appeared to be “almost staggering” in the street before he was Tasered. She said he went down “like a lead balloon” after being hit by the stun gun.

Quinn said: “I heard shouting and something smashing, which is what alerted me to look out of the window. I am feeling a bit sick knowing that the poor lad has passed. I don’t care what anybody has done. Nobody deserves to die as a result of something like that.”

Here's Buzzfeed News quoting the same witness.

“He was staggering, and as he staggered towards them they opened fire with the taser and he fell to the ground like a lead balloon,” Paula Quinn, who lives opposite, told BuzzFeed News. “I could actually hear him hit the ground, and as he hit the ground the two officers just piled in on him and started kicking 10 bells out of him.

“That probably went on for a minute or two – it seemed quite long at the time, everything appeared to be happening in slow motion.”
According to Quinn, one of the officers then told his colleague “back off, back off” before they ordered the man to put his hands behind his back. “But I don’t think he was conscious,” she said.

“They reactivated the Taser about four or five times on him while he was on the ground,” she said. “I could see it very clearly – there was absolutely no threat to him whatsoever and I am absolutely shocked.”

Quinn, who said she had a “birds-eye view” of the scene from her third-storey home across the street, said: “I don’t know if he was perhaps inebriated or something but he certainly wasn’t threatening.

“I can still hear the boots kicking him, I can still hear it. It makes me feel quite sick.”

Same witness, similar language but the Guardian leaves out the most serious allegations of indefensible behaviour by the police.

I wonder if they have very edgy beaks in the Guardian legal affairs team? Or are they trying to mend relations with the filth following undercover cop infiltration scandal?

They were similarly murderous plod friendly following the death of Sheku Bayoh in my old town a year ago. Only when other media started reporting sceptically on the cops' actions/excuses/refusal to engage with police complaints authority did the family and their lawyer get prominence in their articles, as opposed to a line from Aamer Anwar at the end.

Though that may be due to the hopeless and odious Severin Carrell being the reporter, rather than institutional bias or cowardice.