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All About Death of Ian Tomlinson
Ian Tomlinson (7 February 1962 � 1 April 2009) was an English newspaper vendor who collapsed and died in the City of London on his way home from work after being unlawfully struck by a police officer, Simon Harwood, during the 2009 G-20 summit protests
An inquest jury found in May 2011 that he had been unlawfully killed
Harwood, a constable with the Territorial Support Group of London's Metropolitan Police Service, was charged that month with manslaughter and was found not guilty on 19 July 2012 at Southwark Crown Court.
In September 2012, Harwood was dismissed by the Metropolitan Police for gross misconduct
In August 2013, the Metropolitan Police settled a civil action by Tomlinson's family by issuing a formal apology for its "use of excessive and unlawful force" against Tomlinson, and agreed to pay an undisclosed sum in compensation.
The first postmortem examination, conducted two days after the death, concluded that Tomlinson had died of natural causes after suffering a heart attack
Four days later The Guardian published video footage from an American banker, which showed Tomlinson being struck on the leg from behind by a police officer wielding a baton, then pushed to the ground by the same officer
The footage shows no provocation on Tomlinson's part�he was not a protester, and at the time he was struck was walking along with his hands in his pockets
He walked away after the incident, but collapsed and died minutes later.
After The Guardian published the video, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) began a criminal inquiry
Further postmortems, conducted by three other pathologists on 9 and 22 April, indicated that Tomlinson had died from internal bleeding caused by blunt force trauma to the abdomen, in association with cirrhosis of the liver
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced over a year later in July 2010 that no charges would be brought against Harwood, the officer identified as having struck him, because the disagreement between the first and later pathologists meant the CPS could not show a causal link between the death and the alleged assault
That position changed in May 2011 when an inquest jury returned a verdict of unlawful killing, ruling that the push and baton strike had involved unreasonable force
This led the CPS to review its decision and charge Harwood with manslaughter.
Tomlinson's death sparked a debate in the UK about what appeared to be a deteriorating relationship between the police and the public, as well as the degree to which the IPCC is independent of the police, and the role of citizens in monitoring police and government activity (sousveillance)
There was criticism of the news coverage too, the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, calling it "an *** of cop bashing." The incident was compared to previous deaths involving police contact or allegedly inadequate investigations, such as the deaths of Blair Peach , Stephen Lawrence , and Jean Charles de Menezes , each of which acted as a watershed in the public's perception of policing
In response to the concerns, the Chief Inspector of Constabulary, Denis O'Connor, published a 150-page report in November 2009 that aimed to restore Britain's consent-based model of policing
The Guardian hailed it as a blueprint for wholesale reform.