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Statements by Our Candidates in the 2005 Elections

Eamonn McCann, SEA candidate for Foyle and for Waterside Rural

PSNI Waterside incident

Monday, May 2nd 2005

The SEA has had lengthy discussions with the families of a number of young people involved with the PSNI in an incident in Violet Street in the Waterside early on Saturday morning. We have also been able to view a video tape of parts of the incident (see bottom of this page for some fragments of the video).

It is clear from the recording that members of the PSNI behaved in an improper and totally unacceptable way. The footage shows aggressive and belligerent behaviour by a number of PSNI officers, and assaults on civilians.

We are aware that some of those caught up in the incident are in the process of consulting solicitors. In the meantime, pending a full investigation, we call for the suspension of the PSNI officers shown on the tape behaving improperly.

Copies of the recording have been made available to media outlets, and to solicitors. We understand that the solicitors concerned are considering forwarding a copy of the recording to the office of the Police Ombudsman.

It was clear from developments this morning that the investigation of this incident will be followed closely by a large number of people. The SEA will be keeping abreast of the situation and will speak more forthrightly about it when constraints presently in place are removed.

The Video

If you're watching on a 56K modem connection then let the video load for a few minutes before clicking the play button.

This fragment of the video is about three minutes long and is 1.6Mb

This is a compressed and therefore degraded version of the original.






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