Video reveals PSNI violence

The Police Ombudsman is to be asked to investigate an incident
in Derry at the weekend in which a group of PSNI police were
caught on video punching and kicking members of the public.

The video recording appears to show one PSNI man push and kick a
young girl to the ground.

Other PSNI men used batons and threw punches in the arrest
operation in the Waterside area of Derry during the early hours
of Sunday morning.

One sequence shows a young girl being beaten to the ground by a
PSNI man after she confronted him. The girl was not arrested.

One man, Richard Adams, was arrested and charged with assault
and resisting arrest. The accused man's father, a member of the
Labour Party, said his family and others would launch civil
actions against police.

Video footage was shown to several journalists in the offices of
Derry's Social Environmental Alliance (SEA) party on Monday.

SEA spokesman Eamonn McCann said "it was clear" that the footage
showed PSNI members behaving in "an improper and totally
unacceptable" way.

"Pending a full investigation, we call for the suspension of the
PSNI officers shown on the tape," he added.

Around 25 of the defendant's family, friends and SEA members
held a protest outside the courthouse about the police handling
of the operation.

Sinn Fein's Mitchel McLaughlin said: "This is evidence that
nothing has changed.

"This police force has been a haven for human rights abusers and
these actions prove that.

"What we have is a heavily armed group of people who act without
redress.

"It underlines the need for a fully accountable police service
in the north of Ireland."