Roads and tram lines were blocked in Manchester city centre on Thursday night by people protesting as a police officer was suspended after a video which appeared to show a man being kicked as he lay on the floor. Report by Covellm. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00What's brought me out today is the disgusting police violence against another black man,
00:14this time in Manchester at Manchester Airport. And Andy Burnham, I've just heard his statement,
00:20Andy Burnham's statement says there are faults on both sides. If people have broken the law,
00:26arrest them. But when they're down on the ground with their arms behind their backs,
00:31don't kick them in the head and stamp on them while their elderly mother is next to them,
00:36trying to protect them. The police, by virtue of being police, do not have the right to be violent
00:42and they are under the same law as everyone else. And if they behave in a way which is GBH,
00:47ABH or even further, they should be treated under the law the same way. He should be taken,
00:52arrested and investigated and charged with the crimes that he has committed.
00:57Until they're accountable for what they do, how can we hold ordinary citizens to account
01:02for what they do? The actions that the police took were absolutely appalling. It's not the
01:07first time something like this has happened, it won't be the last. The way the police is set up
01:11leads to things like this. It's not necessarily the individuals we need to get rid of,
01:16it's the whole system that needs sorting out and Andy Burnham needs to do that. You're a police
01:20officer for a reason, I appreciate you're going to get spat at and punched and whatever,
01:24but the reason you're a police officer doesn't give you the right to kick somebody in the head
01:29and stamp on their head, it's bang out of order. We cannot keep allowing people
01:35to look at us differently because of our colour. We are all human.