Until this event came to public attention people were praising the restraint and sucsess of the police in keeping the protesters in check, and I really don't think this changes that at all. One officer acted impulsivley in a very tense situation and it should not take away from how well, on the whole, the cops managed these protests. People in the UK seem to have some sort of ingrained ideal that we have to take any oppertunity we can get to put the police down, but how many detractors are willing to put on a stab-vest and walk around Brixton or Peckham on a friday or saturday night?

As regards the "attack" istelf I think people need to have a big group-unbunching of their knickers. Had this been many other countries in the world the cops would have been setting off tear-gas, battering people with clubs and who knows what else. Shoving a bloke on his arse won't usually lead to some sort of heart-attack unless he already had some sort of pre-existing condition. I've been diving in to some pretty brutal mosh-pits for 10+ years now, I've seen people being shoved around, thrown to the floor, thrown in to barricades and other people... and not once have I seen someone have a heart attack. This guy was due to drop and the cop shoving him on his arse was the straw that broke him.