Moment protester is wrestled to the floor after setting fire by gates of Buckingham Palace
21 December 2022, 05:20
This is the moment a protester is wrestled to the ground outside Buckingham Palace after he set a fire outside the gates.
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The footage shows the blaze on Monday evening, before an officer approaches the man and pins him to the pavement, shouting: "Get on the floor! Relax, get down and stay down, alright.
A second officer then tells the suspect that he is under arrest. The motivation for lighting the fire is unknown.
A Met Police spokesman said: "Shortly after 22.08hrs on Tuesday, 20 December, a 30-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of causing criminal damage after a small fire was seen near the Buckingham Palace gates.
"The man has been taken into custody. The fire has been extinguished."
@DailyMailUK Protester burning stuff at Buckingham Palace pic.twitter.com/Tn1O2twyoK
— Kai Jiun (@CogenJ10) December 20, 2022
It comes after an apparently unrelated protest by environmental activists on Monday morning close to Buckingham Palace.
Some 30 Just Stop Oil protesters sat down on the Mall, blocking traffic on the busy thoroughfare, which runs up to the palace gates.
Student Ailith Stewart, 20, said: "I'm taking action with Just Stop Oil because I'm tired of feeling ignored by the government at Westminster.
Tom Harper says the police have been using 'caution rather than common sense' at eco-protests.
"Their decisions don't represent the best interests of the people. There is so much that can be done to mitigate the climate crisis, but this government seems intent on 'ignoring it all and making ordinary people suffer in the name of profit.
"If there's any chance we can show them that the people won't stand for it, I want to take it. There's more of us than there are of them, and we're where their power comes from."
