No wonder that some good folks have founded Fit Watch (Forward Intelligence Team) to keep an eye on these loveable bobbies.
Sunday, 21 June 2009
Ello Ello Ello, what's goin' on 'ere then?
Don't ask policemen for the time. Certainly don't politely ask them why they aren't wearing their identification numbers, as legally required. That gets you a beating, then four days in a cell, without charge. Even better, the police themselves film it, presumably to show down at the masonic lodge or the policeman's ball.
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4 comments:
Ah jeez, Vole, not another one of these posts.
I know 5 people who are in the police (varying roles) - 2 are friends, 2 are golf partners and the other is my cousin (a female). They are all good people, doing good jobs.
In fact, I think 99% of police workers are good eggs - no organisation is perfect, after all. Just wish you'd give them a bit of credit, instead of constantly finding isolated cases and knocking them.
Considering this particular video is a) from the Guardian and b) has eco-hippies in it, I'll just ignore it. Those idiots just want trouble, and if that's "a beating", I would hate to show you a Bruce Lee movie.
Don't get me wrong, great blog, but the chips on both shoulders re. the police is a tad annoying. Even more so than your rabid socialism.
What makes knowing 5 people less anecdotal than filmed evidence? Constant incidents can't, logically, be isolated. They form a pattern.
I take your point, but I think you've missed mine: that it's the structure and context of policing that causes the problem. Yes, there are some rotten apples - but there's also a sense that being an officer excuses all sorts of behaviour that these people probably wouldn't engage in otherwise, because they aren't monsters. There are institutional problems, such as the removal of identification tags: whether a hippy notices or not, that's illegal. It's illegal for a very good reason: policing has to be democratically accountable or people will start to view the police as the enemy. If the police are hiding their identities in this way, it suggests that they are up to something for which they don't want to be answerable. Individual officers don't think this stuff up on their own - there's a culture led from the top.
Secondly, I've had plenty of experience with the police - some very positive, some very negative. For the record, I believe that policing by consent is essential, and the the UK police forces (with notable exceptions) are better than most, and certainly a lot better than the 1970s-1980s, when corruption and worse were rife and documented in a series of trials.
It's when they become politicised, or politicise themselves, that problems arise: the recent High Court judgement that the police have no right to build databases of protestors who haven't committed any crimes is a case in point.
Cheap shots about newspapers and hippies doesn't help - nor does the idea that they 'want trouble' - the same could just as easily and lazily be said of police officers. These particular people were exercising their rights - they don't deserve harsh treatment (and yes, the word 'beating' was ill-chosen).
Good stuff Vole. I just get a bit tired with them always being presented negatively, when they do a good job and a damn hard one as well.
I don't think my glasses breaking a bit earlier helped my mood either.
You're probably right that I focus on the negative though - and blogs aren't very useful for nuance! It's certainly true that it's a thankless, hard job.
Sorry about your glasses - I gather they're expensive (I don't yet need them).
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