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Do the police make you feel safe, do you trust them?

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  • Indrid ColdIndrid Cold Posts: 16,688 Skive's The Limit
    Namaste wrote: »
    Where I'm from, if one of our mates was beat up or robbed, we'd sort it out ourselves. However, I'm not from the city.
    Which makes you a criminal as well. As well as still being in trouble with the other criminals, the police themselves will be able to come after you as well (even if they don't).
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Fuck the law, morality's where it's at.
  • Indrid ColdIndrid Cold Posts: 16,688 Skive's The Limit
    katralla wrote: »
    Fuck the law, morality's where it's at.
    I'm in complete agreement there (meaning that if I had a choice between something that adheres to my morals and something that's legal but nothing that would be both, I'd follow my morals) but that's opening a big can of worms.
    According to somebody else's morals, the fact that somebody torched your car justifies you to bludgeon them to (near) death.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    every time I or anyone I know has had any need for the police, theyve been pretty useless. I can see why theyre needed though
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Namaste wrote: »
    I think it depends on the crime...

    Where I'm from, if one of our mates was beat up or robbed, we'd sort it out ourselves. However, I'm not from the city.

    And if your house was burgled/car stolen/you were attacked and you and your mates didn't know the identity of the attackers, what then? Who's going to fingerprint the house, search for the car, check CCTV and do house to house e.t.c.?

    You may be able to sort out things for yourself if they're minor, anything more serious? I don't have much confidence.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Whowhere wrote: »
    And if your house was burgled/car stolen/you were attacked and you and your mates didn't know the identity of the attackers, what then? Who's going to fingerprint the house, search for the car, check CCTV and do house to house e.t.c.?

    Let's be honest, you couldn't have picked three things the police are less likely to achieve results over, or even to do anything about.

    Edited to add: I've been mugged, attacked, burgled and had my motorbike stolen, none of which the police seemed to deem severe enough to merit doing some actual police work, let alone getting a result. However, catch me getting lost driving round London and pulling over to try get my bearings, that merits a fifteen minute dressing down and been treated like a first-class cunt.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I think the police do a great job, i only wish there were more on the streets.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    katralla wrote: »
    Fuck the law, morality's where it's at.

    And where would that be ?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Which makes you a criminal as well. As well as still being in trouble with the other criminals, the police themselves will be able to come after you as well (even if they don't).
    I've broken the law plenty of times... I don't really care. It's getting caught I have a problem with.
    And if your house was burgled/car stolen/you were attacked and you and your mates didn't know the identity of the attackers, what then? Who's going to fingerprint the house, search for the car, check CCTV and do house to house e.t.c.?

    You may be able to sort out things for yourself if they're minor, anything more serious? I don't have much confidence.
    Once somebody injured me so badly, I needed stitches in my head. This was because they didn't like me, even though they didn't know me. If that rock she used as a weapon had been a little to the left, I would probably not be writing this.

    The police didn't help. They said the teenagers involved came from bad backgrounds and had family issues.

    My brother had his flat broken in to, they didn't help. He broke down crying in the station, a woman shouted at him.

    I would only use the police as a last resort, based upon my own experience. I would not go to the police at all, for something like a homophobic crime because the people I have met who have gone in to the police have either been homophobic, or believe that provisions for gay people shouldn't exist.

    My experience of course. I'm wary of anybody in power.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    And where would that be ?

    up my arse with the sun, of course!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    katralla wrote: »
    up my arse with the sun, of course!

    I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    oh, that's nice.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Trust police? No chance...
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Let's be honest, you couldn't have picked three things the police are less likely to achieve results over, or even to do anything about.

    Perhaps in some areas, we have quite a good clear up rate. We're constantly getting photos of people who've been identified in one way or another from a burglary or similar.
    Edited to add: I've been mugged, attacked, burgled and had my motorbike stolen, none of which the police seemed to deem severe enough to merit doing some actual police work, let alone getting a result. However, catch me getting lost driving round London and pulling over to try get my bearings, that merits a fifteen minute dressing down and been treated like a first-class cunt.

    I've read yours and Namaste's and I'm sorry you're unlucky enough to have a local police force that isn't up to scratch. Everyone has bad experiences, one way or another. My brother, as I said almost ended up in court because of one cop's sheer incompetence so I'm not immune either. But for everyone who has a bad experience, there are those who have neutral or good ones
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    The few experiences I’ve had with the police, they really don’t seems to care about the ordinary Jo, and I think some of them actually go out of their way to be as rude and make things as awkward as possible for people they think might have done something wrong, even if they have no evidence. They don’t seem to think how their actions will affect individuals at all.

    A few years ago my sister, her kids and her husband came round to my house after doing their big shop at asda. They were there less than five minutes when the police turned up, said they needed to take my brother in law in for questioning and then dragged him off in to the police car. No explanation at all. We had no idea what was going on, my sister and her kids were terrified. She couldn’t take them home as he had the car keys and the police were refusing even to go in and get them for her. In the end we had to call my granddad who lives two hours away to come and pick her up so she could go home and put her kids to bed. My nephew was so upset; he had his first accident in two years.

    When he finally got released, they wouldn’t even take him back to our house so he could pick up his car. And all the busses had stopped running. He had to get a taxi back to pick it up. By which time the 80 quid’s worth of shopping they had bought was completely spoilt. It turns out the whole thing was completely pointless. His old work had a car stolen, and they accused him. The police had absolutely no evidence that he had done it, and yet it wasn’t until he had been in there for eleven hours that they told him when this had happened and asked if he had an alibi.

    Now here’s the truly ridiculous part. The day the car was stolen was the day of his wedding! Which is down in his hometown in the south of England. It takes 14 hours to get there from Aberdeen. Our entire family was there for a whole week. At the time the car was stolen he was having his first dance with my sister. The whole thing was so stupid. They could have easily found this out right there on the doorstep and saved us so much grief.

    My sister’s happy memory of her wedding is now tainted because it took the police thirteen hours to ask one simple question. And three years later, my niece is still terrified of the police, she thinks there evil because they took her daddy away and has nightmares that they are going to come back and take everyone else away too. How exactly is this supposed to make me feel safe? Knowing that the police, who are supposed to be here to keep me safe, would rather harass me for thirteen hours than actually listen to what I have to say.

    Sorry I know it’s a huge post for this thread but I haven’t really had a chance to rant about it since it happened, and it just annoys me so much, knowing that my niece will possibly be scarred for life because of the actions of a few bully cops.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Whowhere wrote: »
    Being in the know, I know it should be drug dealers, burglars e.t.c. Their most common answers are generally, car parking/dog fouling/youths hanging around on the street.
    I absolutely love it when we take down a drug dealer or a prolific burglar. Unfortunately they don't hang around on the street drinking cider. If they did they'd be easier to catch :thumb:

    North yorkshire police - my friend had some kids putting 4/5 bicycles a day in their back garden, then taking them away later. Different bikes each day. To me and him it seemed obvious we were dealing with stolen property being hidden before it was moved on.

    He called the police, the police came round, took the bikes... then brought them back later that afternoon saying nobody had reported them stolen and that if they were unclaimed within 30 days my friend could keep the bikes. Of course, the kids came back not long later and took the bikes away again.

    I am not sure those PCs were so bothered about trying to catch some potential burglars. Imagine catching a gang of 4 bike thieves stealing 4/5 bikes every day. That could be 500 thefts a year or more they could be stopping.

    My experience has largely been the same - if its not ruining you, the police will generally shrug and put it on the list but get on with something else.

    edit: to that last point, when we had our house broken into they took 3 days to come round and just took a statement and gave us a crime number for the insurance. no fingerprints or anything. that's Leicester police force. when we had our windows smashed, again, crime number, thankyou, despite the fact we had traced the people down.

    It's almost like the police cant be bothered - getting the evidence to prosecute is difficult. If you have it land in your lap, great, +1 for the figures and targets. If you find a crime has occured, but need to try and find the evidence... fuck it, go find another 'criminal' to catch which will be easier.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    G-Raffe wrote: »
    She shouldn't have been dragged to the cell like that at all but I think the case has rested on the fact that the injuries she was claiming he caused, were infact caused by herself letting go of a door frame and slumping. Yes he shouldnt have been dragging her, but if she had been willing to walk calmly into a cell would this have still happened?
    As I said on the British Democracy Forum, the video doesn't show a woman falling after letting go of a door frame:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-11214026

    This judge Bean has to be a tosser of the highest order to believe anyone would think otherwise.

    Do I trust the police? I certainly have no faith in management, the inspectors and sergeants to tell the truth, if it's in their interests to lie. If there were ever standards for honesty, for turning in bent coppers, they're rarely honoured now (the WPC who turned Andrews in is the exception), as the police force seem to think they're at war with the public, and have formed the wagons in a circle. Sadly, police brutality is probably like an iceberg; we only see a fraction of it.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    A question:
    Suppose that you're the victim of a crime. If you wouldn't trust the police with it, what's the better alternative you'd choose? Let the criminals go free and unsought, or go after them yourselves? I don't see how either of these would be a better alternative than telling the police and risking that the officers handling your case would be jackasses.
    As Namaste said, it depends on the crime. Not because I might think I can sort it out myself, though, but because I wouldn't waste my own time anymore reporting something the police wouldn't bother to follow up. Even when I gave them the registration number of a car which knocked me off my bike they managed to cock it up, after all, so in practise, I would have to do all the leg work to have any chance of action and an arrest. The guy that mugged me a year later, for example, no chance.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Whowhere wrote: »
    I personally find it insulting that there is an insinuation, actually fuck it, a belief that I'm a violent, dangerous or untrustworthy person because of my chosen profession.
    No disrespect intended, but unless you've recently joined the actual police force, nobody's accusing you of being violent or dangerous. Plastic policemen are probably regarded as no more trustworthy than the real police, though, because they're the equivalent of the bully's weaker crony, always ready to support a lie when the teacher gets involved.

    You said your brother got some justice over an accident that wasn't properly investigated. Again, you've picked the one thing people ever do get fair treatment over. If no-one is physically injured, the police can ignore it. If someone is killed, like Tomlinson, the police can ignore it, with the help of a crooked or incompetent coroner. Only when someone lives to tell of an injury do the police have anything to worry about.
  • Indrid ColdIndrid Cold Posts: 16,688 Skive's The Limit
    Uncle Joe wrote: »
    As Namaste said, it depends on the crime. Not because I might think I can sort it out myself, though, but because I wouldn't waste my own time anymore reporting something the police wouldn't bother to follow up. Even when I gave them the registration number of a car which knocked me off my bike they managed to cock it up, after all, so in practise, I would have to do all the leg work to have any chance of action and an arrest. The guy that mugged me a year later, for example, no chance.
    They might not go after someone who mugged you, that's right. But if you've reported it and given a description, and a while later (even by chance) they catch them for a different crime, it will count against them.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Yes, but in my case, after I reported the mugging, I called them a month or two later, for an update, and they not only had no record of my initial call, but also no record of the two officers who came round to my house to take a statement, or the statement itself. As has been said before, sometimes the police don't seem interested in crime.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I'm your average law abiding citizen who makes the same minor transgressions as everyone else. None of us are perfect and we have all at some point in our life broken the law on more than one occasion. If you say otherwise you are being very economical with the truth.

    However, when I'm passing police officers in the street, or as the BTP walk down the carriage, I always feel a lot more wary and nervous. For some reason the sight of the police makes me feel guilty.

    I have had some negative experiences with the police, but I do not let that cloud my judgement of the police force as a whole. Generally when I speak to police officers like human beings (which they are just like you or I) I have found them to be reasonable and polite.

    Sometimes their knowledge of the law is lacking. I suspect the reasons for that are many. Firstly, there are far too many laws which are unnecessary and confusing. The last Government liked passing many statutes creating more and more criminal offences. It takes years of study, training and hard work for a person to specialise in Criminal Law as a Lawyer - our officers are given a matter of weeks to learn the criminal law (in amongst all the other basic training they receive). Secondly, the training they get may not be the best (indeed a book aimed at police officers in Scotland which has been written by senior police officers defines a common law crime inconsistently with the Court of Criminal Appeal). There are probably many more reasons, but these are two that I see as being quite significant.

    Do I trust the Police? I mostly trust them to protect me and my property, to act in a fair and just manner according to the law and to take all reasonable steps to ensure that they do not inconvenience the public. There are, of course, a small minority of officers who let the force down. However, they cannot (and should not) be seen as representative of all police officers.

    As a side note someone mentioned a couple of high profile cases. In the case of Jen Jean Charles de Menezes this was a failure of the system rather than of one single officer. An incorrect identification led to the sad death of a man. Indeed the Metropolitan Police Service was, quite correctly, prosecuted under the terms of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. They were convicted and fined.

    The case of Ian Tomlinson is a different kettle of fish. That was an assault plain and simple. Sadly, by the time the Crown Prosecution Services had had time to consider the case it had become time-bared and as such no criminal proceedings could be taken. Also, a more serious charge would have resulted in an unrealistic prospect of a conviction due to conflicts in the medical evidence. However, papers have been served on the officer accusing him of gross misconduct and I think it highly likely that he will be found guilty of this and as a result dismissed from the force. Of course, one should not try and pre-determine what verdict a disciplinary tribunal will hold, but the evidence is quite clear for all to see: the officer’s use of force as not justifiable and therefore unlawful. It is open to the Tomlinson family to sue the Metropolitan Police service and the individual officer jointly or severally in the civil courts (the MPS being vicariously liable for the actions of their officers). That is a decision that they alone must take.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Uncle Joe wrote: »
    No disrespect intended, but unless you've recently joined the actual police force, nobody's accusing you of being violent or dangerous.

    Erm, I am in an actual police force. Being a PCSO doesn't mean I'm in some sort of seperate force like police squad.

    And fair enough, I take your point about not being accused of violent or dangerous, however I still object to being described as untrustworthy or some sort of bully, when I'm really not.

    As for my brother, you misunderstand. He was involved in an accident that was clearly not his fault, he was hit from behind by someone doing over the posted speed limit. The cop who went didn't take his version of events, didn't note the position of the cars correctly, didn't even take any detailed notes. What she did do was immediately take the word of the guy driving the nice, big expensive car. Hence, my brother almost ended up in court. An inspector looked into the case, realised she'd made a massive, massive cock up, and sorted it out.



    I like to think I do a good job. I only do my job because I like helping people. I also like the satisfaction of investigating a crime from start to finish, following the clues and catching the culprit. And yes, I do investigate crimesm despite my rank.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-11865397

    A police related incident, thought I'd post it here for those who haven't seen it.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-11865397

    A police related incident, thought I'd post it here for those who haven't seen it.

    I think unless a police officer commits a truly ninja act of bravery and courage, the only time police tend to get reported on is when something goes wrong.

    That police officer in the news story BA posted, should have been driving more carefully.

    I dont know what to think about the shooting of that guy on the tube, it was a failing by the system and the command rather than an individual on the ground, but in their position if you had been lead to believe it was the person you were looking for, would you stop and ask if he was going to be a menace instead of taking the same action?

    People argue in that case that if they thought he was such a danger then they shouldnt have let him get on a bus in the first place, but surely that was because at the time they were unsure it was him. By the time he got to the tube, whilst it was a mistaken belief, they were under the belief that they had the right guy.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru

    Where are the masses of stories showing that many police actually do their jobs properly? These stories tend not to exist, not because of a lack of good police officers but because the media don't like making a fuss about coppers only doing what they are supposed to do.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    G-Raffe wrote: »
    Where are the masses of stories showing that many police actually do their jobs properly? These stories tend not to exist, not because of a lack of good police officers but because the media don't like making a fuss about coppers only doing what they are supposed to do.

    Good news doesnt sell papers
  • Indrid ColdIndrid Cold Posts: 16,688 Skive's The Limit
    Whowhere wrote: »
    Good news doesnt sell papers
    This is a topic for another thread, but it's not (necessarily) for any cynical reason. You read the paper to read about things that are different from (what should be / is expected to be) the ordinary. I don't think that "POLICE OFFICER STOPS MUGGER, GIVES PURSE BACK TO OLD LADY" is something anyone not involved would care to read. Much less so "SUSPECTED BURGLAR HELD IN CELL, NO INJURIES SUSTAINED".
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Whowhere wrote: »
    Erm, I am in an actual police force. Being a PCSO doesn't mean I'm in some sort of seperate force like police squad.

    And fair enough, I take your point about not being accused of violent or dangerous, however I still object to being described as untrustworthy or some sort of bully, when I'm really not.
    Agree to differ, there...
    As for my brother, you misunderstand. He was involved in an accident that was clearly not his fault, he was hit from behind by someone doing over the posted speed limit. The cop who went didn't take his version of events, didn't note the position of the cars correctly, didn't even take any detailed notes. What she did do was immediately take the word of the guy driving the nice, big expensive car. Hence, my brother almost ended up in court. An inspector looked into the case, realised she'd made a massive, massive cock up, and sorted it out.
    I don't think I do misunderstand. My point was that police officers often get away with a lack of attention to procedure, because no-one can point to anybody being really harmed, but when medical evidence is involved, mistakes are harder to gloss over.

    The public are just the same, of course. Twats will park their cars in front of school gates at dropping off/picking up time until somebody gets hurt, and even then, only stop for a few days.
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