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Ok I accept that, and it's probably intended as more of a throwaway comment than anything else but again I must take issue with the 'standard police tactics'. If this is considered a proportional response to the level of resistance and force present (e.g. none) then I think we've got problems on that score.
I think that FIT WATCH have done a damn good public service by pointing out the bullying tactics of the Forward Intelligence Teams, who don't just collect evidence, they intimidate. Large elements 'preventative policing' model are code for supressing dissent, and quite a few officers appear take to it like ducks to water because they don't actually believe in or understand the role that peaceful dissent has had in maintaining the rights and freedoms they are supposed to be protecting.
The government has been trying through legislation to curtail accountability at virtually every turn and officers on the ground love it, because they can stop people pointing out when they're being naughty under the pretext of 'exaccerbating' 'the situation' when there usually isn't much of a situation until they show up and create one.
On Bishopsgate it went, in two sentences with one officer from talking about how genteel everything had been all day, to talking about 'dangerous elements' in the camp, that came from no where, even though he could give no indication of what he was talking about. They make it up as they go along.
But then again a lot are also drawn from familial and class backgrounds that mean their rights have never been taken away, challeneged or eroded - so it's no surprise that some don't see what all the fuss is about.
I don't believe banning proffesional photographers from taking pictures of a protest prevents "serious public disorder, serious criminal damage or serious disruption to the life of the community".
The police don't like themselves being filmed and in my experience they will use whatever law they can to stop it. Even laws they don't understand.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjS9L5BVAl8
(PCSO's but they're still the police.)
To arrest people to get them out the way simply because the police don't want them there, and not because they've actually commited or plan to commit a crime is worrying - unless your in favour of a police state.
Then we have the way people are treated whilst under arrest or in the process of arrest.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXFMIbkKMMc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6V3oUoffCE (check out the remark of 'quality' when his fellow officer smashes the drunk head againt the window)
The point is the police do behave badly sometimes and yet everytime there's evidence to suggest they have acted in such away people brush it off and give them the benifit of the doubt. People seem to have unconditional trust in them. That in my mind is plain stupid. It should be the other way round. These are people that have power over your freedoms and you should questioning their tactics.
Where as the police as an institution have been shown several times in recent history to be outright liars and be immune to dispinary actions even when people have died at their hands - Ian Tomlinson, Menezes, Harry Stanley etc
The police are overly violent sometimes, I don't want to keep posting video's but there'a wealth of evidence out there to show that they are. Yet people still defend them. Remonstrating with the police is (or at least shouldn't be) and arrestable offence.
I have a respect for the law, but I'm not going to give extra respect to another person simply because he's in a police uniform. Repsect is earned not given on account of having a baton and handcuffs.
Yes because, only people on the wrong side of the law get mistreated by the police? :rolleyes: Tell that to family of Mr Menezes.
Well that's aprt of my argument. I was wrongfully arrested and assualted and hospitalised by an off duty pissed up cop and his 3 mates. I got an apology yet they made it very difficult to make a proper complaint. I had chief inspector out yet in the end all I got out of it was some wanky little thing called a local resolution. It fuckign stinks.
Not surprising, considering that between 1969 and 1999 there were over 1000 deaths (thats not a typo) in Police custody - roughly one every ten days over the period.
Not one police officer, not one, during the whole period, has ever been convicted.
Skive's post isn't uncommon - the police complaints process continues to be highly suspect. Compare them to other professionals, Doctors for example, who have to abide by the GMC conduct for the seven domains of Good Medical Practice. One of these is maintaining a high degree of personal probity in their private life. The number of officers dismissed pales into insignificance against the amount of complaints lodged; complaints against the service that are upheld often receive paltry dealings such as a verbal warning.
For my part I think that police recruitment is the problem - Police officers should be paid and their role given the status of other professionals. The training period should be longer and standards for entry should be way higher.
I am sorry but I think there are plenty of front line police who are demonstrably not fit for the role - it is a vital role, with many responsibilities and skills needed to perform it, especially in a society where we are supposed to value freedoms and people can't just act as is expedient because they occupy a certain position.
Seriously, watch that film 'Injustice', and tell me everything's alright...
However i think the original story in this thread was not so bad as they made out.
With respect I think 'sure there are some bad ones' is a pretty dismissive response to an institution within which this number of people have died in their custody with no convictions, many of them as a result of complications with undue use of the restraint you saw on the tape.
If you want to understand where I'm coming from on this, and if you have time, please go and watch that film.
Yes, and how many are reprimanded because of it.
I'm not saying every copper is 'bad one' but those that are get away with being 'bad'. Simply because people are too ready to dismiss their actions, give them the benifit of the doubt and still trust the police completely.
If you want an effective and above all fair police force, then you have to accept that there are bad coppers and when they behave badly there needs to be some sort of punishment else they'll continue to think they're above the law. That is not what we have at the moment.
I totally agree. I do think theres a fine line though. Lots of what police are allowed to do classed as reasonable force isnt liked by the public, doesn't mean they shouldnt do it though, its often for thier safety.
Also because they havent been charged doesn't mean they arent dealt with.
For example forced to resign.
At the same time however, it has to be realised that a lot of things the police do that appear excessive or violent, really aren't, they just appear to be.
I've been taught that to get someone off a colleague to hit them as hard as I can on their solar plexus (ie the fleshy bit that runs over the top of their shoulder from their neck to the arms.) as hard as I can. (btw I could have got the latin name wrong...lol)
It looks extremely violent, but it doesn't cause injury. What it does do is disrupt the nerve impulses to and from the legs causing that person to involuntarily drop to the floor.
Likewise, someone rolling around on the floor holding onto someone recieves a knuckle into the pressure point on their jaw. It doesn't injure them but they soon let go of whoever they're holding onto. But it looks like you're punching them.
People in society are violent and agressive. They don't respond to niceties. When the police are soft on these violent people, they are criticised. When they use force on them, they are criticised.
Like the banker who was shot by armed police in London. If he had been a chavvy youth on a street corner holding a BB gun the police would have been praised. because he was a rich banker, even though he was shooting people the police were blasted by the media and public for using excessive force.
Obviously these things don't apply in this case, however people need to bear in mind that the police have to use force and it isn't pretty.
Reasonable force is somewhat subjective.
I'd argue that if the majority of the public don;t agree with their actions then they shouldn't do it and that something is fundamentally wrong with their tactics. Ultimately the police work for the public, or at least should do, and shoudl certainly be answerable to the, Insead the police do their best to keep they're beavior out of the public eye.
There are clear recent examples where the poilce have behaved innaproprirately and cases which have resulted in a deaths where nobody has been held to account simply because they're the police. That is wrong. And if those that die in police custody are only a small proportion of those mistreated by the police how many are there that have suffered injustice at their hands?
In many cases too, the police have been caught out lying. Yet they're still given the benifit of the doubt. the unjustified confidence in the police lets them get away with murder or litterlly manslaughter.
I'm not talkign about people who are violent. I completely understand the need to use force where somebody is being violent or resisting arrest (if that arrest is warranted).
However, backhanding a woman who's remonstrating with you is not acceptable. Pushing over a 50 year old man from behind whislt he was walking away is unnacceptable. Repeatidly smashing somebody's head against the road is unnaccptable. Shooting somebody dead with a table leg is unnacceptable. Riddling somebody with bullets on a tube train for running away is unnaccptable.
How many cops were punished for said unaccptable behaviour. A big fat 0.
This is the problem. They seem to be untouchable. And police for that is untouchable isn't one that has to worry about it's actions and therefore not one that we should unconditionally trust as so many of you do.
Not one of them seemed to understand why any of us might care, I got asked several times 'why have you come here?' as though the concept of climate change was completely alien to them.
They were petty, unpleasant and seemed to be going out of their way to be obstructive and make us miserable.
He wasnt even running away, he stopped to get a free paper in the tube station and then walked down the escalator. The stories about him jumping the barriers were false.
My problem here is not the techniques used, it is the presence of violence itself and the very fact of being subject to it.
I'm not a physiology major, so I wouldn't be able to comment on the long/short term affects of the techniques used but that is totally not the point.
It is complete unacceptable for a woman to be jumped on and tied up, subjected to visibly distressing restraint, without just cause. They shouldn't have even put their hands on people.
Putting up a technical defence of this, e.g: oh well this technique is designed to do x, it looks like y, but actually z happens and it isn't so bad' might be perfectly true...doesn't change a thing. They should not have the right to deploy these powers in this way.
Every time the police obtain more powers they use them to the fullest (and beyond), the last ten years has demonstrated this beyond debate. Terrorism powers, we were told, would not be used against non-terrorist targets. They are, they were, and continue to be - people being told to delete photos of poorly behaved officers under Terrorism legislation.
These aren't abberations; this is a policy and practice which has remained absolutely consistent.
SOME people in society are violent and aggressive, but most of the people we've bought up here who have been victims of police violence were largely passive victims of violence. There is a undoubtedly a public sympathy split on victimisation (e.g: the years and years that the Black community had to put up with, the reality of which was way worse than people commonly believe) but this public opinion in no way affects the appropriateness of officer behaviour
This in no way excuses any of the behaviour we have seen here - officers have not responded in a measured way; they turn at the drop of a hat, from being reasonable one moment to assaulting people the next - it's not even a controversial point.
In Waterloo station, there's a banner put up by the Evening Standard with the slogan 'Evening Kick Off' on it. It features an image of a police officer, screaming open mouthed, charging down Threadneedle street.
As Budda points out - de Menezes' story was subject to all kinds of awful lies, slander and propaganda from the Met, that we now KNOW are false. The G20, and all that jazz about Ian Tomlinson - LIES. All the way down the line you find the same Lash out and Cover up tactics - any other institution would not have come out without serious reprimand or image problems. But people still trust them, unconditionally, and berate anyone who speaks up despite the mountains of evidence.
Unless rank and file officers start respecting non-violent protest, and stop covering up for the excesses of their colleagues, this will remain a significant image. En bloc, I do not trust the Police service - because I've seen too much of their arrogant, contemptuous, aggressive manner and actions. And this makes me very sad.
I found it just a little too timely that the Police suggested that the man they shot in Forest Gate (his glove was apparently too thick) had child porn on the very day the negative report was coming out into the incident.
The Police leak and brief against those who they have wronged, they suggested that de Menezes was an illegal immigrant (he wasnt) as though that justified it amoung other lies.