Posts Tagged ‘brutality’
Anti-Social Police Behaviour
Out Of Control
The British police are out of control. Far from becoming a politically correct “service”, they’re moving more and more towards the “force” ethos, promoting their own self-interest and resisting all attempts to be subject to democratic control. The sooner we get elected police commissioners the better. Those presently in charge of the police increasingly place themselves above the law and regard the public as the opposition, not the people they are paid to protect and serve.
They’re even trying to frighten us over the spending cuts, suggesting that any reduction in police budgets will lead to increased crime and disorder. What other public service with its budget under threat uses direct fear of violence as its response? I call that scaremongering. I call it precious close to a protection racket, to blackmail and extortion.
The police are very, very good at road accidents. There are brave and clever men and women in anti-terrorism and serious crime. But we lost the British bobby sometime ago now. I’d say it was in the 1990s. Dixon Of Dock Green had retired to the other side of the world. Jack Regan was supposed to have gone but he returned disguised as Gene Hunt. The TSG continued its long tradition of brutality providing a career path for violent thugs. The term “institutionalised racism” was coined. The cars got faster. The uniforms got sexier in a Nazi stormtrooper sort of way. Meanwhile, in parallel, the gay rights, politically correct, sociology graduates and new Labour bureaucrats gained influence and these two factions, fundamentally incompatible, consumed huge quantities of police time and procedure, and eventually created a perfect storm of bureaucracy, corruption and laziness. The police lost touch with the people completely.
The police don’t want to be accountable to anybody. Even when they assault members of the public, even when innocent bystanders die at the hands of police officers in disguise, they close ranks, obstruct justice, lie, cheat and dissemble to avoid the consequences. Now, Sir Paul Stephenson, not content with the way his officers pervert the criminal justice system, wants some sort of immunity from the civil courts. His secret letter to Theresa May, seeking protection against officers being sued for brutality or wrongful arrest is a disgrace. See here. It reveals his true intentions only too clearly. He even wants to charge for requests under the Freedom Of Information Act, further tightening the police culture of secrecy and concealment. It is truly terrifying that Britain’s most senior police officer should even contemplate such ideas. It is the very opposite of responsibility and conclusive proof that he is not a fit and proper person to be any sort of policeman, let alone commissioner of the Metropolitan police. Theresa May should dismiss him immediately. He is a power hungry, manipulative, enemy of justice. No sort of protector or champion or servant of the public at all.
When it comes to the brutal assault by Sergeant Delroy Smellie on Nicola Fisher or the death of Ian Tomlinson, clearly caused by PC Simon Harwood, most of us would be prepared to accept the “bad apple” argument. Yet somehow, in the Nicola Fisher case, District Judge Daphne Wickham was persuaded to refuse to hear Ms Fisher’s statement in court. Somehow, over a year and a half after Ian Tomlinson was killed, PC Harwood has still not been called to account for his actions and is still suspended on full pay. Neither have his colleagues who blatantly lied and tried to cover up what had happened. The truth is these men are not bad apples. They are the deliberate product of the Met’s Territorial Support Group (TSG). In hiding their identification and using brutal, disproportionate violence, they are entirely consistent with the culture and training that their senior officers have designed.
Hero
Of course, there are still good cops, selfless, conscientious heroes like PC Bill Barker who genuinely seek to serve the public. He gave his life while protecting people during the Cumbrian floods. See here. He deserves every honour that we can bestow on him. He shames all those corrupt, cowardly bullies that infect our country, that hide in their offices and cars, that display their vile and despicable attitudes on the Inspector Gadget website. Officers like PC Barker are now in the minority, in full scale retreat, ridiculed and excluded by a wannabe Gene Hunt culture that has attracted more and more borderline psychopaths to the paramilitary uniform and fast car culture.
Role Model
Now they don’t even think that anti-social behaviour is police work. It’s not exciting or glamorous enough. In the early noughties in North Kensington, I saw how the police completely lost control of the Avenues, the terraced houses between the Harrow Road and Queens Park. The police from Kilburn and Paddington Green stations were in full scale retreat, absolutely impotent and useless in the face of gangs of kids aged 10 – 16, on the streets at all hours, abusing people, keying cars, throwing eggs and laughing at any authority or discipline. Those hooligans and yobs are now breeding and the police are reaping what they’ve sown. I expect their solution will be violence and “fit-ups”. They’re no different from the lowlife, layabouts themselves. They’re just two sides of the same coin.
Illegal Weapon
The Raoul Moat affair revealed how the police have lost the plot. While some officers proved their courage and worth, others indulged in an orgy of technology, expense, hiding behind their procedures and precautions. Others used banned super-Tasers, illegally obtained from their cronies in the arms industry and undoubtedly caused the death of the mad nutter. Not a bad result but achieved in a dreadful way. It was a dismal and demeaning epsiode for all concerned. See here.
Corruption is endemic in the police. It starts at the beginning of every shift and continues off duty. At its worst, it’s the disgusting spectacle of PC Stephen Mitchell in Newcastle, who inflicted his sexual desires and drug appetite on those he arrested. See here. At the everyday, commonplace level, it’s the copper who confiscates a bag of weed and takes it home to smoke himself, or who brutalises a wheelchair bound medicinal cannabis user. It’s the thugs who think it’s acceptable to terrorise and batter an old man over a motoring offence. See here.
Elected police commissioners are our only hope. I applaud the coalition government for bringing forward this proposal and acting on it. I see no other way of rolling back the Stasi-like culture that the Labour party has allowed to flourish. Beware though, those that put themselves forward for election as a commissioners are in the front line. They risk the attention of the police establishment in ways that we cannot yet know. I wonder how many candidates will have their personal lives investigated and possibly fabricated? Any prospective commissioner who wants to disrupt the comfortable life of the police may find himself in the firing line. All sorts of inconveniences, stops and searches, investigations and embarrassments may be just around the corner.
The police want us to believe that if they are squeezed in the spending review we will face danger, disorder and violence in the streets. Instead, what we must do is paralyse the police bureaucracy, starve it of the resources it needs to promote its self-fulfilling prophecies and force officers back onto the streets. We will pay for shoe leather but not for air conditioned limousines. We will support bobbies on the beat but not poseurs in flashy SUVs. We will not tolerate any sort of discrimination or favouritism. No officer may be a freemason or belong to any secret organsation. We must fight for the soul and integrity of our police service against the corrupt thugs that have infiltrated it.
The British people deserve police officers they can be proud of.
British Justice On Trial
Thugs, Slimeballs And Grunts
At last, four of the Metropolitan Police’s Territorial Support Group are to stand in the dock charged with assault causing actual bodily harm and a jury is to decide their fate. They are PC Nigel Cowley, PC Mark Jones, PC Roderick James-Bowen and DC John Donohue.
He's Got To Go
Perhaps Keir Starmer, Director Of Public Prosecutions, thinks he will win back some credibility through this after his catastrophically bad judgement in the Ian Tomlinson case. Not a bit of it. In fact, the decision to prosecute now after a successful civil claim against these thugs, proves how negligent the original decision was. The CPS is charged to uphold the public interest by statute. It should not have to be harried to the Court reluctantly by civil action. Yet again, Keir Starmer should hang his head in shame. In fact, he should resign
These officers have already been proven on the balance of probabilities to have illegally assaulted Babar Ahmad in 2003. Last year the High Court heard that he was subject to “serious, gratuitous, prolonged, unjustified violence” and “religious abuse”. Now the criminal courts will seek to extend that proof to beyond a reasonable doubt. Meanwhile, the Met, which decided against any disciplinary action, chooses not even to suspend these proven thugs and bullies. Sir Paul Stephenson should join them in the dock. His disrespect for due process is astounding. How can he have such men under his command? The IPCC also failed in this case – yet again. In 2007, it decided to take no action against any of the officers.
Keeping Mum
Almost every day now, new horror stories of illegal, brutal or simply dumb police behaviour are revealed. This is the reward we have reaped from the massive investment and huge increase in salaries we gave to the police in the 80s. According to my contact with inside knowledge it is due to a “collapse in supervision…and an arrogance due to few cops having much other work experience”. The police service is no such thing for the average British citizen. It is a self-serving bureaucracy with an aggressive sub-culture, acting as a revenue generating workforce for the state. It is institutionalised racism, brutality, prejudice, bullying, corruption, cowardice, freemasonry, all dressed up in a jack-the-lad, paramilitary uniform. It isn’t even any good at what it does. Aside from dealing with road accidents and high-level anti-terrorism, I know of little good work done by the British police. It has become an out of control monster that avoids doing what the public wants and picks and chooses what to devote its resources to.
PC Simon Harwood
If Keir Starmer can reverse his decsion on these thugs who beat up a suspected terrorist, he can also reverse his decison on the fatal assault on Ian Tomlinson, an entirely innocent bystander. Meanwhile we await impatiently the coroner’s inquest on his death and the disciplinary hearing against PC Simon Harwood, which must be held in public in accordance with the statutory provisions.
Every time that a police officer breaks the law or exceeds his powers he breaches our trust. It is the same as a bank employee stealing from his bank. It must be punished particularly severely. This must be the standard that British police adhere to. We must never relent from calling the corrupt and incompetent to account.
We Wait For Justice
Whether a conviction is possible in this latest case, seven years after the events took place, I don’t know. On the basis of its own rules the CPS must believe a conviction is more likely than not or it wouldn’t be proceeding . Justice delayed though, is justice denied for Babar Ahmad and the policemen. This repeated and continuing incompetence by the prosecution and regulatory authorities is every bid as dangerous as the deterioration in the police. Suspicions of corruption, collusion and conspiracy are inevitable and must be answered. These are serious threats to British justice.
The Right To Bear Arms
Truth, justice and freedom are dead in the United Kingdom.
Our Freedom
We now live in a police state where brutality and murder is sanctioned by government institutions.
In the USA a citizen’s ultimate defence against state oppression is the second amendment to the Constitution and the right to bear arms.
We need this protection in the UK now.
Moat’s Last Moments. Are All Our Policemen Wonderful?
Almost Over
On Friday night they had Raoul Moat cornered at last. It was the culmination of something more akin to a military invasion than a reasonable response to just one deranged nutter. Northumbria Police had already made fools of themselves but we were all biting our lips, not yet protesting, hoping against hope that there would be no further casualties.
The first photographs from the stand-off were released and they clearly showed police pointing tasers. On BBC News the ex-police firearms expert was interviewed and asked why a taser couldn’t be used to disable Moat. He answered quite unequivocally that using a taser when a man has a gun pointed at his head was more than likely to result in him firing the weapon involuntarily.
First thing on Saturday morning and it was no surprise to learn that Moat was dead. What was utterly shocking was to learn that two tasers had been fired and the recording broadcast by the BBC revealed the shouting before the sound of the shotgun blast. The unavoidable conclusion is that exactly what the firearms expert had predicted was what happened.
I don’t have any sympathy for Moat. As far as I’m concerned a good case could have been made for him being shot on sight but I am very, very unhappy with the way the police handled the affair.
All Over Now
It may be that the denouement itself was handled properly. We will never know what really happened however many inquiries we have. What I am certain of is that overall the police should have done much better. Those far, far better qualified to judge than me have already said as much. I speak only as a concerned citizen.
I really worry about our police service. While I believe there are many brave, honourable coppers, some of whom are highly skilled, there are too many worrying indications that our police service is not up to the job.
There’s thuggery and the rank-closing covering-up and justification of it. There’s the appalling canteen culture which is at the root of all the institutionalised racism, thuggery and freemasonry. There’s the amateurish approach of senior officers who seem barely competent at times. There is inevitably some corruption but also a long-running deception that the decision to prosecute is at arms length. The police decide who to investigate in the first place. The CPS and the police eat in the same canteen
Look at the brutality of the police, the TSG in particular, at the Gaza and G20 protests and how they’ve got away with it. Look at the Inspector Gadget police website for an insight into the disgusting attitude of many officers. Look at the management of situations like the Cumbrian shootings and the Raoul Moat affair and the use of ludicrous, self-evidently bad ideas like the “kettling” at the Gaza and G20 protests. Look at the income generation from speed cameras promoted by some chief constables. Look at the absurd, intrusive, wildly excessive use of CCTV. Look at the ridiculous administration routines that many chief constables have imposed. Look at the insistence on retaining the DNA of innocent people.
The police are now very well paid. A starting police officer gets about twice as much as a starting soldier. They have wonderful pension arrangements. They’re also excused, let off and get away with behaviour that should never be allowed. Look at the thug, Sergeant Delroy Smellie , who repeatedly beat Nicola Fisher at the G20 protest and got away with it, or the officer who assaulted Ian Tomlinson, who later died, and who has still not been charged over a year later.
All the brave, honourable coppers are let down by those bad apples which myopic “support” of the police allows to rot and infect the rest.
The British police service needs a shake up. It is complacent and inefficient. Excellent work is done in anti-terrorism and organised crime but the truth is not all our policemen are wonderful. We need to face up to that truth and make some changes. Perhaps locally elected police chiefs are a way forward.
Thug Smellie Gets Away With It
Fugitive From Justice
Another miserable day for British justice. Another scandalous triumph for police brutality. Another incompetent, unforgiveable failure by the Independent Police Complaints Commission. “Independent” my ****. Weak, corrupt and pointless more like!
Sergeant Delroy Smellie, who should be languishing in jail for several years, in segregation for his own safety, has got away with his brutal assault on Nicola Fisher at the G20 protest. See the full story here.
This is a licence for British police officers to use violence and brutality whenever they wish, even when they are being filmed. Whatever the evidence they will get away with it.
It took the Metropolitan Police 30 years to admit they murdered Blair Peach. Somehow, in the face of the crystal clear facts they have been able to get Smellie off the hook. This failure of the Courts and the IPCC to call him to account can only be corrupt. There can be no other explanation.
What about the assault on Ian Tomlinson? He died after another Metropolitan Police thug assaulted him at the G20 protest. More than a year later we are still waiting for the officer concerned to be charged. What hope is there for justice for him?
Israel Must Be Brought To Heel
The Devil's Work
You can no longer use the excuse that your actions are a reaction to the persecution of your own people. You have become, in every sense, just as bad as the Nazis. Your arrogance, your brutality and criminality outweigh any moral latitude that you might once have been allowed. You are a pariah state, evil institutionalised.
As you parade pretty, blonde apologists before TV cameras, so the world watches the children of Gaza die at your hands.
This is no longer a debate or a worthwhile discussion. History will judge you as tyrants. You must be stopped.
Peter Reynolds 