The Policeman's Blog

...Those fella's are in desperate need of a wood shampoo. Hopefully the troops responding will snag them and administer same. I'm retired, but had I been knocked down and kicked like that, SOMEBODY would have gotten shot. Probably more than one.
 

Good God, that's absolutely appalling. I hope that somebody gives them some justice in more than equal measure.
 

Meanwhile back at 'The Dream Factory' - ARE THESE PEOPLE INSANE? DO THEY NOT LIVE IN THE SAME WORLD, COUNTRY?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5369274.stm
 

I do believe I've seen the cosmic inversion of the Rodney King arsewhipping.

Why are you folks letting this happen to yourselves?
 

That video is used in my force's staff safety training. Scary stuff. The assailants were caught thankfully.
 

ranter writ " Meanwhile back at 'The Dream Factory' - ARE THESE PEOPLE INSANE? DO THEY NOT LIVE IN THE SAME WORLD, COUNTRY?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5369274.stm"


aye, but think of the amount of crimes you could write off as 'offender being under the age of criminal consent'. A fair proportion I would say...anything that gives me more time to drink tea and grumble about my lot gets my backing.
 

when and where did that take place if it's used as a training video by some forces?

And what kind of injuries did the officers sustain?
 

Thank god the crime prevention device called CCTV camera was there.

Not that it prevented anything, mind you.
 

OMG!!! The different travails of A Policeman on Duty!!
 

We should relentlessly hunt them people down and mercilessly mete out justice. Anyone who lays hands on a police officer like this should be front page news. All benefits stopped. Prison for 10 years. This footage makes my blood boil.
 

Disgraceful, almost unbelievable.
The weird thing about all of this is that we (I use 'we' as in law-abiding, right-thinking white males) have allowed this to happen. I mean, if you listen to the lefties and the feminists and the anti-'racists', law-abiding, right-thinking white males have all the power.
If we wanted to, we could squash these scum like coackroaches. mSo why don't we?

I'll say one other thing. I hate watching this - it made me feel mildly sick, and if I'd been there I would have piled in on the side of the two officers (I'm not a policeman), but as long as the police insist on arresting people for confiscating footballs, or revving their cars in an allegedly racist manner, or handing out leaflets about homosexuality, or making remarks about the welsh, or dealing with burglars, or protesting about the war, while at the same time setting up 40 speed cameras on every A road in the country, this sort of thing is only going to increase.

I'll never assault a policeman, and I'm not saying these yobs did it for any reason other than general venal, low-life scummery, but the police are no longer protecting 'us'. We're your core vote, boys.
 

I would like to see this happen to traffic wardens.

You could probably make good money from regular clips of dam' good thrashings of the warden scum.

Remember how audiences roared with delight in 'Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels' when the warden gets knocked out? Brilliant.

I would love to see more of that, and I don't even own a car.

Like Pete says, as long as people see that the pigs are effectively on the side of the bad guys, no one is going to care less about clips of pigs (and still less the WardenScum) getting a good hiding.

We feel - to use a modern term - 'alienated' from the pigs, just as we do from all the political parties, because we can see they are purely out for their own interests and don't give a stuff about the people whom they are paid / elected to serve.

And as long as that is the case, the hell with the lot of them.
 

These are the officers John Reid is asking to work for a pay CUT. Inflation is 2.5% so not getting a rise is a CUT.
 

Having been on the recieving end of similar this just makes me feel physically sick. Why do we put up with shit like that trying to knock fuck out of us and shit like the Government trying to giv us a financial kick in the bollocks. It really does make me wonder why we bother because we don't get any thanks, well none that is really meant anyway, we get stabbd in the back and trodden down and what do we do? We just get on with it. We are mugs really.
 

I wish i had've been one of the officers responding to that one because i can guarantee those blokes would have been kicked from pillar to post without a shadow of a doubt.
 

It's great when morons come on here labeling us pigs.

Funny how many of these type of people I deal with on a daily basis, but when they are on the recieving end of a no doubt deserving shoeing they're quickly on the phone expecting me to sort it out, which sadly I am obliged to do.

As for the video I can see why it's a training video now, however I can here the trainer now...

"So if you're in this situation yourself, don't confront the males until you have called for another patrol or two."

Problem in modern policing, there are no more patrols.
 

For those of you watching and reading this that are not coppers this is what we get everyday somewhere in this great country of ours( you know the one, where we are all so civilised and the death penalty is sooooo barbaric, tell that to Sharon and Ian's families). And then the scum start crying if the cuffs are too tight!
Rant over.
A West Yorkshire Bobby
 

What I want to know is who taught these coppers how to fight? Because they didn't seem to be making a very good fist of it, if you'll excuse the phrase. Perhaps PC Copperfield and others could explain quite how two (presumably) trained professionals were so badly beaten in a situation their whole vocation is geared towards dealing with. Unless I'm gravely mistaken about the aim and purpose of a police force.

I also want to know why the baton was brought out when the man being restrained had simply been talking. I wonder what he had said...
 

Writing as a Traffic Warden type person, I think people evincing such opinions as 'Anonymous' at 09:24 are part of the problem, not the solution.

As for the vid; three percent? I don't think you can pay anyone enough who has to deal with that sort of thing, day in day out. Might be nice if the law allowed a little rough justice now and again to the low lifes, then we could all sleep a little easier.

Regards

Bill
 

You can't fight back when you are overwhelmed....that sort of thing only happens in steven segal films. In my experience one bad guy who has the fighting experience and the mental goal of kicking your head in will beat you hands down. The odds rocket when he has his mates with him. That is just every response coppers' worse nightmare.
 

I don't think that the police are allowed to be tough enough by their politically correct superiors and by the government. It all goes back to EU human rights. I alsmost begin to get misty eyed thinking about the time back in the late 80's when my mate, who was on his way to a football match and got on the wrong side of the attending constables, was helped into the back of a police van for an old fashioned sort of "re-education."
 

i would have (and have done in the past) jumped in on the side of the cops there, is there is any chance of doing it within reasonable bounds of improving things and not making it worse

however have been expecting one of the idiots in the camera vans to get beaten up or shot, and some traffic cops for handing out speeding tickets for not much over the limit

as someone said above the politicians are forcing the cops to alienate the core hard working decent folk, and not for the good

meanwhile the scum walk around without a care in the world

hardly surprising this stuff is it

ps

seen similar thing happen in belgium but the reinforcements arived at all the surrounding junctions and pulled machine guns on them, forced them all to stand totally still, and took em away in vans
 

I'm speechless about this video and that says something.

Just to make a point, speed cameras aside, imo the police do a brilliant job. It's the rest of the justice system that let's them down.
 

That video is shocking, but not as shocking as some readers comments. Obviously it is the cops' own fault for arresting people for "confiscating footballs and revving cars". What planet is pete in birmingham on? You read a few columns in one of our nation's "top" tabloids and you think that is how we spend our time? I am disgusted that your reaction to this video was that it was effectively our fault for arresting people too often. As for handing out leaflets about homosexuality, I take it you are a gay-basher, then, or you think homophobic literature is acceptable? How nice to know you are our "core vote". I didn't know the police were elected by the people. Er, and it's "girls" too. Ooh, you've made me so cross I might just have a girly fit!
pcbloggs.blogspot.com
 

PS I agree with the reader who criticised the self-defence. They could have thumped the baddies a few times, but having been in a similar situation you just want to cover your face and head which is not the best thing to do! We have to remember to kick and punch when that is happening and not just push!
 

Hellfire

I need to go somewhere very quiet and calm down
 

PC Bloggs I'm so glad someone else pointed out the fact there are girls in the force now too, wasn't best pleased with much of what pete the pride of Birmingham said but that bit p'eed me off just that bit more.

In addition, have I read that wrong or is he protesting about us dealing with burglars as well as everything else?
 

Hehehe yep I think he is. I wonder if Pete from birmingham's real name is "Big Pete".
 

I just noticed an interesting comment from one of the brave anonymouses who post here - apparently "we feel alienated from the pigs". I assume "we" means "us criminals"? Shame you feel the police aren't on your side.
 

PC Bloggs and NorthernPC:

I said firstly that this was disgraceful, almost unbelievable and that, if I'd been there I would have helped the police.

For that I get some 6th form nonsense from Bloggs hectoring me about my sexism and questioning my views of homosexuality: the sound of a point being thoroughly missed clangs in the air.

First, I know women are in the police force Bloggs. Don't take 'boys' personally, please.

Second, I have no problem with homosexuality. I'm not gay, but I wouldn't ban it and I wouldn't shun or avoid gay people (in fact, I don't). However, I do think that - in an ostensibly free society - a man should be able to hand out leaflets in which he says that it's a sin without being arrested for it. On your basis, the bible is 'homophobic literature'. What sort of police state would you like us to live in? One in which your prejudices held sway over mine? Or one in which a guy could hand leaflets out and people could read them and then bin them?

Third, the arrests for confiscating footballs/racist revving/'abusing' the Welsh MAY have appeared in newspapers, Bloggs, but that doesn't mean they didn't happen, or that they weren't ridiculous, or that, in an age when street violence of the type seen in this video is the norm for many people (it's not just the police who get assaulted, you know) they aren't thoroughly counter-productive in terms of building and maintaining a relationship between the police and the (right-thinking) public. That is certainly not the same as saying the police officers deserved it, a point I made, fairly clearly I thought, in my original post.

I'm not saying this is how the police spend their time. If PC Copperfield's excellent blog is to be believed, you spend most of it writing reports and driving around. I know from personal experience that you don't all spend it effectively fighting crime. I don't think a lot of YOU quite understand how cheesed off with the police a lot of US are. I'm not saying that this is the fault of the rank and file, or that individual officers don't do brave, even heroic things, daily, as well as working their nuts (or ovaries) off in a failing system. But that doesn't help me when my son has been the victim of a nasty assault (not dissimilar to this one) and the police response was little more than a shoulder shrug. I could add fraud, theft, petty vandalism, house and business burglary, all among friends and relatives and none of them detected or even seriously looked at.

NorthernPC: apologies, poor syntax caused by haste. I was referring to the fact that we all must refrain from dealing with burglars who ebter our homes becausew the police traditionally like to lock up homeowners for assault and let the toerags go, these days.
 

Actions like on that video are reasons wny we cops in the USA carry gun. There would have been some holes in those guys.
 

PC Bloggs sounds like a right hysterical little queer. I wonder if he is the one suing the force for not allowing him to wear an ear ring on duty?

From the tone of what he wrote, he sounds exactly the sort of self-important little prat that should NEVER be allowed to join.

A junior version of Officer Paddick, probably complete with the Brazilian druggie boyfriend.
 

In response to the moronic questions posted earlier, 'who taught those policemen to fight?' and 'why did he get his baton out?' Firstly police officers are not taught how to 'fight' secondly we could not hear what was being said on the video nor did we witness events leading up to this knock so none of us can justifiably criticise the officer for drawing his baton. This is an example of the wheel well and truely coming off. Anyone who knows about true violence will agree that when outnumbered by at least 2 to 1 you are finished, even if you are mike tyson.
Far from being commended I fully expect these officers were subject to rigorous investigation by their force and likely criticised for their actions. Does anyone know what sentences these vermin received ?
 

Anon - 4.28 What planet are you on?

This video shocked me. I'm not shocked easily.

My wife has viewed this and offered to re-train as a hitman and hunt these pond life down. I'm willing to support her.

I too have been in this situation, it could easily happen on most days I work. Unfortunately with the growing problem of under resourcing and employing under trained and under qualified PCSO's this will become more common place.

If the public aren't impressed with current Policing initiatives I suggest they vote, or at east right to their MP. After all it's because of our government we are asked to pursue trivial rubbish instead of spending our time trying making a difference.
 

Pay attention will you. Pc Bloggs is a woman.
I have always been of the opinion that policemen should NOT EVER parol single crewed. And in this day and age should NOT EVER patrol a town center on a weekend night in less than groups of about six. Plus dogs.
(Does anyone know the collective noun for a group of policemen?)
 

"(Does anyone know the collective noun for a group of policemen?)"

Well, it used to be a 'force', but these days it's probably a Consensus of Police.

Pete from Brum - I think I agree with everything you wrote. Bloggs - I like your blog and what you wrote was beneath your usual very high standards, I feel.
 

Rule Number One when facing a group of potential assailants: As they are group make sure you act as a group rather than a collection of individuals.

Or you will get a kicking...
 

Ooh fancy, now I'm getting gay hate mail via PC Copperfield's blog! I must apologise to pete from brum for taking the word "boys" as somehow exclusive of girls. I do actually agree with free speech and don't have a problem with leaflets saying basic human rights are sins, but unfortunately the way that the police "investigate" crime in this country is by an arrest. It's just how we work, so people will get arrested for all kinds of things but not necessarily charged - the idea is that we "investigate" once we have the person in custody. (It's good for our figures too.)
 

Another Anon said we should all never be single crewed...well let me tell you single crewing encourages you to think on your feet, to not become complacent, to not sit and chat in the car and gets you out of your comfort zone. Well that is what we are told by our SMT. Now let me think,,,oh yes in 4 weeks we have had 2 bobbies been subject to attempt stabbib=ngs (single crewed), probationers who have spent months in an office going to violent situations single crewed...I would love to see some of the SMT & ACPO go out where I work, single crewed and then see how they feel about turning up to a violent domestic, knowing back up is miles away, if at all.

I will never forget the words of a Sarge in Weymouth during the summer when I commented on seeing a double crewed car on a Sunday morning...'WE WOULD NEVER DREAM OF SENDING A LONE OFFICER INTO A VIOLENT SITUATION'

So all you morons and incompetent people who slag us off, do me a favour and come back with some sensible comments. You wonder why you are alienated...look in the mirror someday and the answer is staring you in the face. If you really feel so strongly, get off your backside and give us some support...sorry I am living in dream land again!
 

Oh dear why do I feel myself answering here... anyways

Re "arresting people for confiscating footballs and revving cars" I think that is a reasonable point from a member of the public, having been upstairs busy when a copper downstairs threatened to arrest my father for taking a ball off a kid I think you don't realise how fucked up the police reaction is... the kid had been kicking the ball at my fathers windows all afternoon, actively trying to break the window, the kid had been warned off, finally my dad took the ball off him - his parents call plod and demand my father is done for theft - and the cops take that approach - fucked up policing my friends - wins you no favours with the decent folk like my father - and as far as I'm concerned taking the ball off the kid is minimum force prevention of a crime (breaking a window) - now take your politically correct typical police reaction in this situation and stick it

"revving cars" absolutely agree that pragmatic practical reality for any driver is police do indeed immediately stereotype you according to what you are driving, and the crap you can get simply for driving a flash car can be a total pain in the bum, while driving like a nutter an inch from the car in front in a bog standard mondeo will never get you stopped by the police

Re "there are girls in the force now" yep and often pretty useless in practise, and like girls on ships in the navy is sometimes political correctness gone mad, I've seen two female cops barge in pegs flying cos they were shit scared when any average sized bloke could have stopped the fight breaking out just by being there

Re "under trained and under qualified PCSO's" yep this is the labour agenda if you cannot afford consultants to lead maternity wards let the midwifes do it, if you cannot afford qualified teachers let classroom assistants run the class, and if you cannot afford cops get badly paid and trained pcsos and "traffic officers" to do it

Re "all you morons and incompetent people who slag us off" ill give you criticism when you deserve it, its called democracy, mostly complaining about your leadership and not the troops on the ground
 

3%?

The video's dated 2001. 5 years worth of payrises since then
 

As an ex UDT Instructor

Taser

Claustrophobic Inspector
(The other day I got a nasty paper cut)
 

http://coppersblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/three-percent-anyone.html
20 years ago, 15 even, maybe even 10, I would have had no qualms whatsoever about jumping in to help these cops out. Instantly. No question. Now, my perception is that the risks to me are simply too high and I have to say that the police, though only minimally the lower ranks, who must shoulder a significant amount of the blame for this. How so?
1. By actively encouraging the absolute disarmament of the law abiding majority they have increased the likelihood of injury to myself and lowered the risk to the thug.
2. By utilising an over-zealous arrest-anyone-accused policy, they impose unacceptable costs on someone such as myself who has never been arrested, again tipping the balance in favour of the thug who gets arrested every week for whom yet another arrest is of little or no consequence.
3. By taking DNA from all arrestees, by force if necessary, and retaining that DNA even from those not convicted they have created the most aggressive DNA collection policy in the world, one of which any country claiming to be free to be ashamed and one to which I have no wish to risk exposure.
4. As the video so graphically shows, this is a physical job. By instituting politically correct policies of lower physical standards for politically favoured 'minorities', senior ranks have placed both the public and their own officers at increased risk. By all means hire 'minorities' for front line duties, but hold ALL applicants of whatever demographic to EQUAL physical requirements, just like the crooks do: politically correct hiring puts lives at risk as this film so nearly demonstrated.
5. My perception is that a few years ago, a private citizen such as myself coming to the aid of a cop in these circumstances would have been able to disappear back into the crowd without difficulty and quite likely with the complicity of a grateful officer. As such, were I, in the heat of the moment and not being aware of each and every one of the thousands of new offences that have been created under this increasingly tyrannical government, to walk on the cracks in the pavement or commit some other such minor infringement in the course of helping the officer, I would not have risked exposing myself to either criminal or civil liability. I have greatly reduced confidence that that would be the case today.
6. Politicisation of the police & corruption. Jean Charles de Menezes. Shoot-to-kill. Guildford 4. Birmingham 6. Use of section 44 for peaceful protesters and non-terrorist cases. Diversion of, & removal of flags & banners from, protesters of chinese premier and Bush visits, use of official police resources for promotion of feminist and other propaganda, implementation of feminist policy with regard to domestic 'abuse' (arrest the guy, standard evidential requirements not required), anti-white male discrimination*, over-zealous persecution of innocent parties in numerous child-abuse witch hunts, lack of police response to quality of life crimes but persecution of easy-to-solve 'crimes'***, active involvement of senior officers in events promoting political agendas** etc. etc. etc. Root out the rot within.


Two policies alone - arrest-anyone-accused and DNA retention - almost guarantee my none-involvement in a situation such as this and create HUGE ill feeling toward the police, and this from someone who would otherwise be one of their strongest supporters. While the two officers in question in this case, and indeed many of the frontline officers, have my deepest sympathies, the police as a whole have largely created the bed in which they find themselves lying. It is most unfortunate that those with the most influence in creating the current situation are also appear to be those most insulated from its effects.

JF


* for example:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/gloucestershire/5370724.stm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/11/29/npolice29.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/11/29/ixportal.html
** for example:
raising detention limit to 90days,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4232966.stm etc.
 

Spot on JF, my feelings exactly.
Not the fault of the poor buggers taking a kicking, but it really isn't a good idea getting involved - not because of the danger in the melee but because of the actions of the CJS after the event.
 

JF,

As a police officer , or pig as some dimwit opined, I agree with some of what you say. The overzealous application of the law in England has amazed me for the last 15 years(my length of service). However I would disagree with what you say about it being solely the police who have brought the disaffection of the public upon themselves. Its a combination of 1)the Government who appear to lack any coherent policy on law and order other than using a bigger stick 2) the public , who appear to have lost all sense of personal responsibilty for anything they do and have extremely unrealistic expectations and 3) politicised senior police officers who are only interested in personal advancement and currying favour with their political masters.

You think the police are bad now...lets see what happens over the next 10-15 years when the majority of experienced police officers ie the ones who can communicate rather than threaten and bully have retired or pissed off abroad.
Good luck to you.

EK
 

I agree almost entirely with JF, but also with EK both comments should be taken together.

For what it's worth, kind of funny as well: My church Pastor spent Christmas Eve in a cell one time, when he jumped in to try and break up a fight at an off-licence. Coppers turned up and nicked them all!

Of course- that is the risk us civvies face of going to aid an officer in the heat and confusion, but I wouldn't let it stop me.

HWhat's more important to me is not walking away from a situation like that, for that I could spend a night in the cells.

On the video- nobody, even jobsworths, deserve that sort of retaliation. Absolute mindless thugs and I hope they got their just desserts. Regardless of what you think of the establishment, the 2 coppers in that video were extremely brave, regardless of training.
 

Commenting on the video I would say that the cop on the right was giving a pretty good account of himself, he had the upper hand until his partner ran off the get the pepper spray and the two thugs attacking him joined their friends in assaulting the other cop.
As for the claim that the police arresting someone for confiscating someone's ball justifies this behaviour is too idiotic for words as are claims that speed camera's are relevant in this case.
I simply do not believe that the police have ever actually arrested someone for confiscating a ball. I can believe that they have arrested people due to angry disputes between neighbours that have been triggered by someone taking a ball off a kid for whatever reason. In cases like this there are always deeper historical reasons and this is simply the cause of the current row.
The police are invariably caught in the middle in such a dispute and placed in an impossible position of trying to satisfy both sides (and generally getting a mouthful into the bargain).
As for speed camera's and traffic wardens, breaking the speed limit and parking illegally are against the law and the law must be enforced otherwise the alternative is anarchy. You are perfectly entitled to disagree with the law and campaign for it to be changed or abolished but not to disobey it.
 

I have to agree with Anon 4.41 who in response to Anon1 10.43 states police are not 'taught to fight'.
The simple point is we are not taught anything but very basic 'defence' routines. The job provides (personally I believe it to be an almost embarrassed concession to Health and Safety) two 'Compulsory' Officer Safety sessions a year.So every 6 months we are brought together for about 5-6 hours.... nothing more than a run through of what ACPO decide we should know.Every section covered by a '..make sure you can justify it...' This is in a safe environment,everyone compliable and doing as they are told.
This is a nonsense... as every officer who walks out of the safe confines of a police station knows that the vast majority of fights/confrontations boil down to a messy roll around as you try and control the idiot who wants to have a go. There is no 'Front stack,rear stack.. double lock...strike to certain sections of the body..it is a case of doing what you can to stay in one piece.
Then have some solicitor pick the bones out of it 6 months down the line.
How many of us have had the comment after an assistance call by a concerned menber of the public..' Was that necessary to have 4/6/8 officers to control him'. The real honest answer is no. Because if the original officer was allowed to deal with him with the necessary force to subdue him originally then the need to have the extra 3/5/7 would have likely been negated as we try to follow those 'Home office' approved techniques.
Anon1 is right in his assumption that he believes he is'gravely mistaken as to the aim and purpose of a Police Force'.. the fact that we are a now a service not a force sums it up.

Some of the posts talk of now 'not wanting to step in and back up the officers because of reasons...ABC.
To be honest in my time (18 and a half and counting) in the Met and having worked some unsavoury boroughs.. the best I (and from shared experience with others) could hope from the a surrounding group of onlookers is that they dont take a chance of an easy shot as we scrabble around on the pavement to bring them in. I have had people call 999 seeing whats going on,I have had them provide me with their details to provide me with a statement to agree with our actions (and I am grateful for this)... but step in and lay hands on?....I am sure there are honourable exceptions but I know when it all goes t*ts up the only person I can rely on is a police officer coming to my aid.
I now work central London and I am fortunate that if I do put that call up then I would be unlucky not to have back up in minutes.Sadly I know this is not a reality for my colleagues in some outer Boroughs and other Forces who are not so fortunate.

Although I would take issue with some points in the post by JF, I think he has it spot on in saying 'that those with the most influence in creating the current situation also appear to be most insulated from its effects'
 

I don't blame joe public for not getting involved, the likelihood is they'd get arrested. We (bobbies) all know that our discretion has been eroded over the years and now the public are getting wise. It was our discretion and 'policing by consent'that allowed us to be so successful throughout history when other Eurpoean police foces were so derided. Well I believe our consent is being withdrawn and eventually we'll be policing by force. Lets bring policing back to where it began, the people.
 

In response to Anonymous @ 4:41:

"In response to the moronic questions posted earlier, 'who taught those policemen to fight?' and 'why did he get his baton out?' Firstly police officers are not taught how to 'fight' "

Well in God's name why not? Does some high-up human rights lawyer really think that just waving a piece of paper at a criminal is going to make them cease and desist? Violence must surely be a fact of life for the police, it'd be senseless for them not to know how to fight, surely?

"secondly we could not hear what was being said on the video nor did we witness events leading up to this knock so none of us can justifiably criticise the officer for drawing his baton. This is an example of the wheel well and truely coming off."

Quite, which is why I didn't criticise the officer in question. If I wanted to, I could. I could criticise him for whipping out the baton when the other speaker was still restrained. I could do and say any number of things. But I know that I know very little indeed about all this, hence my just having asked about this, rather than having said X and Y about it.


"Anyone who knows about true violence will agree that when outnumbered by at least 2 to 1 you are finished, even if you are mike tyson."

Oh for God's sake. Yes, let's see Tyson, a man who has built an entire career on facing one opponent in a controlled environment with I know not how many rules or whatall does against three or four street thugs. That sounds good.

As to what in Heaven's name you mean by 'real' violence (are there perhaps forms of pretend violence in street confrontations? Are Queensbury rules ever actually valid?) completely escapes me. Looking over the feed again, I can see that the copper who gets taken to the left does seem to be trying to protect his face while in a headlock and had been using his baton before it got taken from him, so he did well there. As to the poor chap who got taken off to the right, it seemed to all go downhill once he lost his balance and went to the ground. I could swear I saw him roll over and expose his back to his attacker at one point, though I may be mistaken.

Perhaps it's simply a question of having held back in the confrontation. Perhaps they were simply too afraid of litigation from the thugs in question to really let rip and not get so badly bruised. I don't know, hence the questions. PLEASE UNDERSTAND, I AM NOT CRITICISING THE OFFICERS IN QUESTION, SIMPLY TRYING TO UNDERSTAND HOW THIS HAPPENED

Anonymous @ 9:47,

In the main I agree with you. The chap on the right was doing well until he tried to restrain the one he had to the ground, that lapse of concentration on the other attackers seems to have cost him a few bumps, poor sod.

With regard to the football arrests, here's a link to an article about this: http://tinyurl.com/ncmn7

I know newspapers are often biased, but outright lies are a different question, surely?
 

Officer Dibble,

Will people please stop calling me moronic? I was simply trying to find out what in God's name was going on there. You have, despite agreeing with that very nasty piece of work, answered at least some of my questions, so thank you for that.

Next question, is it then the case that police officers have to restrain themselves when attacked physically?
 

I'm pretty much appalled by some of the comments posted. I recall my father when I was younger helping a Police Officer disarm a man with an axe because it was the right thing to do.
The Officer was alone, struggling with a male larger and stronger than him in possession of a weapon. I understand completely people are reluctant at putting themselves at risk. People ultimately want to return to their loved ones alive and uninjured. However to give the reasons you have given for not assisting - fucking shame on you. I could understand self preservation but not because you think you should not be punished for driving too fast and hence breaking the limit. We all do it and we're responsible for own actions.
I hear people whining about speed cameras and arresting people over "confiscating footballs" followed by "and this is why I would not assist them". For fucks sake. We're human beings, but not only that, we are a bunch of people who are told what to do, who have had decision making removed from us by a bunch of people who do not have any idea what the implications of the decisions they make are, do not care about their work force, do not particularly care about best service to members of the public and are completely unaffected by it all. They also have the inability to see that they are wrong and are not willing to listen nor do anything about it. They're spineless jellyfish 'yes' men/women.
The pink and fluffy standing on soap box member of the public has caused much of this yet complains when after the 'politicians'(including senior management have catered for them, we quite simply, not robust enough to deal with something to their satisfaction.
This comes as a shock to people, but you know naff all about how we operate and why. To understand, read up on Human Rights, National Crime Recording Standards, The Police And Criminal Evidence Act 1984... in fact theres actually too much to list and I would hope you have better things to do. However this will answer a lot of questions for you. Also, reading 'Force' (cough, splutter 'Force'? If only) policy for your own force would help which will only take a few weeks if you stick at it 24/7. Reading up on definitions of law would assist you. Not believing the complete shite printed in the press would assist you.
Interesting subject mentioned was about home owners defending themselves (and property against burglars). I don't think enough people have a grasp on what you can and can't do. To sum it up, the force you use must be proportionate to the threat faced and in order to defend yourself (and/or family) and your property. You also can use force to detain someone as well. Shooting someone in the back with a shotgun as they leave is a no-no. Pinning someone to the ground, punching, kicking, feel safe, as long as you can justify why you did it. I'm of the opinion that if someone enters your home without permission to steal etc they should lose all rights immediately. However persons more highly trained than myself in legal debate obviously do not agree. I sense due to the softly softly approach that we're so damn famous for. Other countries are well and truly laughing their nads off.
Having been attacked by groups, its unbelievably difficult to defend yourself. However more concerning is that I reckon the Officers in the video had the capability of defending themselves much better. It always goes through all Officer's minds that you have to be careful with the use of force used. You have to justify it. You don't want, firstly, to be sharing a cell and secondly to be losing the job followed by the pension, your home etc. Officers are reluctant to reach for their batons nowadays because of how their actions are scrutinised by people who were not there, do not face such threats and have a nice office with their own cappucino maker in the corner.
The bottom line is, those officers could easily have justified throwing kicks and punches. Heavily outnumbered. Punches and kicks coming in from all around. Fearful for safety of self and colleague. Being caused injury lessening chance of successfully defending self. Shocked. Dizzy from ferocity of attack.
I know that I would have thrown punches during that and would have justified as above and they're just the bare minimum really. However it would still flash through my head that a bunch of people, with no concept of what it was actually like would look through the evidence at hand with a fine touth comb. A colleague of mine got set upon by a group of males when he was alone. I was first to arrive to assist and as I went to tear the first one from on top of him, his shot of CS hit me first, blinding me completely. Knowing that I was outnumbered by a group of large males who were kicking the shit out of my colleague and unable to see what was happening was shit-your-pants scary.
Anyway, overall, we're your scapegoats. Unjustly so but we're the easiest targets and happen to be the people without the power to change it. I've seen so many excellent recommendations made by Officers that have just been completely ignored by those up above. These recommendations were to provide you with a better service unbelievably.
 

The problem is, even if we were taught to fight, to maintain a standard of self-defence and restraint techniques that really work, we would have to practice them weekly. Some of the scrotes we are up against have this luxury every friday night. The self-defence we are taught is utter pap and I actually agree with the reader who said most girls are useless at it. I am simply not strong enough to use an arm entanglement lock on a big bulky man - I should have been taught how to really take someone out. When I say taught, I don't mean given the verbal advice "do a distraction strike to the arm or leg", I mean made to practice it again and again and again day in day out for the fifteen weeks I spent at training school until it actually bloody worked! I have only been in one fight like the one in that video and I did win, but it wasn't using any Home Office taught techniques I can tell you (picture gonads and crushing and you will be close). Being female, I can get away with a hell of a lot more as people are more ready to believe I was really scared or losing the fight. Those poor guys in the video look big and strong, but that just gets them a load of abuse from people who think they should have acquitted themselves better.
 

great blog.
i have found another blog telling the world about the true face of the public sector. have a look at angrynhsdoctor.blogspot.com. it says what it does on the tin
 

Watching the video made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, having been in similar situations, you don't always realise how isolated you are until its all over, or you view the CCTV tape later.

To cover some points, Police are also members of the public, and the vast majority hold the same views and opinions as the 'common person' and indeed are frustrated and aggrieved at many bizairre decisions that are being made.

Also re the above post clearly discrimatary and inflamitary comments on women Police officers, my partner is a firearms officer and an advanced driver and I know that she can stand her own in a scrap. She also brings to volitile situations something that we men can't, and quite often (and I've seen it) just a female officers presence will calm down an otherwise violent situation. (Shes fuming at the comments).

Next, although the Police say we are not political tools, we are through and through, and all our priorities, and directions filter down from the Home Office. As a frontline cop, my pressure comes from above, which just adds paperwork and frustration, (and I am unable to do the job I joined to do, ie; protecting the good law abiding majority public,) so someone in an office gets to e-mail me at a later date or gets to fill in another form for 'statistical'

Re Traffic wardens and speed camera's, there's an easy way to put these people out of a job....Don't speed, and don't park illegally.

Finally, I personally have been assaulted twice in the last week, when dealing with offenders for seperate offences. One of which the CPS decided not to contnue with as although I had a co-oberative statement from a collegue, there was no CCTV? What happened to being judged by 12 good men (and women).

And really finally, ace blog DC,a nd also enjoy PcBloggs Post.
 

You lads should carry firearms - that just would not happen here in HK even with the real triad scumbags. The advantages of sidearms far outweigh the disadvantages and the very fact that you're armed lowers the incidence of serious assaults on cops. How long did it take for back-up to arrive? Knowing help is near at hand also makes a big difference to BOTH sides in such a situation. BTW, has that case gone to court yet? How long will the scum get?

Your Govt is looking for a 3% cut, is it? We've had 10% plus unilateral alteration of our contracts & the short-sighted buggers in Govt still want more.
 

J.F., what is it exactly about having your DNA on record that scares you so much? The number of dangerous criminals, rapists and murderers who have been put where they deserve far outweighs your sense of outrage.

And in what way does arming everyone make the world a safer place, as you seem to suggest? I take it you are referring to firearms. Making them difficult to get hold of and mandatory long sentences for possession is the only way to go - if you are unarmed and some robber points a gun at you and demands your wallet, do exactly what he says! He doesn't want to shoot you, not out of compassion, but he doesn't want to turn a routine street robbery into a murder enquiry. If you are armed and you go for your gun, he will blast you immediately. So how exactly does being armed help you?

Over-zealous arrest policy? Well, as you may have seen in that video, if other officers had turned out and got stuck in, would they stand there for 5 minutes first to assess who is doing what? Of course not! This does mean sometimes that someone will get locked up who has not broken the law, but how the hell are we supposed to know this until we have heard what everyone has to say? And parliament decreed that this be done under arrest, on tape, precisely to protect your rights from dodgy cops, now by and large a thing of the past, who used to write up interviews bearing little relation to the actual interview. The same corruption you go on about later, incidentally.

DNA, see above.

Politically correctness and fitness standards, I absolutely could not agree more!

And don't be stupid, of course no police officer in the world will knock you off for obstruction if you stop traffic to come and assist him in a punch up. That is just paranoia, pure and simple. If you grab an assailant in a fight and then beat the living shit out of him, kicking him senseless when he's already on the floor, then you'll get locked up yes, but that would be fair enough, I presume that's not the scenario you're talking about. If someone saved me from a kicking the only thing they'd get from me would be a few jars one night!

Politicisation, a bit of a mixed bag. Menezes, poor sod, that was a monumental f*ck up, I'll grant you right off. But shoot-to-kill? Well, firstly, it's a meaningless phrase, would yuo prefer shoot-to-seriously piss off, shoot-to-tickle, or what? If you mean shoot to wound, that is the stuff of fairy tales. Whether someone has a gun or a belt-bomb, the only way to reliably stop them is to shoot them to kill them. Normally to the centre of the chest, ask anyone who has done military service how they are trained to shoot, even the SAS train this way. For suicide bombers, the only way is to destroy their central nervous system immediately, by shooting them in the head a lot, as a shot to the chest might either hit the bomb, or body armour. If you have a better method of stopping suicide bombers, then please do share it with the class.

Guildford 4 and Birmingham 6, tape recorded interviews were brought in precisely because of these cases, so you are complaining about the lack of civil rights in those cases, but to you the solution of tape recorded interviews under arrest is just as evil. Do you see the contradiction here? Sounds like you don't like the police and choose what you like to have a go, without realising you're shooting yourself in the foot.

Protests against the Chinese and removal of banners etc, fair enough, I agree. But given that we usually get accused of sexism, suddenly we're a bastion of feminism? How does that work? And there is no 'feminist policy' in regards to domestic abuse, we still have to have evidence to arrest someone, regardless of the offence, if a force tries to impose a blanket arrest policy, that would be unlawful, and the law overrules force policy every time, as the courts have demonstrated on numerous occasions. Incidentally, the only people who have ever accused me or my colleagues of having a feminist policy on domestic abuse are wife beaters, every single time. Food for thought, huh?

I am sincerely grateful that you support the front line officers and can make the distinction between us and the Ivory Tower brigade, I do not wish to seem ungrateful, but I cannot let comments such as yours pass by unremarked.
 

Re "police arresting someone for confiscating someone's ball justifies this behaviour " of course police arresting someone for confiscating a ball does not justify this behaviour, however the general climate where normal bloke gets enormous hassle for confiscating a ball (for instance) when at the same time the real local shits are walking around unchallenged by the police and their masters does lead to a climate where the core supporters of the police and policing by consent are going out the window

Re "breaking the speed limit and parking illegally are against the law and the law must be enforced otherwise the alternative is anarchy" complete bollocks I am afraid, driving is one of those things that is not black and white there are lots of grey areas, and driving is as much an art as a science, the way speed is enforced is in many ways as important as the limits imposed, current regime is doing nothing at all to improve road safety, is disenfranchising the hard core decent folk who should be the polices main supporters, and is based on poor science and social understanding, we currently have people lost their licence and job for driving SAFELY a few mph over the limit a few times while we all know beating the crap out of a copper (for instance) never leads to anywhere near these penalties, we have a regime where the cops are measured on "results" and its just easier to get these results out of some sectors of society than others - why take on the people who will literally fight back when you can generate the same stats hassling decent folk for trivia - ends up in this environment

and yea job culture and an environment where people do this to cops is a lot to do with the respect the cops have, and the way they have policed the people doing this stuff in the 20/30 years before that incident
 

The main offender got 2 yrs.
Off topic I just found out FJL has been nicked and convicted for harrassment.
Hee Hee
 

Echoing comments above that very few people are going to want to help officers in such situations when the police have shown they're very willing to arrest anyone who did so, FOR doing so. Because they're jobsworths, because they don't like being shown up by members of the public, because their Chief Constable demands it, whatever, it doesn't matter. Anyone who did assist an officer in that kind of trouble WOULD be arrested for it, and I doubt any of the officers posting here could definitely say that that wouldn't happen.

To Midlands PC:-

if you are unarmed and some robber points a gun at you and demands your wallet, do exactly what he says! He doesn't want to shoot you, not out of compassion, but he doesn't want to turn a routine street robbery into a murder enquiry.

if you are unarmed and some rapist points a gun at you and demands your wallet, do exactly what he says! He doesn't want to shoot you, not out of compassion, but he doesn't want to turn a routine rape into a murder enquiry.

Yes, it's always safe to trust someone willing to hurt you to get what he wants. And it's always safe for that someone to have a definite advantage over his victim without facing any risk himself. It's also unrealistic in the extreme to think that criminals won't hurt people anyway.

You ask 'how does being armed help anyone'? You should be aware that in the US, increased gun possession by the public means criminals are much more reluctant to initiate confrontations with members of the public. By 'reluctant' I mean, they do not draw their own gun and fire if they think their quarry is packing. They leave their quarry alone.

Of the number who do resort to violence even in the face of their victim's gun, guess what? Most of the time, the victim survives and DOESN'T get killed by their attacker! Many times, the victim is not even injured! If the percentage of attempted gun defences that failed and led to the defender getting shot dead or injured was approaching, say, 80%, you might be justified in your attitude but since it isn't, you are not.

You may or may not believe the lives of members of the public are important enough to warrant protection through that kind of deterrent. But frankly your comments are yet more reason why the public would be justified in turning their backs on you. After all, by saying members of the public should have no better choice than to comply with some scumbag, as a police officer no less, YOU are turning your back on us.
 

just seen the vid ...just seen an email about sanfransico cop being pilloried by press....

its quite clear we sworn officers MUST have abused those poor peoples rights..BUT its ok ..the cartoon Ad for PSCO's makes them all powerfuls..a single one can confront 2 thugs in hoodies & make the world a better place...
http://mfile.akamai.com/12948/wmv/vod.ibsys.com/2006/0728/9591734.300k.asx
 

Ermm... to the idiot earlier who said he would like this to happen to "traffic warden scum".... presumably you'd be happy to have people parked blocking roads, or boxing your car in, or taking your parking space outside your house, or any number of other traffic offenses that would cause you great inconvenience?

As with the police, if you don't break the rules then you won't get nabbed. It really is as simple as that. Grow up and direct your childish little mind towards something sensible.
 

Good God, that is terrible! those poor coppers. I found myself crying out "someone stop them," and I know its a video so its already happened...but wasn't there any bystanders who could have stepped in to help?

You guys are not paid enough for that relentless abuse...

regards,

Sentinel
 

Anony1
It was not my intention to label the comments in your post 'moronic'
I was agreeing with Anon 4.41 in his comment that police are 'not taught to fight'
I think you have 'set your stall' out on this issue quite clearly in your second post.

Regards
 

MOTHER FUCKERS!!!

If i got hold of the c*nts they would have soon realised the errors of there ways.

The problem the police have is that it's full of inexperienced people who are too afraid to say boo to a goose. 9 stone 18yr olds who have never had a fight in their life. We aren't given enough training or decent equipment to deal with situations like this.

After five years in this job i now have no qualms in using force as i have seen what happens if you don’t. I nearly got a kicking outside a nightclub from three blokes because i hesitated in hitting one of them after he resisted arrest. The quick arrival of my mates saved me from a good kicking. Since then i have never hesitated. As soon as someone tries to use violence towards me, the gloves come off and that person better standby for some of his own medicine. I'm no thug i just know when i can justify myself and when i cant.
Another problem is that training school (not that there are many of those anymore!) brainwashes recruits into not using force and convincing them that would go to prison if they did. That's how i felt when i passed out anyway.

Also, I for one would never nick anyone for giving a good shoeing to a burglar or someone who was trying to beat me up. I would give them a medal! You would have to be some sort of c*nt to nick some one for that. To all the PC’s that think you have to arrest everyone BOLLOX it’s down to you at the end of the day and you cant be ordered to nick anyone. Get a backbone! No Supt can make you nick someone.

I don’t want to second-guess these blokes but I think I would’ve called for more units before going into that lot. No prisoner is worth getting killed over.

As for speeding…I have never given a ticket for speeding. I’ve pulled many people over for it in order to see if they were pissed, arrested a few for drink drive, drugs or having a knife or just given them a warning. If you don’t want points don’t speed. If you speed and get caught, it’s your own fault especially when you all seem to realise that there are loads of speed cameras (both mobile and fixed) out there. If I get caught, I’ll take the points and pay the fine as it was my choice to speed. But it does seem that you lot pick and choose what laws you obey. Take for example the criticism that police don’t give enough tickets out for seatbelts or mobile phones. So that alright but speeding seems to be ok. Both are capable of killing people.

To all the PC’s stay safe and don’t be afraid of giving some scrote a smack (if you can justify it of course!)
 

Some thoughts on this incident and dealing with violence in general. Do not get into a situation you're not going to win. Choose your ground. If you need to use force use it to win, the justification is inherent in the need. Read the situation and be prepared, have your cs in hand and ready to use. Do not worry about repurcussions [internal affairs etc.] all that matters is yours and your colleagues safety. Meet aggresion head on with your own controlled aggresion. When you're responding to a colleagues assistance shout and you get hands on the offender[s] off come the kid gloves. Do not lose control but these scum need to realise there will be payback if they assault a police officer. We get no support or protection from senior officers, cps or the courts, we must support and look out for each other.
 

10 years to go! Just spotted your post about FJL - tell us more? I saw a post from her on another blog recently and had flashbacks.
 

Fucking bastards.
Tazers - that'd fucking teach them.
 

I have never laughed so much when I saw the Tazer post. Just above me I think.

I am curious to how the law sits on this question,

When the two Officers were being assulted, when does the law switch from Home Office approved techniques, to the legal right to be able to protect yourself with reasonable force ?

At what point in that assult would any reasonable person be able to hammer the living fuck out of the assulting bell ends ?

I have said this many places before, why are we not instructing our Officers some self defense like Krav Maga ? The scenario would have gone more like this...

Scenario: Local Law Courts (crown)

Legal Eagle 1: "So what were you doing, Mr Suspect"

Wanker suspect "I was pissed like and telling the rozzers to fuck off like innit, then this pig tells me to moderate me tone etc."

Legal Eagle "So then what happened ?"

Suspect "Well he 'aving innit"

Egale, "Then what happned"

Scum Suspect "Well, I started to have a go, and the copper struck me in the throat like."

Leagl Eagle "So in all essence you were acting like a fucktard, wanted to have a go, as you have no resemblence of decency, then PC Plod twatted you like you derserved?"

Judge "Hahahahah, Scum, Long gone are the days when you attack a PC and think fuck going to happen to you. Case dismissed, Bill 1 Retards 0"

As all cases should be.

I do not give a shit about being PC, There should ever be any occasion where Officers can get beaten like that.

Krav Maga for the Boys n Girls in Blue. You have the right to protect yourself.
 

Office Tackleberry said: "I hear people whining about speed cameras and arresting people over "confiscating footballs" followed by "and this is why I would not assist them". "

For fuck's sake, you dimwitted twat. Can't you read? I introduced the line about the football. I also said that if I'd been there I'd have weighed in on the side of the police. FFS, I've said this twice already: this makes three times.

The point I'm making for the terminally fucking hard of thinking - is this: we do nt live in a police state. Law and order is a two way street. All I'm saying - and this might be morally wrong but it's a real-life fact - is that as the police concern themselves more and more with utter shit like football confiscation, racist revving, gay leaflets, Welsh name calling ad fucking nauseam then, as night follows day, the core constituents of your public support (people like me) will take less and less interest in helping you. I have recent experience of several crimes committed against amily members and friends where the police have done sweet fuck all. But if I want to eat an apple at the wheel, they'll soon whistle up a helicopter (is this a figment of my imagination, too?).
 

Re:the above post, please calm down. The reason your are getting inflamitory replies is because your style of writing is inflammitory.

I am a 3 year PC, so one of these new breed everyone seems so keen to kick and thinks is brainwashed into this politically insane way of thinking.

Contrary to this school of thought, I do not agree with the lack of discretion, the crazy policies from command/government, and the overly PC approach of modern day policing. However when my Sgt gives a lawful order then we HAVE to comply, this can mean making unpopular arrests. I don't agree but I have a mortgage.

The media and people generally only talk about the crap service the police provide, no one ever writes about the excellent incidents and jobs officers attend and deal with on a daily basis. This doesn't make exciting reading.

I would have to say the comments about Police women are disgraceful and a throwback to the 70's. If you're on here trying to make a valid argument, then making pathetic sweeping comments like this undermine any solid arguments you have. I have worked with plenty of female officers and have found like all officers, some good, some bad and some really exceptional ones.
 

That is so sad. My heart breaks at the thought of my cop ever getting hurt or hit, although I know that is the reality of the job at times.
Poor things.

Wood shampoo is too good for those jerks who attacked like that !

Sincerely,
Anne Elizabeth of MakeMyCopCome
 

IM FUCKING LIVID! All you anti-police twats on here. Lets see how big your balls are! You know the advert "Could You??" Well I know for a fact you couldnt do what we do every fuckin night of the week. You think 4 piss heads onto 1 copper means youve got balls?!?!

Fuck off, Ive nailed three of you c*nts in one incident. Backup arrived and Im the only one standing. And guess what - I didnt used pepper spray of my bat. Just my fists. And yeah, I get in shit all the time for excessive force - but you know what. It never goes anywhere - you know why?!? Because I got brawn as well as brains.

Watch out in my city, I dont suffer fools gladly. And yes if I had arrived in time for that kicking, those c*nts would have kept injuries for life. As far and I saw it, that was life or death, and I don't think twice about protecting myself, or a colleague.

You pussy fuckers, leg it if your out numbered. But what do we do?!?! We fuckin pile in!!!

Stop shut up and fuck off, this is coppers blog, not piss head blog.

Enough. East Mids Somewhere
 

Ah Yes Pete from Birmingham 'the right thinking law abiding white male' as you describe yourself what do you define as right thinking Pete? I would be curious to learn and what does the colour of your skin and your sex have to do with being a law abiding citizen.
I too am not a police officer though I have met a great many probably far more than you have and they are has varied a bunch as any other wide selection of the public.
The law by its very nature has to be enforced equitably on all and not in favour of right thinking (a phrase that virtually any tyrant in the world would love) individuals.
It is not your place (or that of the police officer on the street) to decide which laws should or should not be enforced.
As I have commented before I don't think people have been arrested for confiscating a football. That may very well be what was put on the charge sheet but I suspect that the real reason was being rude and aggressive to a police officer and
sadly perhaps the real reason is no longer good enough (too subjective I suspect)
Racist revving? that's a new one on me,I've never heard of that one have you? other that in the comics that pass as newspapers pandering to the semi-illiterates that buy them.
 

The comments about bobbies not being able to fight are indeed well founded. Our permitted 'techniques' are woefully weak and I have always found that the 'training' I've received over the years playing rugby league are far more effective. Add this to the fact that the average plod gets just two days a year to refresh their 'fighting' skills and you can see what a loser we are onto. The bosses are even looking to try and cut this back. Most forces are more than happy to dish out weeks worth of diversity,customer service and other pointless courses to all and sundry but a few more days to train at something that might save your life, forget it!
Does anyone know what happened to the offenders?
Also, if I've missed it where did it happen?
 

That clip makes me feel so annoyed. I cannot begin to explain how let down I feel by the public at times. NOBODY HELPED! These poor kids that have never been told "NO YOU CANNOT DO THAT" at a young age. Bless.
That copper could be out of a job due to injury, family suffering, all because of a drunken(?) oik.
Off to lie down in a dark room.
 

Kusabi, have you totally missed the point that the murder rate in the USA is drastically higher than in the UK, even at the height of the troubles in Northern Ireland, you had ten times the chance of being shot dead than if you lived in Washington DC? That some crime surveys in the USA calculated that 1 in 3 American families know someone who has been shot dead? Havinga gun might make your home more defendable, it's just about the only scenario where having a gun might help you, as the suspect doesn't know exactly where you are, but balance that small advantage against all the deaths when the husband comes home late drunk and the wife blows him away at the door, thinking he is a burglar, all the domestic murders that would otherwise just have been a good old fashioned kicking and punching (not that I think even that is a good idea, but a punch to the head heals quicker than a 9mm bullet wound). All the kids who shoot themselves or their friends playing because daddy is too retarded to lock the gun away properly? School shootings, Columbine being the obvious example, but there are plenty of others, not to mention the glaringly obvious fact that if all firearms were banned, your robber is highly unlikly to be threatening you with one in the first place! I have worked in a busy inner city division for nearky ten years now, have dealt with dozens and dozens of street robberies, as has every officer in this area, and I can honestly say that the number of cases where a victim who offers no resistance is still assaulted is less than 5 per cent. The percentage of those who get injured offering some sort of resistance is nearer 90%. Go figure.

And as far as arresting people for getting involved, are you f*cking stupid? A friend of mine and I once locked a guy up for robbery, he'd jumped a guy going to the bank from a cheque cashing business, with about £7,000 on him. he came off second best to a truck driver who happened to be nearby, and was restrained. As street robbery was such a problem there, all the local shopkeepers were coming out before we got there, from what he said, kicking huim, punching him, one had gone off to get a kitchen knife before we got there, basically he was damn glad to see us. When he complained about all that had happened, we just told him it was an occupational hazard of being a street robber, and he should shut the fuck up. When he complained to the custody officer, he was told the same. I point blank refused to investigate anything he said, and I made damn sure all the local shopkeepers knew that was the line we were taking. That's not the only time I've overlooked things or just told people to shut the fuck up and stop whinging, and most of my colleagues think the same. If the guy had been stabbed by a local, yes, that would have been investigated, but just about anything before that would and could have been ignored.

And you and those like you might think me and my colleagues are twats, and wouldn't help us, because of this and because of some unfounded delusion about being prosecuted. Well guess what? We think you're twats as well. The two differences between us are 1/ when I go to a violent job, my fears are well founded - I've been lucky so far and never been injured by a shitbag before, but I have had colleagues stabbed to death, severely beaten, CS sprayed with their own gas and then beaten unconscious, broken bones, injuries that have put them off work for many months. I have arrested someone for something as minor as a fraudulent tax disk in their car to find them armed with a Desert Eagle handgun, and I'm sure most of the officers who comment on here could tell similar horror stories. But we still fucking go. Not for the wages, not for being a hero, as most people will never know or see, but because it is the right thing to do. 2/ You think I am a twat and would not go to help me because of it. I think you are a twat, but if you were getting a kicking and I saw it going on, I would still wade in to help, on duty or off. That's the difference. If you think you could do a better job than those who already do it then put your brawn where your mouth is and give the job a go.
 

So what happened so FJL? We deserve to be told. Who else has she been harassing and where else can we see her recidivist activities?

As for piling in, anyone takes a pop at a PC, 1yr, no suspended, no time off for remand, good behaviour.

And when will judges get out of their ivory towers and see that in the real world people are bloody scared out on the streets? I'm 6'2", 17 stone and look like someone you wouldn't want to mess with and I'm worried to be out sometimes.

I'd happily pile in and help out at copper but would be worried about the consequences...

Oh, and it's great to see the blog causing such fierce debate again!
 

Frustrated: what did I say that was 'inflammatory'? Read my posts and quote back at me, pls. If you're suggesting I made 'disgraceful' comments about female officers, I think you're nuts. What did I say? (I also think you're infected with the PC virus, for which common sense is the only sure, but that's by the by).

Anonymous 5:22 asks (1) what I mean by 'right-thinking' and (2) what my sex and skin colour has to do with anything?

1. By right thinking, I mean I generally support the police and have gone to their aid in the past (supposed drug dealer getting away from two officers, I held him till they caught up - he turned out to be innocent). I do unto others as I'd have done unto me. I don't break any law which involves offences against people or property. I've never stolen anything in my life, or assaulted anyone.

2. My sex and skin colour have nothing to do with anything. I was just making the point that white middle class men are regularly said to have all the 'power' in society and that, if that's the case, it's about time we started using it to deal with tossers like these on the video.

S/he also goes on to question the 'football' story. Read this blog. Not far from where I live, two cops arrived at a house after a guy confiscated a ball kicked over his fence by the kid next door. It had happened a lot. The kid's dad was a local sergeant and the inescapable conclusion was that he'd used that influence to get his kid's ball back instead of reprimanding the child as he should have.

S/he also questions 'racist revving' and says it's a 'new one' to him/her. Not surprising, really - it's fucking ludicrous. It was also new to the guy who did it: he spent 24 hours in police custody because he revved his engine near to a Muslim couple. He was seen by an off duty copper who arrested him after imputing racist motives to his use of the accelerator (despite the guy saying he didn't even know there was a Muslim couple anywhere near him). To labour the point again, this is counter-productive in my opinion.

Oh, and " I don't agree but I have a mortgage" sounds quite like "I vas only following orders" to me.

Finally, anonymous 5:14pm is obviously a weirdo. But in case he's serious, re the bit about no-one could do what you do, I did 22 years in the Parachute Regt, three tours of Northern ireland and the Falklands. Fuck off, mate, please.
 

Pete, the examples you give are examples of rubbish policing that I don't think many on here would agree with. I also think most of us would be pretty embarrassed to be involved with either of those petty jobs, but all you are highlighting are the incidents that make our blood boil as P.C.'s in a PC world.

We do not disagree, but these are not the norm. This does not happen on a daily basis. The officers I work with arrest burglars, street robbers, abusive partners and cheeky 'scrotes' who plague the decent members of public on a daily basis.

With regard to what part of any post was infammitory and disrespectful...

"Re "there are girls in the force now" yep and often pretty useless in practise, and like girls on ships in the navy is sometimes political correctness gone mad,"

As for the mortgage comment I ask you to read the following posted by anonther further up this thread that I think sums up the idiots in charge.

"We're human beings, but not only that, we are a bunch of people who are told what to do, who have had decision making removed from us by a bunch of people who do not have any idea what the implications of the decisions they make are, do not care about their work force, do not particularly care about best service to members of the public and are completely unaffected by it all. They also have the inability to see that they are wrong and are not willing to listen nor do anything about it. They're spineless jellyfish 'yes' men/women."

Who may I add are all about self glorification in pursuit of the next promotion. Please do not tar all officer as the PC mad clowns you've rightly identified, as most on the front line are decent hard working (if a little fed up) people who still want to 'make a difference.'
 

Take some advice from an old fart cop...If there is cctv of a fight you were involved in, don't watch it unless a buddy watches it first and says you did ok.
A few years ago I was the only cop to turn up outside a nightclub at spewing out time when there had been several scuffles in just a few minutes. This was monitored by folk who thought it a good idea to have someone turn up, assuming the mere presence of a good looking stud in uniform would encourage an orderly queue at the kebab van, and everyone else would quietly go home. I did my best, eyes and head swivelling everywhere. At that point in my service I had never been so near so many hostile people. To keep this story short (ish) later that night (well, 4am) I was in the control room supping coffee, when the cctv people piped through 'my' incident.
I saw 2 occassions when nightclub bouncers picked off a pair of piss heads who were intent on doing me harm. I had no idea, and thought I had no support untill the town van arrived later - God bless those bouncers - For weeks I had 'mares about what could have happened.
Watching yourself on cctv can be more scary than the actual incident!
 

Oh dear "IM FUCKING LIVID! All you anti-police twats on here" what are you on, some of us are your biggest supporters, but being a friend involves being prepared to tell it like it is not sycophantic support like you're some kind of superhuman perfect beings - you are not, you do some things well and some less so, and the sooner you start listening the better we all will be

The kid trying to break windows today with his ball, given the ball back by a copper, is tomorrows shit that thinks he has a perfect right to do what he likes including kicking the shit out of coppers

Re "The law by its very nature has to be enforced equitably on all" I'm laughing so loudly, like foreign drivers routinely let off while brit drivers get hammered for trivia? is that "without fear and favour" bollocks is it, like some religions allowed to slag off others while the other way around results in arrest ? fair and impartial? my arse my friends my absolute arse. Of course the law should be enforced equitably, its the fact it isn't that is the problem, the hard working folk get disproportionately hammered while the state benefits dependant underclass can run riot and are rarely brought to book, this is modern day Britain

And re "I don't agree but I have a mortgage" sounds quite like "I vas only following orders" is exactly the same excuse as Nazi prison guards used, you are on a very slippery slope on that one for justification

Wake up smell the coffee and realise that the genuine normal folk deserve better and are just as pissed off with pissed arseholes as you are
 

Frustrated said: With regard to what part of any post was infammitory and disrespectful...

"Re "there are girls in the force now" yep and often pretty useless in practise, and like girls on ships in the navy is sometimes political correctness gone mad,"

Yep, point taken, that is inflammatory and disrespectful. Except that - and it's a minor point - I didn't say that. You're quoting someone else.

But thanks for the generally fairer tone of the rest of your response. I think a lot of people haven't actually read, or understood, what I wrote.

I know (and, indeed, said) that a lot of what ordinary cops do day in day out borders on the heroic. A number of the lads who served under me in the Army joined the police and I'm still in touch with one or two. Plus, I read the papers and I live in the real world (I'm in security, in and out of UK), so I know you go where some others fear to tread (though you have got radios, legal CS and a van load of mates to call on if the shit really hits the fan, which the rest of the population doesn't have when it ventures out on a Saturday night).

My point is not that the front line troops are twats - some are, obviously, but most I'm sure are not. It's the old Lions led by Donkeys scenario familiar to anyone who's ever worked for HM Govt at the point where things start to get a bit sticky.

But I do think that the obviously right-minded majority of you reading this brilliant blog (if you're not, why are you reading?) - people who presumably appreciate that we really are starting to get fed up with traffic law being upheld while property rights are shredded, with politically-correct rubbish being elevated above the need to protect the vulnerable - should start a kind of work to rule... quietly dropping jobs that you shouldn't be doing in favour of ones that you should.

It's up to you, because the senior officers and politicos aren't going to give you/us what we want.

Additionally, as I say, I have personal experience of fairly serious crime that's been dealt with by way of a quick chat and a victim support leaflet. It's a classic pincer movement.
 

for what its worth i made the comment about female coppers and females on fighting ships

in both cases the old discrimination which i agree was bad has been replaced with politically correct bollocks which serves only to undermine the police and the navy

males and females are different and any organisation employing them should play to their strengths

i dont know many male coppers who could go a whole career screaming "help" down a radio when a fight breaks out and not getting hands on, while i know of a number of female coppers with that general approach

and really go and talk to some of the best folk in the navy and ask what they really think about fighting ships being crewed by both sexes, its not really the success the PC public relations people would have u believe

reality is reality whether it fits the politically correct agenda of the day or not
 

I AM WITH MIDLANDS PC, RODDERS and EAST MIDLANDS SOMEWHERE at 5.14PM.
The difference between me and these pricks is that I say in front of everyone, including the magistrates, JUDGE and JURY, " I clenched my right fist and smacked him/her as hard as I physically could in the face, neck and body until blood came from their face and I got them under control".
I have NEVER met one of these cowardly pussies who ever ADMITTED doing the same thing to a Police Officer. They are too busy phoning a friend to get an alibi sorted, or running away ditching their clothes and stopping at another liars house getting their mates to get the story right. These people are a fucking disgrace to this country and are the first ones to fuckin moan, or phone us when someone bigger and better has got to them. I would laugh at their funerals, pieces of shit like this don't deserve to breathe the same air as us. Keep up the good work troops.
Oh yeah, I do have some advice. Smash fuck out of the side of their knees with your boot or if you are quick, a rock solid punch to the middle of the guts, gets them every time. They bend, then you knee strike to the face. Pick the bits out of that you fuckin tonsil. (And I speed, eat what the fuck I like at the wheel and don't care that much for traffic wardens and clampers.)
 

This sort of thing makes me so angry. Build more prisons and put violent offenders in for a good while.

Would I go and help? Knowing me, probably. Would this be sensible or helpful? No, it would be ****** stupid because I've got a family to mother. I wouldn't want to die.

Re the remarks about being nicked for having a go. I'd rather be nicked by any back up unsure of the situation than stand by, do nothing, and see someone murdered in front of me.

Re all this talk about traffic offences. Why is it people think breaking the law re traffic isn't as criminal as duffing someone up outside a pub? Can anyone supply me with the figures of people murdered in the UK last year, and compare it with the people killed by dangerous driving? or drunk driving? or driving under the influence of drugs? Seems to me driving is a big cause of death.

Just because we don't go out behind the wheel with the intention of killing someone, doesn't stop the person being dead if we drive dangerously and just happen to kill someone.

We all think speeding etc is trivial because we all do it, and usually it doesn't matter. But sometimes, just sometimes it goes horribly wrong.

Evelyn
 

Here Here, general!
 

***OFF TOPIC***** for all you FJL fans see:
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/holly_finch/2006/06/post_128.html

get to June 18th and she has an 'episode' (off the meds probably)- all linked to her arrest I would think. there's loads of this...takes over the thread and annoys everyone destroying discussion
 

Nice to see a pig get what he deserves for once.
 

"people killed by dangerous driving"

"speeding etc is trivial because we all do it" some speeding is trivial

deaths on the roads is a serious issue

however its a much more complex issue than the govt propaganda and current policing tactics allow for

really driving too close to the car in front is a million times more dangerous than doing 35 in a 30 in good conditions

drivers should be taught to drive appropriate to the conditions and not to some arbitrary number

speed limits should be set by appropriately qualified advanced drivers so that we could respect they have been set sensibly

and many deaths are directly attributable to the council officers and contractors who repeatedly design unsafe road features aka death traps and get away with it

etc etc etc

its easy to pick on decent folk who have actually taxed and registered their cars correctly

far easier than going after thugs who fight back

and this is why all police loose respect

abd.org.uk are on the whole right and the politically correct Islington crowd who dominate the agenda are fairly clearly wrong

now get real
 

Pete from Birmingham,

Thank you for the abuse. Very nice of you, though my reply was not aimed at anyone in particular and was purely an example of the moans and groans of some members of the public. I won't respond with abuse, thats below me and I think sarcasm is sufficient. However funnily enough I do not disagree with everything you said. Following orders however is something we do. I don't presume Baliffs always feel too proud but they're paid to a job, same as we are. I have arrested people (completely lawfully I might add) where I have had some sympathy for the position they are in yet later speaking to those from up above if I had not arrested would have involved a major fucking bolloking and a lot more.
Officer safety training techniques are pretty shoddy in my opinion, sure the ground take downs are half decent and a couple of the self defence tactics are alright as well but overall its inadequate for the job we do (well, those of us that actually have to do any real work).
I fully support the call for training in Krav Maga. Simple techniques which used properly are superb.
I'm also with the PC who says he has no qualms with using force to defend ones self. I don't take behaviour which threatens the safety of myself, colleagues and members of the public lightly.
Personally, I'm all for carrying a firearm. That doesn't mean everyone would be well suited to carrying one but I would carry one without hesitation, as I would a taser. Why we have not been issued a taser is beyond me. Far less damage seems to be caused by the use of tasers than a strike from a baton, with the effects being temporary. I also find CS is useless. Sure I realise, the guidelines are use it from a sufficient distance but being able to make good ground between yourself and a suspect usually is not possible and hence you end up spraying and everyone knows about it. PAVA spray will be far better and should be fit for use for those people who are refusing to be carried to custody as well. Too often it turns in to a scrap when they refuse to be conveyed and end result is Police are injured (usually) and the suspect is injured (sometimes).
I'm so frustrated with it all at the moment but I still love my job when I'm allowed to do it.
As for anonymous "Nice to see a pig get what he deserves for once" - you are a really, really funny person. Its good to see that you have the intelligence to observe what job someone does and purely on that basis say they deserve a beating. I was going to try and type in lower case just for you and miss out all punctuation so as to not confuse you but I'm pretty damn pedantic unfortunately.
I don't quite understand the comments about Police going for easy targets such as motorists instead of those who fight back. I've had numerous scraps with people from a simple traffic stop, hence you never know who is going to fight back and I've had some of the largest most violent people around come quietly after I've been certain they'll kick off.
If you're talking about "fight back" in the sense plead not guilty etc, agai, I find that crap. We do not have the pleasure of choosing what we deal with and how, please understand that. I don't have the option of saying "Fuck it, I can't be arsed to deal with that robbery because it requires a massive amount of protracted enquiries, I'll go pick on a white British male for doing thirty-five in a thirty".
I re-iterate, as much as you are entitled to your opinion, please inform yourself as much as you can with what things are actually like on our side of the fence before spouting unqualified comments. Again, I'm on your side completely with providing a much better service and cutting out all the bolloks but some of the comments I've read are absolute shite.
 

I attended an aftermath of a job today. After respoding to an incident of burglary, an officer was run down by the three scum burglars and has recieved serious life altering injuries to his pelvis and upper legs. This man was there trying to protect property thats not even his, he's out there to help any member of the public who requires it, and has paid a heavy price trying to protect YOU.

Thats all of you who are writing insulting and quite frankly ridiculous posts, He, like the majority of the rest of us will be there when and if we can to make your lives that little bit safer. None of us go (At least every last officer that I know) out to prosecute the innocent, we want to put the scum criminals away, our achilies heel is the rest of the justice system. Still at least when the criminal age of responsiblilty gets raised to 14 as I heard yesterday (Plans from the gvmt)our's and your lives will be that muchmore blighted.

A last word on the officer, he is stable in hospital, but more interestingly he is a specail. A normal member of the public who has decided to make a difference to society, whilst also living his own life, and holding down a normal 9/5 job. He can do it, CAN YOU????
 

Just a few observations from an aging member of the public ...I agree with most of what Pete from Birmingham and JF have said ...the people in society who form your natural support are far fewer nowadays and for the above reasons. This is dangerous for you and the public.

Democracy has been mentioned. So ...lets elect the Chief Constable. It just might help turn things around.

Faith in the police? I see from Saturday's Mail that the author of Inspector Frost is going to kill the character off because, from personal experience, he has become disillusioned with policing methods in this country. It does seem strange to watch old TV programmes where the police are respected ...nay loved ...no more I'm afraid ...how sad
 

As an addition to my above comments, can I just say that with the increasing political changes taking place in the police force/service ...I am genuinely starting to fear the police, just as much as the criminal elements in our society.

That said, I'd would like to thank all you good coppers ...you know who you are ...who have kept my old bones safe over the years. And to all those coppers who thought it necessary to share that special, endearing, sense of humour ...get stuffed
 

i'm amazed at how thin-skinned a lot of police officers are.
'shocked' complains about "insulting and quite frankly ridiculous posts"? get real. most posters have said how appalled they were at this incident and have then gone on to say that they worry that the way the police/the cjs is going is likely the make this happen more, not less. this is neither ridiculous nor insulting - it's an attempt to have an adult debate about a serious problem.

whoever said the police need to remember who their core constituents are was spot-on - and a number of non-police posters have agreed with that.

i was burgled last year. soco came out three days later and i never heard a thing afterwards.

three months ago, my brother was assaulted in his shop (where he has been threatened and robbed a number of times without the police bringing anyone to justice) and punched the assailant back. the guy fell over and banged his head. the police arrested my brother.

our next door neighbour was mugged and had his wallet, phone and watch stolen. the police officers who interviewed him said off the record they had no chance of catching the mugger and advised him to try to forget the whole thing.

meanwhile, yesterday i was pulled over and given the third degree in a random car tax stop-check. i counted 19 police officers there, in vans, cars and motorbikes.

i know motoring issues are important, but this is ridiculous.

if the police officers on here who keep telling us to stop 'whining', calling us 'morons' and informing us of their outstanding bravery cannot see where this is going, i fear for the future.
 

Kusabi, have you totally missed the point that the murder rate in the USA is drastically higher than in the UK

Guess what. The murder rate is higher in the cities than it is in less densely populated areas. Can you guess what else? Guns are banned in all major US cities. So the murder rate is so high in the exact places where guns are supposedly 'rare'...go figure.

it's just about the only scenario where having a gun might help you...balance that small advantage against all the deaths when...

Wrong again, there are plenty of real-life instances of guns being successful used to deter or prevent the completion of crime everywhere. In parking lots. In stores. In schools. I'd hazard a guess that such instances outnumber the number of times an innocnet person got shot for being mistaken for someone else. That's quite apart from whether denying victims of crime the best means of protection, in order to protect people against misuse of said means, is actually morally sound (yes, you really should think about whether what you're talking about is moral).

not to mention the glaringly obvious fact that if all firearms were banned, your robber is highly unlikly to be threatening you with one in the first place!

Obvious fact? Obvious TRUTH, you mean. Like the obvious TRUTH that a few hundred years ago there were withced who worshipped Satan. You proceed to recount an instance of you coming across someone with a scary Desert Eagle pistol, I suppose the fact that guns are banned should have meant that that person would've been 'highly unlikely' to have had one on their person with which to threaten people!

The percentage of those who get injured offering some sort of resistance is nearer 90%. Go figure.

That's Britain, where people such as yourself and your political masters don't seem to give a damn that offering some sort of resistance carries such a high risk. The FBI did a survey in the States in which they found that offering resistance with a firearm was significantly safer than offering no resistance.

The main difference between the UK and the US, however, is that more Americans than British believe it's wrong to play silly games with the safety of the public, and come to that, the right of members of the public not to have to co-operate with criminals' demands, silly games such as pretending that people's safety is the reason why they won't allow people to protect their safety.

And as far as arresting people for getting involved, are you f*cking stupid?

No, I'm fairly astute and I have my eyes wide open. Someone has already posted about a police officer siding with some little scroat kicking a ball against a window, over the people he was antagonising by so doing. That brings to mind another case in Leeds where a little shit was kicking a ball against a church door, the worshippers inside held onto it and were told by a police officer to give the ball back. I have no problem imagining that such a jobsworth would respond to assistance by members of the public by trying to arrest and have them charged for their acts of kindness.

Perhaps if the police as a whole were willing to throw jobsworths out on their ear, very loudly, very publicly, that might inspire confidence that the police and the public were on the same side. But I suspect you would rather make some more knuckledragging comments about whether I or you are twats or whatever. So we can count you out of that effort, can't we?

If you think you could do a better job than those who already do it then put your brawn where your mouth is and give the job a go.

Alas I'm not that brawny, so I don't even rate my ability to intimidate a scumbag into compliance through my mere presence. You might be aware of how few people actually can muster that kind of presence, so they require something more. P.S. I bet your next reply will contain some variation of 'if people can't handle criminals without guns or any weapons in fact, tough shit, they'll just have to suffer'.
 

Anonymous 11.02

"Get real"? How rude.

The reality is loads of people are killed on our roads every year by people who think that they are good drivers and that the laws governing the other (bad) drivers don't apply to them.


I absolutely agree that people who drive too close to the car in front are far more dangerous than an experienced motorist doing 35 in a 30. And that the police should target them.

And you're right. The speeder is easier to target than the tailgater.

Do you live in a 30mph zone where the traffic perpetually goes through at 40 or 50? It's noisy, antisocial and inconsiderate. It worries parents and it increases stress levels. But it's not the point of my post.

I was observing how we feel comfortable breaking laws which we think everyone breaks, ie the "trivial" laws like speeding, not having good tyres, poor driving etc. Comfortable to the extent of saying, "Why don't you go after the real criminals?" if we ever get stopped.

"Real" crimes are something someone else does.

As I understand it, road speed is set as the speed at which 85% of drivers can drive safely. (Except in Oxfordshire where some dictatorial person seems to have decided that a top speed of 50 is appropriate.) This gives a safety margin for the less competent drivers. You may well be safe at 35 because, of course, you are a good driver. The linit is set at 30 to accommodate those who aren't.

So it's tough if you get done by the sledgehammer approach. The sledgehammer is needed because how do you define "safe"? What's safe for one isn't safe for another, but try proving it.

It's as woolly as 'reasonable force.' How do you define 'reasonable?' Add to that a slight complication of it being the force as you believed to be reasonable at the time and in the heat of the moment.

Parking illegally might not actually do more than mildly inconvenience someone most of the time. but if we all did it, the place would be chaotic and people woould die because the ambulance can't get through.

We ought to be able to rely on people being polite, intelligent and considerate, but we can't.

As for those *****s in the clip, and any like them, I think any amount of force used against them is reasonable because once they have assaulted a copper, they have abandined the law, so why should the law protect them.

In this instance, there's CCTV evidence to back up what the officers say. But suppose there weren't? It's a lot more difficult to justify force when there's no corroborative evidence.

As for the football type situation, yes that is annoying, and don't we wish the copper could give the little brat a serious finger wagging (or more). But let's face it, that would infringe his Human Rights (choke).

Evelyn
 

The police are in the state they are in for a variety of reasons:

1: Back in the 60's, 70's and 80's the police seemed to be a law unto themselves. Beating people up, falsifying confessions, holding people for a week without charge etc.. no one will disagree that they weren't tough and got the job done and shitbags were more likely to go to prison if they were nicked. However this government is now full of people who demonstrated, complained and campaigned to reform the police. Now they are in power they are trying to change it forever.
2. The police wouldn't be in this position if the public didn't want it to change. They obviously didn't like how the police acted in the bad old days (or good whatever your point of view is) so we now have lots of new rules and protocols surrounding what we do (PACE, RIPA to name two) so it makes our job very hard to do .
3. No one gets locked up anymore. To many think tanks saying that prison doesn't reform anyone and the government listens. Besides prison is very expensive...it's a lot cheaper to put them on a tag. Thus there is no deterrent and criminals can do what they want. Police nick plenty of people and charge them but the court never sends anyone to prison. Wonder why we don’t care anymore? That's why. Moan about the courts, politicians, policy makers, senior officer, CPS, Liberty and all the other wankers who aren't doing their part or making our job more difficult. I mean who joined to fill out the same information in triplicate and spend most of their time in the station? I didn't. I joined to kick ass and nick burglars and robbers. Chance would be a fine thing...
4. The public can’t make their mind up. One minute they want zero tolerance, the next minute their moaning when it is implemented (boy with ball, no tax, speeding) What do you people want? You want zero tolerance applied to other people not to you and yours.
5. National Crime Reporting Standards. Back in the day you could square things up that weren't going anywhere. Now no job is too small to warrant a crime report and an investigation. What a crock of shit. Again that's one firmly at the doorstep of some of the public who moaned to the government that their smashed plant pot or broken wing mirror warranted the same sort of attention as a robbery or rape. Cheers for that.
6. Public expectation of the police. We cant teleport, read minds, leap tall building in a single bound, find fingerprints on bricks, coins or something the circumference of a pin (like in CSI) We cant solve EVERYONES problems or raise their kids. GET REAL.
7. The media only reporting the bad things the police do not the good and even when we actually do something well, they still find a reason to slag us off. No there's a moral booster!

That's why the job is fucked because too many people have a say in what we do. The same people who know fuck all about policing and have never done anything like it in their lives.

Oh and by the way you can’t catch a criminal without evidence.. you know little things called witnesses, fingerprints, DNA, decent descriptions etc...If you have been robbed, burgled or had your plant pot smashed and we don’t find/have any of those things then the chances of bringing someone to book are next to nothing. Not the fault of the police...that's just life. We can’t be everywhere and CSI isn't real!
 

"Contrary to this school of thought, I do not agree with the lack of discretion, the crazy policies from command/government, and the overly PC approach of modern day policing. However when my Sgt gives a lawful order then we HAVE to comply, this can mean making unpopular arrests. I don't agree but I have a mortgage."

Errrr unless I'm seriously mistaken you must be able to justify an arrest under SOCAP 2005 or it is unlawful and you will bet that your force will leave you hanging if someone sues you personally.

Unless you have a written record of the order for an arrest (as in recorded, dated and signed in your pocket book) "following orders" leaves you wide open.

Alternatively you could always say to the custody sergeant what your meant to say when a senior officers orders an arrest "I have been ordered to arrest this person by xxx who will furnish you with the evidence to support the arrest."

Of course nobody would ever do that and not tow the party line would they?
 

Re SOCAP its actually very easy to justify an arrest. How about a prompt and effective investigation, ie, to find or eliminate the suspect from enquiries?
Anyway, its all been said very well by many icluding Evelyn and Rodders.
I've been in a similar situation to those chaps and it wasn't nice. Now I act first and ask questions later. I find people who bitch about certain crimes like speeding tickets do so because they have been stung. So what, lifes unfair. I'm on 9 points but you dont here me weeping. I took the punishment like a man, as I chose to speed/go through a very late abmer (:)).

Scuba-Cop
 

PC Bloggs,

I just noticed an interesting comment from one of the brave anonymouses who post here - apparently "we feel alienated from the pigs". I assume "we" means "us criminals"? Shame you feel the police aren't on your side.

No, by "we" it is just possible that he meant, as I do, those people who you are "sadly ... obliged" to protect. Stories such as the woman who, after repeatedly reporting "anti-social" behaviour and being ignored, was then fined when she finally told the kids to "fuck off".

You can find my attitude to that sort of thing here -- and I haven't yet mentioned the garden gnome, the racism victim who was never found or the racist car engine.

Now, I'm a nice law-abiding, middle-class boy with a couple of friends in the Edinburgh police: I'm broadly sympathetic to your profession, but the above stories make you look like authoritarian pricks. Worse still are the cover-ups and the ridiculous posturing by Sir Ian Blair; his attempts to play politics -- trying to have people held for 90 days, for instance -- just ensure that it looks like the police are on the side of the politicians.

And a great many people think that politicians -- and especially this lot -- are not on their side. When you start paying attention to stupid cases such as those headlined above, even sympathetic people like myself start disliking the police's attitude.

You exist, to borrow that nauseating Americanism, to protect and serve. You are there to enforce the law, sure, but you work for us: our law exists to protect us from the state, not criminals: that's your job.

I acknowledge that the rank and file have, to an extent, a hard time of it and that much of the time it is the PC, paper-pushing, target-chasing heads of police who are making tits of themselves, but still...

Having had my little whinge, the attack above is horrific. Personally, I think that being flogged, naked, in public wouldn't go amiss: prolonged pain and humiliation should do the trick nicely...

DK
 

rodders,

3. No one gets locked up anymore. To many think tanks saying that prison doesn't reform anyone and the government listens. Besides prison is very expensive...it's a lot cheaper to put them on a tag.

Crime is estmated to cost everyone in the country about £3,000 per annum. It would cost about £75 per capita per annum to double the number of prison places.

Anyway, no doubt all of the police bloggers will be throwing their weight behind a new pressure group: Prison Works...

DK
 

To 'Concerned' 0723hours, The example given is another example of cops who risk their lives every day to protect those of the public, "and the insulting and quite frankly ridiculous posts" are aimed at those idiots who have nothing but scorn to pour at the police for doing their job.

The only way to have a good look at the problem here is to have a balanced view, from both the police and the public. The Public have a high expectation of the Police that the Police just can't satisfy.

I rally to the cry of assistance every time I hear the call, and the action of the louts in the clip deserves more than a two year sentence.
 

Let's hear it for Cesare Lombroso and his theory of biological determinism:

Link 1 is about a wanted person (see the photo) then go to Link 2

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/southern_counties/5375232.stm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesare_Lombroso

----------------------------------
I think Senor Lombroso has a lot to say to us.
 

With regard to my earlier comment about locking up under instruction from supervision.

I am referring to incidents where a crime has been committed, such as kids fighting or balls being 'confiscated'. Technically these constitute a crime these days but we don't have to arrest, we could report these people, but all senior command are obsessed with arrest figures and detections, so we have no discretion in these matters.

Still I've started to stop arresting every offender. I had a Common Assault on a child that was never a crime but reported as such, and the A/P's mother was desperate for me to lock up the 'offender', however I reported him instead. The CPS no further actioned the 'crime' as they should and she then complaind to my Inspector I hadn't locked up the male, and I had to answer to the boss. Still stuck to my guns.

I will stick to my policy of arresting when the offender deserves it and reporting when it is a 'trivial' matter and a decent member of the public who is named as an 'offender', at least until someone spots what I am doing and instructs me otherwise.

And Rodders pretty much sums up the feeling of most front liners in his above post.
 

Frustrated, I applaud you for your post. More of us should report people and then allow CPS to NFA the jobs which don't warrant court time.

A lot of people have commented on the police arresting people who were actually the victims. Unfortunately, there are people in society who use the police as a tool in their neighbour disputes, criminal activity and domestic problems. I am all for police discretion, however it is not the police officer's job to turn up at an incident and decide who is innocent and guilty. That is for the courts (I don't think the courts do a very good job but anyway). Our job is to turn up, listen to the allegations and take action. If an allegation is of a criminal offence, we have to interview the offender and this should be done with access to a solicitor, the Codes of Practice, and tape-recording facilities to protect them and us. This means an arrest.

I am sory if we sometimes end up arresting shop owners because an abusive customer makes a false allegation. I have stuck people on for giving false statements and have gone back to arrest "victims" when I found evidence they had deliberately lied. But when you arrive on scene and someone says "he hit me", there is little else we can do but arrest and take it from there.

Alternatively, we could phone up the judge and jury and get them down to the High Street asap to make up their minds.

Or, we could hire the guy from The Dead Zone who could touch the offender and get a vision of hat really happened.
 

I am disgusted by some of these posts. If you think police officers are 'pigs' who deserve this sort of thing you are nothing but brainless trash. I don't even understand what you are doing on a site like this. Undoubtedly you are one of the countless peices of scum that weigh this country down by not earning a living and causing endless problems with your pathetic behaviour. I happen to work with police officer and see the human side of them. These are ordinary, good people on the whole with families. They do a job that not many could face and will even turn up to help scum like you when you need it. Quit the bad-boy chav act and start giving officers the respect they deserve. Perhaps then we could start turning this country in to something to be proud of once again, rather than the toilet it is now. Stop blaming bad policing for this and blame a crap society full of chavs like you.
 

PC Bloggs, you are right about the fairness issue (solicitor etc) I should probably point out the times I use this are when the offence is really petty or when there is little supporting evidence from witnesses etc. Remember we never really locked up for a common assault pre SOCPA, unless Sec.25 PACE applied, so I still don't see then necessity to always lock up for a Common or Public Order offence after the fact when no one is in liklyhood of harm.

The incident I used this method within, I had aquired 5 statements which severely undermined the a/p's claims and I felt arrest was not necessary (as per SOCPA) as I could interview under caution contempranioulsy and then let the CPS decide.

The CPS were more than happy with the investigation and I managed to save myself needless hours in custody with a job everyone knew was going nowhere.

This isn't for every incident and I understand my role isn't judge and jury, but I think the little discretion we still have, we should be able to occasionally use to prevent the decent people being locked up in petty or malicious allegations.
 

I have a question amidst all the angry debate, DC's original question was about 3%
I thought the Police had some special deal that gave them inflation plus in order to make up for losing their right to strike.
Does that no longer apply and if so why is not the Police Federation taking the govt to court and/or an industrial tribunal.
 

This all reminds me of those heady days on the Andy Murray blog after those unfortunate anti-English comments.

To demonise members of the public who are concerned with law and order in this country, is beneath contempt. One member of the forum reminded us ...with some glee ...what is going to happen when all the old time cops retire or emigrate ...and leave us in the hands of the new age bully boys. Respectfully, yes we know. Like we know that teachers can't spell, nurses can't or won't nurse whilst forgetting to wash their hands ...and politicians tell lies.

These outrageous stories are becoming all too frequent. Who are these coppers who order and deliver a MacDonalds, with large fries & coke to scrotes who pitch tiles from roofs? ...obviously not the indignant contributors to this blog ...they must be alien pod people in disguise rather than plod. That's my only rational explanation.

And what about the mass turnout for our beloved leader's missus ...Cherie ...alleged assault? The last time I saw a police presence of such magnitude was when a Currys electrical van overturned on the M6

I'm just glad the coppers were not knifed or shot in this incident ...they're lucky
 

[b]The CPS were more than happy with the investigation and I managed to save myself needless hours in custody with a job everyone knew was going nowhere.[/b]

The last few that I have brought into the station for contemp interviews have had fingerprints, photograph and DNA taken anyway due the violent nature of the offences (S4 POA and Common Assault). Might as well have interviewed them properly for the time it took - the only difference in the end was the fact they could leave if they wanted - at which time I suppose "prompt and effective investigation" might have come into play!
 

OAP.

Sorry ..if you subsitute "with some glee" with "ruefully said" then you have captured my sentiment exactly.

EK
 

"Who are these coppers who order and deliver a MacDonalds, with large fries & coke to scrotes who pitch tiles from roofs? ..."

I'd also like to know, theres not a chance I can see any of the Police Officers I've worked with since I joined doing that! I can promise that no matter how much you hate these scrotes, we hate them more because we deal with them on a much more regular basis. However it sounds perhaps crazy enough to be true. The only explanation I can think of is that they were trying to entice them off of the roof? Fuck knows, thats crazy and I'd be interested to read the story if anyone knows which one it is. I would not give these scrotes a penny out of my pocket or anyone elses for that matter. To calm or gain compliance, its a common trick to offer a tea or coffee to a suspect once in custody, more often than not the one who is on the edge and will kick off any second.
I have to agree that with some events, it can be operation overkill. I suppose the flip side is that you need to have adequate staffing for such events. I've policed football where the threat level was thought to be low and guess what, everyone went apeshit, so you can't win really. What I do know is that taking officers for such a purpose should never be at the detriment of members of the public who are calling 999 etc and not to the detriment of their stretched colleagues, but it sadly happens. I've made a comment on my own blog about the amount of Police I observed at a public event a little while ago while myself and my colleagues who deal with the 999 calls as best as we are able were left to struggle with substantially lower than the minimum staffing level. I'm actually very outspoken while at work, if I think something is wrong, I can't keep quiet but I absolutely guarantee you that no matter how you phrase your point, they (upstairs in large cushy offices unaffected by it all) only hear what they want to hear.
The DVLA operations and stop checks often involve a fair few officers though you'll generally find the majority are probationary Police Officers who are learning by way of stopping a fair few vehicles. It gives them the chance to experience filling out the paperwork, filling out the paperwork, speak to the member of the public, fill out the paperwork, identify offences, fill out the paperwork, gain confidence and... how to correctly fill out the paperwork. Occasionally its traffic officers heavily involved but 9/10 times, its a learning experience for new officers.

"I acknowledge that the rank and file have, to an extent, a hard time of it and that much of the time it is the PC, paper-pushing, target-chasing heads of police who are making tits of themselves, but still..."

Actually I put the blame firmly on the shoulders of the very people you have described. I won't accept the blame for implementing their ridiculous policies and 'best practice' when I've challenged it previously and like I say, they just do not want to know.
I think personally we could just do the whole bunch being replaced with people who the average member of the public feels in touch with. Do I feel in touch with Ian Blair? Do I bugger. Whatever happened to them being Police Officers? Why are they acting like politicians. All I want to hear from them is that they detest the putrid shit of society who cause people harm, to act like a stong leader, be inspirational and concentrate purely on supplying a good service to genuine victims of crime, acting tough on criminals and saying they will listen to those on the street, both Police Officers and members of the public about how best to make sure these bastards aren't hurting anyone else. These are the things the government should be saying and then acting upon. Instead we get to hear about false twisted statistics and promises which they actually have no intention of keeping.
 

My Dad retire from the Police 10 years ago and as a kid i saw him come home after things like this. The twats should be made to see what an impact on the coppers family`s it has. lock `em for a long time I say
 

in reply to anonymous 8;03 re the pay rise.
yep your right there has been a long standing agreement that it would be 3%...guess what? yep youve got it the government have decided not to honour it. first time since 1979.
the way i see it is if they dont honour there side why should we honour ours?.
click here for some info
http://www.polfed.org/default_FBCE8C341A9542EB98FB4A0EE2F6C58A.asp
 

EK said:

"Sorry ..if you subsitute "with some glee" with "ruefully said" then you have captured my sentiment exactly."

Would like to oblige ...but I can't edit the post

Honestly ...we DO know it's a crap ...allegedly rewarding at times ...job. But that doesn't stop us voicing our concerns. Also, we would like to help, it's just that we are all going to end up with a criminal record. In my case, it will probably be drunk in charge of a Zimmer frame, caught in possession of an offensive wife ...or some other ludicrous NuLabour law

I notice nobody has vehemently denied the terrible slur about the Currys van ...actually I lied ...the biggest turnout was in 1977 at a Nurses home in Shropshire ...a pair of shoes went missing. I swear ...they were taking statements for over 3 months
 

Kusabi:

Guess what. The murder rate is higher in the cities than it is in less densely populated areas. Can you guess what else? Guns are banned in all major US cities. So the murder rate is so high in the exact places where guns are supposedly 'rare'...go figure.

Duh. Criminal goes out of city in his car. Criminal buys/steals a gun. Criminal drives back to big city. Criminal commits crime with said gun. Given that your ban on handguns in cities is clearly so effective, why not just ban them full stop? Then it's a lot harder to get them! The FBI website states that in 2005, 68% of US murders were committed with firearms. Work it out.

balance that small advantage against all the deaths when...

Wrong again, there are plenty of real-life instances of guns being successful used to deter or prevent the completion of crime everywhere. In parking lots. In stores. In schools.

That's why going to school is so safe in the USA is it? Didn't work at Columbine or any number of other school mass shootings, did it?

I'd hazard a guess

That's exactly what it is, a guess.

that such instances outnumber the number of times an innocent person got shot for being mistaken for someone else.

But if no-one had access to firearms, there wouldn't even be a problem to deal with in the first place!

That's quite apart from whether denying victims of crime the best means of protection, in order to protect people against misuse of said means, is actually morally sound (yes, you really should think about whether what you're talking about is moral).

Duh. Advising people to do what gives them the best possible chance of survival is moral, advising them to put themselves at risk because of some gut feeling that it is better we all be armed to the teeth is immoral.

Obvious fact? Obvious TRUTH, you mean... You proceed to recount an instance of you coming across someone with a scary Desert Eagle pistol, I suppose the fact that guns are banned should have meant that that person would've been 'highly unlikely' to have had one on their person with which to threaten people!

Yes, she was very unlikely to have been armed. The fact that she was armed doesn't invalidate my point. The fact that out of the hundreds of people I have arrested over the years, she was the only one who could have done me serious harm with a firearm in fact makes my point that society is better off without them around.

The percentage of those who get injured offering some sort of resistance is nearer 90%. Go figure.

That's Britain, where people such as yourself and your political masters don't seem to give a damn that offering some sort of resistance carries such a high risk.

So now offering resistance is a bad thing to do? Please make your mind up!
But we do care, that's exactly why we tell people to do what gives them the best possible chance of survival. Why is this so difficult to understand?

But The FBI did a survey in the States in which they found that offering resistance with a firearm was significantly safer than offering no resistance.

So now offering resistance is a good thing to do? I am confused. Did it also mention the fact that the murder rate in the USA is massively higher than in the UK?

The main difference between the UK and the US, however, is that more Americans than British believe it's wrong to play silly games with the safety of the public, and come to that, the right of members of the public not to have to co-operate with criminals' demands, silly games such as pretending that people's safety is the reason why they won't allow people to protect their safety.

It's not a pretence, it's real, it works. Letting every lunatic in the country have easy access to firearms, now that's a funny game. Whatever restrictions and checks you put on people having them, someone who cannot legally obtain one can steal one just as easily, neither is an option here.

And since I mentioned murder rates, let's do the maths:

US Population in 2005 :300,000,000 (Wikipedia)

no of murders in US in 2005 : 16,692 (FBI annual crime stats)

Number of population per murder: 17,972

England & Wales Population in 2005 : 53,000,000 (Wikipedia)

No of murders in 2005 : 800 (Home Office website)

Number of population per murder : 66,250.

So, you're about 3 1/2 times as likely to be murdered in the USA as you are in the UK. You stick to your ideas of how to stay alive, I'll stick to mine. Mine work better.

And as far as arresting people for getting involved, are you f*cking stupid?

No, I'm fairly astute and I have my eyes wide open. Someone has already posted about a police officer siding with some little scroat kicking a ball against a window, over the people he was antagonising by so doing. That brings to mind another case in Leeds where a little shit was kicking a ball against a church door, the worshippers inside held onto it and were told by a police officer to give the ball back.

Two cases where in all likelihood you have only heard half the story - like the earlier post on this blog about a woman given a FPN for verbally abusing a local shit who had harassed her, reported in the Mirror, who turned out to have lied her arse off about just about everything? Be careful what you quote from, it may bite you in the behind...

I have no problem imagining that such a jobsworth would respond to assistance by members of the public by trying to arrest and have them charged for their acts of kindness.

Imagining is all it is, buddy. Two isolated cases mean you can safely stereotype every one of the 140,000 police officers in the UK, does it? Even if they did make a bad decision, being human and all, that hardly proves your point. And you're a little behind the times, too, you know, the CPS have to authorise charge in virtually all cases now. So, maybe, just maybe, if someone wades in to deal with a suspect, they get arrested for assault cos they apparently went too far, the police think there is a case to answer so they put it to the CPS, the CPS agree and charge and a jury of 12 randomly selected people agrees and find them guilty, then maybe they are!

If you think you could do a better job than those who already do it then put your brawn where your mouth is and give the job a go.

Alas I'm not that brawny, so I don't even rate my ability to intimidate a scumbag into compliance through my mere presence. You might be aware of how few people actually can muster that kind of presence, so they require something more.

Neither am I, I'm over 6' tall and less than 10 stone. My friends joke that my baton is fatter than me. But I still manage. If you think this would stop you from being able to do a good job, it's not your brawn that's letting you down, it's your mental attitude.

P.S. I bet your next reply will contain some variation of 'if people can't handle criminals without guns or any weapons in fact, tough shit, they'll just have to suffer'.

Wrong. To stop them suffering is precisely why I joined the job in the first place, and why I stick at it when it pisses me off. Just because I disagree with your ideas about how to protect the public doesn't make me wrong. The difference is, my views are based on hard fact, from both mass research and individual experience.
 

Dear Officer Tackleberry,

This is the best link I could find on the subject http://www.express.co.uk/news_detail.html?sku=53

and sorry McDonalds ...it was KFC
 

Midlands PC said:

"Neither am I, I'm over 6' tall and less than 10 stone. My friends joke that my baton is fatter than me. But I still manage. If you think this would stop you from being able to do a good job, it's not your brawn that's letting you down, it's your mental attitude."

Mental attitude is obviously important, but so is physical presence. I come from a generation where a few beefy policemen
would take on McAlpine's finest in Yate's Wine Bar ...hurling them unconscious into the waiting 'Black Maria'

It does worry me that this will lead to arming the police, just to address the balance of physical danger. I'm just over 6 foot and is not uncommon to stand next to a policeman who just about reaches my eye level, including pointy headgear. Also, not long ago, I drove behind a policecar and it looked like nobody was driving. Could it be a new stealth jam sandwich drone, to put terror into the hearts of hoodies? No, it was 2 diminutive female police officers. I'm sorry, but I just don't feel reassured by kind of police presence.

As I'm sure you're fully aware ...some/all coppers call them Laptops, ie small PCs ...instead of Woodentops. I love the British sense of humour ...and boy, do we need it
 

Still waiting for Frustrated to acknowledge his mistake .

Frustrated said, when I asked what I'd said that was 'inflammatory and disrespectful': "With regard to what part of any post was infammitory and disrespectful..."Re "there are girls in the force now" yep and often pretty useless in practise, and like girls on ships in the navy is sometimes political correctness gone mad,"

I said: Yep, point taken, that is inflammatory and disrespectful. Except that - and it's a minor point - I didn't say that. You're quoting someone else.

Frustrated said: nothing.

I'd say most of us on here are 'singing from the same hymnsheet', as we must nowadays says, and I look forward to more officers following whoever it was (it may have been Frustrated) who said he found a way of getting the CPS to NFA minor rubbish.
 

I thought this was about the 3 percent the govt have declined to pay us this year. My husband and I both work in the police me as an officer him as civ support this is after serving in the armed forces. I have dealt with a number of public order situations where I could have got seriously hurt but i fought my way out of it and didn't get injured which is more than a lot of the more brawny male officers managed. I am 5'3 and slim but I have the advantage that drunk men are generally surprised to be knocked flying by a small mum of two and less likely to fight back (thank goodness) but when needed I can. It has been commented on by the lads I work with that they would rather go into a scrap with me than some other male officers. I think the issue is that everyone knows we have a shit job but we do it because we care, unfortunately our hands are often tied by what the home office and force policy direct.
 

Thank god for cctv I bet they felt safe knowing that was there.

How do you coppers feel about having guns? surely these people deserve a bullet to the shins? Would make them think twice about trying that if they had a gun pointed at them surely?
 

And since I mentioned murder rates,

Yes, I was waiting for you to bring this up, and I in fact already answered this point by informing you that the high US murder rate was attributable to criminal activity in the US major cities, where guns were banned...I suppose you think your 'border crossing' point proves that gun control is so effective that it means

Didn't work at Columbine or any number of other school mass shootings, did it?

Actually, it did work at the Appalachia School of Law, where a shooting incident was brought to an end by several armed citizens. It also worked at a school in Pearl, Mississippi, where another incident was thwarted by an armed teacher.

At Columbine, what we saw was a situation where the only people on the ground with guns were the ones who wanted to kill innocent people. Conclusion - not having good people around who are armed, doesn't work.

But if no-one had access to firearms, there wouldn't even be a problem to deal with in the first place!

No, there would still remain a massive problem with violence and violent scumbags being able to lord it over anyone they could, without those people having any means of stopping them. Which is just what you want, while lying about how much you care. And you justify this how?

Letting every lunatic in the country have easy access to firearms, now that's a funny game.

So either you think everyone who isn't a copper should be treated as if they were all lunatics and shouldn't be allowed to secure their safety with guns, or else you think that what the lunatics would IYO get up to, should constitute a reason why people should continue to be unable to gain the best means of preventing crimes against themselves. So again, people should be raped, beaten, killed, mugged, whatever, so that the 'lunatics' don't do what you fear they might do.

And THAT'S immoral. Making people submit to crime because you fear (wrongly) what might happen if they didn't, is immoral. And refusing to acknowledge that your precious gun control has unacceptably high costs, is also immoral.

So now offering resistance is a bad thing to do? Please make your mind up!

Wow, I have no other word to describe your reasoning other than psychotic. You think if you MAKE resitance too dangerous, that people will think resistance is a BAD thing? And yes, you do think other people should think that way, that's what your bogus 'Please make your mind up!' comment tells us.

that's exactly why we tell people to do what gives them the best possible chance of survival.

No, you give them the SECOND BEST chance of survival, to be more accurate, you give them the 'best' chance of survival given that you don't think they actually have any right to attempt to fend off criminals at all.

I'll stick to mine. Mine work better.

No, yours work appallingly, both in individual cases and overall. In individual cases, ordinary people are compelled to trust and to hope that the scumbag menacing them won't hurt them - that's when the scumbag doesn't just start beating them up because he thinks (as you do) that other people are there for him to do with as he pleases.

And overall, the State's insistance that the public should have no ability to ward off criminals, leads to those criminals becoming ever bolder, which in turn leads to more crime, leads to more wanton and sadistic crime i.e. 'happy slapping', and leads to thugs starting to believe that they have to right to attack and beat up police officers, since they've already developed the idea that they have the right to beat up innocent citizens - and they've been encourgaed to form such ideas thanks to people like you. That's where your ideas take us. And you say you care? You are a fucking filthy liar.
 

Whoops, unfinished post.

I suppose you think your 'border crossing' point proves that gun control is so effective that it means it should be extended all over the globe...because your attitude that if we make it impossible for ordinary people to exercise their rights to resist crime, there'll be some sort of 'trickle-down' effect whereby criminals will magically not have guns any more either. And of course, if that happens, criminals will give up robbing and burgling people altogether, so there won't be any downside, i.e. no more risk of violent crime, for the decent people you've made helpless in the event of violent crime!

That is deeply immoral and shows you up as an unintelligent sort who can't conceive of any better way of tackling crime than by attacking the rights of decent people, who don't commit crimes. You know, as opposed to targeting the scumbags who do commit crime. And that's giving you the benefit of the doubt that you actually want to impose on criminals, and imposing on everyone else is 'regrettable', which is in fact very, very dubious.
 

non pc pc
Thanks for answering my question. I gained the impression that you were complaining about only being offered 3% not being swindled out of 3% that's rightfully yours.
My apologies for that.
If so why isn't it being challenged then? 30 years of custom and practice has got be worth something.
Despite the ravings posted to this thread by a few deranged lunatics (personally I blame Care in the Community as to why these people are not properly being cared for)
I would say that the Police probably still enjoy more public confidence that Tony Teflon and his cronies and the thought of being dragged before an industrial tribunal by the cops would be hard to put a positive spin on even for him.
 

anonymous 9'49 (come on get a name its much easier:-)
it is being challenged, but as the agreement was in part that we forgoe our right to strike in return for the agreed 3% thisd now puts us in a spot...we cant strike so how do we get the government to honour its agreement?
the public can help by going to this site and click the "lobby your mp" hopefully if enough people hassle the mp then maybe something will be done.
http://www.polfed.org/default_00A8F189ABF24C689D18BCEFC357FC9B.asp
 

Kusabi, last thing I'll say on the matter, as I imagine most people are getting bored by now. I will agree with you on one thing, I think your country is so deeply fucked by having had so long of guns being easier to get than candy that you don't have any real choice other than to continue down the same destructive path, as you will never get guns away from criminals, but we were discussing crime in this country, and the statistics show than it is safer here the way we are, thank you very much.

Maybe both of us quoting individual examples was a bad idea, but the FBI
report had nearly 18,000 examples, and the Home office equivalent had only 800. I stand by the fact that you have much more chance of being killed in the USA than in the UK. Also that not resisting someone who is armed when you are not is better than resisting, again the crime statistics support this. All police forces in this country advise people not to fight back when faced by someone with a knife or a gun - are we all immoral, or is just the fact that all police forces have researched it and come to the same conclusion? We're not hung up on the holy grail of the right to bear arms, as you obviously are, we base our conclusions on the evidence, not decide on a conclusion and then choose the evidence to fit. Guns are both the problem and the solution in the USA, only they're more of a problem than a solution.
 

Pete, I acknowledge my mistake and am big enough to hold up my hands, sorry!

Was swept up in commenting on other things in this thread! As you have said, I think we are all pretty much on the same wavelength here!
 

Oap,

Thanks for the link. KFC, McDonalds, bah, its the same shite!

Just out of curiousity, whose idea do you think it was to send him food because they were looking after this TOOL's human rights? Do you think it was the PC's and Sergeants who run around dealing with the grief people like that cause or do you think it was someone in a (ahem) more senior position?
I recall a standoff where the male was on the roof and all it took as we waited there (he was wanted for actual bodily harm to his ex-partner) was myself and my colleague drinking hot chocolate with our warm coats on and scarfs as he shivered with his t-shirt and tracksuit bottoms on stood there in the middle of winter with the wind and rain. More than once I pointed my cup at him and said "Cheers!" and told him he would not be getting a bloody thing if he remained up there.
You ultimately have to make the effort to coaxe this people in to coming down, no-one wants to fall thirty feet or so trying to arrest a piece of shit like that.
I'm all for kicking ass and being mob handed like some of the persons within the article commented but I'm not risking death for a fucking idiot like that.
 

I now find myself in the rare position of being unable to comment to this as I will say something I will regret.
Too much rage is flowing through my body right now.
 

In answer to Beef...what about guns...all I can say is that I shat myself the other night after having one pulled on me. And all we had was a stick some PAVA and our gobs.

If we had guns he'd be dead. Nah, he is alive and going down. All the better eh?
 

Well sitting behind my compuer desk :)

I would have done all the above, done thr right thing, preserved public order(I have a magic wand BTW)

Then by sheer perfectness of the world all would be good. Apparently.

Well, for the cunts who post here, sitting aside their computers. I would do this that etc, the politics are this that etc. Next time you see a fight kick off, do me a favour and get in there an preserve law n order would ya. Save me comming out.

Oh no that's right.

Dont come here and whine, and pruss you shitty opinion if it doesn't relate to the subject in hand. The video for example...

The thing is, most of you shitters do fuck all anyhow. If I had the misfortune of gathering all of you reatrds in a room. The only people I would rely on is Blues and none of you fucking wannabe (I have an opinion systers.)

The video shows something.

View it, get your opinions on track. Comment on it. 'Tis all you have to do. But oh no, Mr General public, I have an opinion, misfounded, misguided and missing.

Tell you what, wanna see how the world works ?

Volunteer. Try it for a month them come back and post. Then you actually have a voice.

Whine below please ...
 

Officer Dibble,

Thanks for the clarification.

Anonymous 5:25

"Our permitted 'techniques' are woefully weak"

Oh dear. This would explain a lot of what's seen in the clip, at least. What are these weak techniques? Does anybody out there know why the police are being rendered helpless by this poor training or shall we just blame Political Correctness to save time?
 

Awful, Simply awful
 

Some things still shock me, even with years of working the streets of a busy town centre with many clubs and pubs, and here is one that made me want to inflict GBH on these pieces of shit that we call human beings.
They are no better than any of the scum bags that are serving life for whatever crime.
All I can say to my fellow Police officers is, when we get the chance to be issued with tazer or even a firearm, take it.
Stay safe out there !!!
 

The events in this video (shameful as they are) happened for one reason and one reason only.
Some yobs got tanked up and started making trouble. All talk of speeding tickets or specific
incidents where the law looked an ass are not actually relevant.
If anything this incident to me seems an argument for not routinely arming the police, In the
obvious confusion it seems to me that had the officers had guns they might very well have
had one snatched and the situation escalated even more wildly. A black eye isn't very pleasant yes but it
sures beats a bullet wound and before anyone throws knifes into the argument let me say that the survival
rate for stab wounds is a lot better than bullet wounds.
I certainly think that the police should have much better non-lethal weapons than a wooden stick or what is little
better than a can of strong hairspray. More importantly they should not have to feel that they are worried about
the possibility of their actions being second guessed by someone analyzing the situation later.
They definitely should also have their 3% payrise not so much because they risk life and limb but because it is immoral
for the Govt to renege on well established principles purely on cost grounds.
Would I have joined in and helped (the cops I mean not the morons), I like to think I would but perhaps I wouldn't, it's easy to
say sat in front of my computer but had I been there I don't know. If I didn't it would probably be because of good old-fashioned
cowardice not of a fear of being arrested. Had 10 more coppers thrown up later and given these youths a good kicking I certainly suspect
that I would not be overly concerned about reporting this.
We have always had drunken idiots and sadly probably always will and the only way the police could have kept full control of this situation
would have been if there were more of them.
 

Shiney said: "The events in this video (shameful as they are) happened for one reason and one reason only.
Some yobs got tanked up and started making trouble. All talk of speeding tickets or specific
incidents where the law looked an ass are not actually relevant."

You're right, Shiny, but you're also wrong.
No man is an Island, and that includes these yobs and those policemen.
We all live in a society in which respect for the police is draining away. Partly it's been due to the police excesses of the past, partly it's the general death of dference and manners, partly it's the way these yobs were brought up and partly it's to do with a feeling that the police are no longer on 'our' side.
As you say, drink and general yobbery were at fault, but these don't exist in a vacuum.
 

There is little or no fear of authority, by that I mean the Police need to be in a position where they are in control of the law and disorder on the streets. This is how it used to be when we were kids. I was respectful of my village bobby and knew only too well that he was NOT to be messed with or taken the piss out of.
The yobs do not have this fear and they think they are in control of the streets and the way things are going it will get worse.
The power is being removed from the Police slowly but surely and we have to account for everything we do and say and justify that are actions were reasonable and proprtionate.
When in the position that these two officers were, that goes out of the window and we should not have to consider being reasonable and proportionate, just on how to survive and uphold the law of our land.
How can we uphold the law with no real power and respect?
I fear it's the same people that want the Police to keep law and order that are slowly taking the power away.
 

Someone asked where & when this vid was taken. I dont know where but when: 15/09/01. Its right there on the screen, you cant miss it. So much of this talk of retribution is five years too late.

I would like to think that had I been there I wouldnt have just stood by and done nothing. But I cant be the only one suspecting that were I to intervene I would later find myself being charged with something. Of course if I had just attempted to 'restrain' one of them, that would be the liberal thing to do. F*** all use though and would have just guaranteed me a kick-in as well.
 

don't forget that bobbies all over the country are faced with stuff like this each and every day. That was not a one off.
 

Thought occcurs. If the dat egiven above is right. This incident happened four days after the world was shaken by the terrorist attacks.
Were these knackers thinking about the new threat to democracy?
No. they were getting tanked up and scrapping on the street.
Take them out back and shoot them. Then bill their families for the rounds.
 

This country is fucking shite....

I'm leaving as soon as I can, even the states seems a better deal and thats saying something.

Where did it all go wrong ?
 

My country happens to be yours too, Midlands PC, and I see that you still cannot bring yourself to address the point that our country is fucked by the deeply cynical official stance of this government - that you work for - that resistance should be made unneccesarily and artificially dangerous, through the denial of the means of self-defence on umpteen spurious grounds. That in turn leads to yobs and thugs getting out of hand, which in turn leads to yobs and thugs being emboldened to attack policemen. YOU have created this problem. You should be ashamed of yourself.

You also cannot admit that the government of this country does not want people to have the best chance of successfully resisting crime and ensuring their safety. It's actually quite simple. If you were an honest and decent person, you would not have a problem with this, and you would not have a blind spot to that fact that resisting while armed is the safest option of all - an option which you do not want people to have.

You do not want people to have the means to resist rape, you do not want people to have the means to resist street assault, you do not want people to have the means to resist violent burglars, you do not want people to have the means to resist murderous thugs. You want people dead, maimed, injured, raped. There's no possible way you can convince anyone that's 'moral' and so you don't bother. You just avoid the question and hope it'll go away. Like a coward. An uncaring, monstrous coward.
 

Well if arming everyone is the way to go to prevent crime, then how come the murder rate is so much higher in the USA? You still haven't explained that. You can shout that I am the anti christ if you like, but the stats say I am right and you are wrong. If you know so much about how to prevent crime, how come your views differ from the vast majority of officers who don't even want to be armed themselves, never mind the general public? We do the job every day, and have slightly more of a clue than you.
 

I was under the impression that in the latest questionnare a vast majority of officers stated they would be armed, this was in response to the shooting of PC Sharon Beshenivsky.
As for the USA thing, we have to remember it is legal for the public to own fire arms and this is where the major problem is. Not with the Police being armed. However I think tazer is the right way forward.
 

I personally would be quite happy to carry a Tazer with appropriate training, but not a gun. The last Fed survey was in 2006, see the Fed Web site for full details, but 82% did not want routine arming, but were in favour of more armed response vehicles. Which is fine by me.
 

PC South West

Tazer is great when it's one on one but Tazer wouldn't have helped those two who got a bit of a slap.

I mean if one of the PC's managed to tazer the first guy, his mates still would have pilled in.

The tazer has no place in public order situations and it wouldn't have helped in this situation. (in my opinion)

Give me a gun. I have voted twice for it now. Again statistics are manipulated by those who dont want us to have them. Ask people working in Hackney or Tower Hamlets (Met)if they want one i bet you any money that nearly 3/4 would say they would. Dont listen to the rural beat officer. Why would he want/need one?

And another question. Why are all the Commonwealth police (except NZ) armed? Why do they feel it necessary and mother England doesn't?

As for where this incident took place...I believe it was in Merton (Met) i remember seeing when i was at training school on London Tonight!
 

I think that tazer would be effective in the above situation, the tazer would have been aimed and the warning given. If that was not enough then the site of the big guy falling to the floor may have been enough to put the others off. They soon stopped when the cs was deployed after all.
The second officer would also have had his tazer ready for the next person who wanted to get violent. But I do accept it has some limitations. I feel that the time is drawing near for police to be armed as a matter of routine.
If it saves the life of just one officer from these cowardly scum bags, then lets do it.
You can count me in for a start.
 

rodders.. you have my respect for working where you do...but hang on a mo...why not listen to a rural cop?? he or she is out on point like the rest of us. My force is mainly rural with urban areas, the lot out in the sticks have to put up with major shit until support gets there, twenty minutes plus can be usual. They may well come up against a load of "travelling" types who are out to shoot deer or steal an ATM who won't welcome their local bobby stopping their activities. We're all in the same boat, wherever you are on response. It's a shit sarnie that we all have to eat!!
 

I am not firearms so don't really feel I am qualified to comment, but taser can be used like a cattle prod (drive stun?) without the barbs being released, it may have had some use here.
 

all i have to say is
"Issue our forces with firearms"
 

Heard that arbitration is on 20th October so thats D-DAY. As for the CCTV Footage, I was a bouncer for 11 years and have boxed since I was at school so I can look after myself. Since I joined the job I have worked beat for 4 1/2 years in Doncaster and now Barnsley and have been in a few scrapes but nothing as bad as that.
As a bouncer I would have just weighed in and tried to knock the smoke out of anyone who wanted some and in the situation on the tape, I would have done the same and tried to keep swinging and not go down. The main thing for me would be to not get split up.
Hindsight is easy but I've got to say that once the officer got his baton out and the two knobheads closed his space down, all he was doing then was hanging on to has bat so he did not end up getting it round his own head whilst at the same time getting punched. So batons are fine if you have the room to swing them.
Bottom line is zero tolerence for the scroates and drunks but think of how close the back up is if the wheel comes off as the incident only lasted a minute or so. Just remember that the only back up you'll get is from your mates as the courts are a joke.
 

Well if arming everyone is the way to go to prevent crime, then how come the murder rate is so much higher in the USA?

I told you already, perhaps you should pay attention in future:- The crime rates are higher in the cities. The murder rates are higher in the cities. Read and learn the last two sentences so that you can at least pretend to be smarter than you are.

Besides, a better means of assessing whether arming everyone is actually beneficial is to look at estimates of crimes prevented by arming people, and in fact the lowest estimate is ten times higher than the US murder rate.

You still haven't explained that.

Oh please.

You can shout that I am the anti christ if you like, but the stats say I am right and you are wrong.

You wish. The stats and our recent crime 'history' and a working understanding of ehtics says you are far from right so pack it in with the chest beating thank you very much, you've no grounds for it.

If you know so much about how to prevent crime, how come your views differ from the vast majority of officers

Yes, argue from authority (that's a kind of logical error you know)! Yes, listen to the experts! The same experts who think that attacking the right of ordinary people to resist crime won't have any repurcussions at all. The same geniuses who think the baseball bat by the bed constitutes a 'trap'. Yes, they truly do have our best interests at heart!

how come your views differ from the vast majority of officers who don't even want to be armed themselves

Even before I made this post, you'd already been exposed as, ahem, having a shaky grasp of the truth. What more is there to say?

We do the job every day, and have slightly more of a clue than you.

No, Midlands PC, you don't. What you have, which you share with most members of our beloved government, is a sick, twisted desire to have the people of this country remain helpless and dependant on you to deliver them from evil.
 

Not really sure where you are coming from 'The Kusabi', you sound very different to my colleagues in the district and force where I police!
You speak about preventing crime, a gun will never prevent crime and I do not think anyone is of the opinion it will.
It will simply assist officers in defending themselves from the scum who want to tear them apart or blow them away.
Why are you so hostile in your manner?
Surely you do not believe Midlands pc should be ashamed of himself for his/her views.
God help us if we started to allow the public to possess guns.
It would be like Bonanza!!
 

Just two little points, and then I promise I really wil leave it forever!
Firstly, Kusabi, I notice that this grand conspiracy against the great British public has now expanded from the 140,000 police officers who deal with the public to now include most of the government as well. Perhaps in a later post this might expand to include the security services for plotting the 7th July bombings, maybe local councils are plotting to remove street lighting to make things easier for the scumbags, who knows? Eventually, this little delusion will expand to include virtually the whole UK, except you. If my colleagues and I had such total contempt for the general public, why would we put ourselves at physical risk to protect them?
Secondly, you armchair plan to reduce crime would put firearms in the hands of the very yobs in the video that started this discussion, and that video would have had a very different ending.

Best up the medication, buddy.
 

Just two little points, and then I promise I really wil leave it forever!
Firstly, Kusabi, I notice that this grand conspiracy against the great British public has now expanded from the 140,000 police officers who deal with the public to now include most of the government as well. Perhaps in a later post this might expand to include the security services for plotting the 7th July bombings, maybe local councils are plotting to remove street lighting to make things easier for the scumbags, who knows? Eventually, this little delusion will expand to include virtually the whole UK, except you. If my colleagues and I had such total contempt for the general public, why would we put ourselves at physical risk to protect them?
Secondly, you armchair plan to reduce crime would put firearms in the hands of the very yobs in the video that started this discussion, and that video would have had a very different ending.

Best up the medication, buddy.
 

You speak about preventing crime, a gun will never prevent crime and I do not think anyone is of the opinion it will.

Actually it is quite common over in the US for crimes to be prevented by the mere brandishing of a firearm

It will simply assist officers in defending themselves from the scum who want to tear them apart or blow them away.

And you'd be yet another copper who thinks members of the public should be less able to do this? Why is that? Do you think the lives of members of the public are not worth as much as the lives of officers? Do you think the public should have to stand there and take whatever abuse the scum dish out? Midland PC does. Do you?

Why are you so hostile in your manner?

Because I don't like her (Midland PC) attitude that we should only have the least best options to deal with crime when it happens to us.

Surely you do not believe Midlands pc should be ashamed of himself for his/her views.

Why would I not? Her desire to keep the public at the mercy of 'the scum who want to tear them apart or blow them away' is sickening. Just disgusting.

God help us if we started to allow the public to possess guns.
It would be like Bonanza!!

You don't know what you're talking about, do you? Just go with the first kneejerk response that comes into your head, it's OK. And thanks for leting us know you think the public (i.e. not criminals) are the ones who'd be causing you problems. That really gives me confidence in your faith in serving us.
 

Oops, posted twice, d'oh!

Kusabi, how did you work out that I am female? I think my wife would disagree...but then again, gathering facts properly and not making assumptions was never your forte...
 

Secondly, you armchair plan to reduce crime would put firearms in the hands of the very yobs in the video that started this discussion, and that video would have had a very different ending.

In other words, we the public should have to continue to endure being attacked, robbed, raped, killed because of your fears of what the criminal minority would presumably do. And the best way of ensuring the yobs are kept from getting out of control is by continuing to make the public endure an unacceptably high risk of being beaten up, stabbed, bottled, and raped.

The criminal behaviour of yobs is what decides whether we the public should have more or less ability to defend against the criminal behaviour of yobs. Because the public has to be treated as if they were no different from those yobs, and the public has to be punished for the actions of the yobs.

That is your position, and it stinks.

Oh and BTW, most everybody in our lovely Labour government most definitely thinks that way too. Not that the Tories/Lib Dems would be any different.
 

Kusabi, how did you work out that I am female?

You're not? Well then I suppose your hysterical inability to reason, your reliance on emotionalist claptrap, and your evident wanting to have the public dependent on you as kittens are dependent on the mother cat must have led to my thinking you were indeed female. You ought to work on your commenting style as well as your thought processes.
 

Ooohh, sexist as well as paranoid and repetitive!
 

Its this gun hoe attitude that sends your country to war with anyone who does not conform to your way of thinking.
leave us to Police our country and we will leave you to Police yours and anyone else's you feel the need to Police. Lets just give everyone nuclear weapons to protect themselves against other aggressors, that will be the same as arming the members of the public.
To say we don't know what we are talking about is crazy, this is not the wild west buddy, it's Great Britain. And incase you didn,t notice, this blog is about policing in the UK not the USA.
I have total respect for the Police officers in your country as I do for my colleagues here and I don't tell you how to do your job, so you could do the same.
 

Kusabi, can we just agree to disagree now, I think the point has been sufficiently laboured.
 

If we armed everyone with foam clubs we could beat each other mercilessly without fear of injury or death. Those yobs could get all that agression out in a safe, almost productive way. All could shake hands after, no need for arests. What do you think Kusabi? good compromise?
 

I am a copper from somewhere across the pond (NOT the USA). It pisses me off to see this kind of behaviour. All I can say is thank christ we carry guns, spray and Tazers. Possible the above would have had a slightly different outcome here.

As to those that have labelled us "PIGS" I say "THANK YOU" - PIG = "Professionalism, Integrity, Guts"
 

Rob

Sorry mate didn't mean it like that. When i think of a rural beat officer i think of someone who has 29 & 1/2 years in the job and thinks "i didn't need one when i started so why should i need one now!"

I know it was a bit of a generalisation and i am sorry for that.

The point i was trying to put across was that i think if you broke down the statistics of those who work in tough inner city areas and those who work rural areas, i think you would find a higher % of officers who work in the urban areas wanting to be armed compared to those who work in the rural areas.
I may be wrong though...
 

can't believe it, is this the world we live in, its an absolute discrace, can't believe them coppers are still standing, would have knocked them bastards to the ground and made sure they never got up agian!
 

Sibsy, Only if your fighting is better than your command of the English langauge.
 

A head teacher has been shot at a high school in the US state of Wisconsin and a male student has been taken into police custody.
The student entered the Weston School in Cazenovia at 0800 local time (1300 GMT) and shot Principal John Klang several times, police said.

The 49-year-old's condition was said to be critical. The motive for the attack was not immediately known.

All students were safely evacuated from the school, a police official said.

Capt Michael Haifemann of the Sauk County sheriff's department said shots were fired as people tried to restrain the attacker.

Witnesses quoted by local media said the assailant was armed with a shotgun and a .22-calibre gun.

The student had recently been expelled from the school, witnesses said.

'Weird in the head'

Student Shelly Rupp, 16, said she heard five shots and ran out of the school, but turned around and saw Mr Klang as he was shot.

"He was laying on the ground in the hallway. He had just a pile of blood by his leg," she told the Associated Press news agency.

Ms Rupp described the assailant as a first year student at the school. She said he had few friends and was "just weird in the head".

"He always used to kid around about bringing things to school and hurting kids," she said.

Cazenovia is a rural community in western Wisconsin.

"I don't think there was any way of predicting this," school official Melissa Nigh said.

The incident comes just two days after a man broke into Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Colorado, and took six female students hostage.

The gunman shot and killed one of his hostages before turning the gun on himself.



The above was on the BBC news web page today. I rest my case about allowing the public to possess guns!
 

Dear Officer Tackleberry,

You said:
"Just out of curiousity, whose idea do you think it was to send him food because they were looking after this TOOL's human rights?"

The Chief Constable ...Lord Falconer ...whoever ...again obviously not the sensible souls who write bloggs such as this.
Another couple of links for you ...i.e. the "same shite":
http://eurealitshome.com/blog/?p=1124
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/south_yorkshire/5392322.stm

Personally, I have been the victim of gun crime and police indifference to that offence. Perhaps it would be better to have the legal right to bear arms in this country, so that members of the public do not have to be buried with VICTIM and SCUM FODDER tatooed on their arses. As the comedian Jim Davidson said, better tried by 12 ...than carried by 6
 

Apologies for the edited link:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england
/south_yorkshire/5392322.stm
 

Oap,

Again, ta for the links. I actually read the South Yorkshire case already today and shook my head. After dealing with three obnoxious little b******s (who all have an account with ourselves if you know what I mean) tonight who could not understand why they should not be walking around our robbery and rape hotspot at 3am. I told them a few home truths and normally it shuts them up for a while. Their parents didn't care that they were out at that time yet I can say with absolute certainty that had anything happened to them they would have been up in arms about how it was all everyone elses fault but that they were fantastic parents.
I don't presume that it is the full story that we have been given - I can say from experience that its never as black and white as the media would present it to be - but taking it on face value, it appears so damn wrong. We should be able to dismiss the shite complaint from the youths who we can be fairly confident caused her grief and the CPS should be able to tell them to f**k off too. Unfortunately (and wrongly) it does not work like that.
 

leave us to Police our country and we will leave you to Police yours and anyone else's you feel the need to Police.

You certainly seem to have a blind spot to opposing views, don't you? Even when I made it clear that I live in the UK too.

Lets just give everyone nuclear weapons to protect themselves against other aggressors, that will be the same as arming the members of the public.

Um, no, it won't, moron. Continuing with that 'the public are less trustworthy than crooks' theme, are you?

Oh and, a little something more for you:

Woman fights off 2 masked robbers

Woman fights off 2 masked robbers

Dan Brown said he's not too surprised his 110-pound wife, Sheri, held her own Friday when two masked men attempted to rob the family's Fayette County auto repair shop.

The couple, both in their 30s and married 17 years, opened DSB Auto Service four years ago on Three Mile Hill, Bullskin Township, not far from Mt. Pleasant.

They had no trouble with crime until Friday.

Shortly after Dan Brown left the family business at 10 a.m., his wife was confronted by two masked thieves who pulled up to the garage and demanded money.

State police at Uniontown said the victim "chased off the actors" after a brief struggle.

"There was a big guy and a small guy. She was alone when they came up to her and told her to give them all the money. She grabbed a pole we use to prop up a car hood and smacked the big one. He then hit her in the head, but she was able to get away," Brown said. "She started throwing chairs and stuff in front of her to keep them away from her while she tried to get to the office.

"She got there and pulled out the gun we keep in the drawer for protection."

As soon as the mother of two pulled out the family's .357-caliber Magnum, the thieves fled, Dan Brown said. The suspects did not display a weapon, he said.

He said he and his wife are comfortable around guns and are accomplished marksmen.

"If she would have had to shoot, she would have nailed them," he said.

And one more...

Woman defends herself from attack with gun

A 38-year-old woman staying at the Homewood Suites in Wichita Falls turned the tables Tuesday night on a potential attacker in the parking lot.

The woman's father said she pulled her .380 automatic pistol on the man, who came up behind her as she was getting sinus medicine from her van about 9 p.m.

He gave the following information about the incident:

The man asked her, "Do you have anything good in that van?"

The woman knew she was in trouble. She told him yes and moved to the front passenger-side door.

She pulled out her pistol and heard a knife click open.

When she looked back, she saw the man was holding a knife pointed downward in his hand.

She quickly turned, pointed the gun right at him and asked, "Are you really sure you want to do whatever you're going to do?"

He took off running, the father said.

The woman immediately went back inside the hotel, alerted the staff, and they called police.

Her father said she was calm at the time, going into "auto-pilot" and remembering everything she had learned in the classes she took to get her gun permit, he said.

"Of course, three hours later she was a basket case," he said. "She felt violated and real anxious."

And a third, just to be sure;

Clerk draws gun, foils robbery

A man who tried to rob a Dimond district liquor store at gunpoint but was foiled by a pistol-packing clerk is being sought by police.

Robbery investigators Tuesday released surveillance pictures of the man and announced an award to help identify him.

Police Sgt. Kevin Johnson said the man walked into a liquor store in the 2800 block of MacArthur Boulevard about 10:30 a.m. Aug. 18 and asked to purchase some liquor.

He then pulled a gun and demanded money from the clerk, whose name was not released. Instead of money, the clerk produced his own gun and pointed it at the robber, who fled the store with no loot or liquor, Johnson said.

In all of those cases the victim who fought back would probably have been in a world of shit if they'd done what Midlands PC would have them do i.e. co-operate because it's 'safer'. I rest my case about the benefits of allowing non-criminals to own guns.
 

" I rest my case" says The Kusabi (there's obviously only one Kusabi then...)

Thank god for that. Hopefully his case is packed and he's going away.
What a muppet.
 

Rest it all you like, imbecile, hi spoint about nukes is a good one. It's a bit easier to regulate nuclear weapons than guns though, so you can be kind of selective - I have no problem with the likes of Pakistan, India or Israel having nuclear weapons, as they're pretty responsible, but if you make them available to everyone, then the likes of Iran and Hezbollah et them as well. The world is much more in danger of a nuclear Iran etc than a nuclear USA or UK etc, equate Iran and Hezbollah to criminals and US/UK/Israel to responsible members of the public, and that's exacty why guns should not be available to everyone - if a guy in a gun shop had been preaching genocide against the Jews for the last ten years, and helping people atack Jews, would you be happy with him being sold a gun? OF course not, so sit down and stop boring us.
 

"can't believe them coppers are still standing, would have knocked them bastards to the ground and made sure they never got up agian!"

Shame you didn't Sibsy, you may have never seen the light of day again.
 

I think we have done this one to death now so I wont be adding to it after this. I can see by the fact everyone is "drawing guns" that its best we dont hand them out in cornfakes packets. Its quite one thing to arm the Police, but to arm everyone is beyond sanity to say the least, and it will never happen in the UK, thankfully. I wont even bother to start on the idiot comment by sibsy.
 

Saw this a while ago, but it's taken me some time to calm down enough not to swear (well, you did ask us so nicely not to).

One question sprung to mind about this whole thing: I'm not a copper, but my inclination, had I been there would have been to render assistance to the two bobbies. Sadly, in today's climate, I suspect I would have held back for fear of being arrested for infringing the yobs' civil liberties. Would this have been the case?

Oh and before anyone accuses me of Walter Mitty tendencies, I'm basically a coward and tend to avoid confrontation wherever possible, but some things are just the right thing to do.
 

Rest it all you like, imbecile, hi spoint about nukes is a good one.

He didn't even make a point about nukes, but his attempted comparison between nukes and handguns was stupid and you should know why it's stupid. Since a handgun can be used for individual self-defence, whereas a nuke has no practicality for same, there's no way such a comparison even makes sense - if you think it does you're better off not embarrassing yourself further by assuming everyone else who doesn't think so are 'imbeciles', because...they aren't.

Your babble about nukes doesn't even work, since what you're actually in favour of doing is the equivalent of disarming the US/UK because if they got into a war with Iran, OMG. Also with your point about the Jew-hating nut - who would want Jews to be easy picking, when that nut got a truck and a group of his mates in place of a gun, and went round looking for Jews to assault?

And I love how you think I should 'shut up', because that shows just what a thug you are, at heart. You think indulging your ignorant, fearful, paternalistic desires should take precedence over the rights of the public to resist and defy criminals, so of course you think the public should shut up and take it up the arse.

I've commented several times now about how officals such as you, Midlands PC, and PC SouthWest have no regard for the right to self-defence of the public, how their attitudes show some definite malice and unsavouryness, and it never even occured to you to say 'hang on, you're totally wrong, and here's why'. The reason you didn't is because you couldn't do so convincingly, and the reason you couldn't do that is because it wouldn't be the truth, would it?
 

Oh and one thing about guns no one seems to have mentioned.

Owning one doesn't mean that one is forced to use it, but having a gun available does offer one alternatives to "role over and take it" or "run away".

Under some circumstances one of these two options may be the best choice. But quite frankly I prefer having a wider spectrum available to me.

Thankfully SA is still moderately enlightened so I can also pick from 9mm hollowpoint, 30-08 buffalo stopper, .44 lead ball or 12 guage (buckshot or solid). That's if the fearsome Hounds of Remittance haven't chewed off the bastard's face while I am debating which calibre goes best with my outfit.
 

Kusabi you talk out of your ass, thank god you don't make the decisions around here.
 

you don't make the decisions around here

Blah blah blah, more thuggishness, 'shut your mouth 'cos you don't make the decisions round here we do'. Meanwhile pro-gun, prp-self defence folk are left to make the inelligent comments 'around here' because you plainly aren't up to it. Get used to having drunken idiots thumping police officers because that's the end result of your decision making genius. Are you happy about reaping what you've sown?
 

Better to have a thumping than be shot. But if the Police were armed, NOT THE PUBLIC that would not have happened.
 

But if the Police were armed, NOT THE PUBLIC that would not have happened.

And yet more proof that you don't give a shit if the same thing happened to a member of the public, because you think the public should have less right to stop it happening to them than the police should have.
 

As unusual it looks as if the police officer has dealt with the situation in the wrong manner got aggressive by pushing one of the men, provoking and then drawing his baton aggressively. The police are the armed and sober people in this equation. This could have all been avoided if dealt differently. If the police officer had taken into consideration that the men may be under the influence of alcohol and not tried to face them up but reason with them, this may not have happened. Men very rarely back down in a confutation especially if there is alcohol involved. I’m not in anyway condoning the way in which the police were abused and assaulted but a lot of the time I do believe the attitude of the police do in some cases fuel these situations by being too aggressive and too quick to prove there authority. Anyone can draw anything they want from this however as there is no audio and one prospect i.e. this single camera view.
 

As unusual it looks as if the police officer has dealt with the situation in the wrong manner got aggressive by pushing one of the men, provoking and then drawing his baton aggressively. The police are the armed and sober people in this equation. This could have all been avoided if dealt differently. If the police officer had taken into consideration that the men may be under the influence of alcohol and not tried to face them up but reason with them, this may not have happened. Men very rarely back down in a confutation especially if there is alcohol involved. I’m not in anyway condoning the way in which the police were abused and assaulted but a lot of the time I do believe the attitude of the police do in some cases fuel these situations by being too aggressive and too quick to prove there authority. Anyone can draw anything they want from this however as there is no audio and one prospect i.e. this single camera view.
 

i applied to be a special as i think it would be fulfilling, i would learn lots of new skills meet lots of new people and put something positive back into my town.my teenage sons aged 19 and 15 were horified that i wanted to become a "pig".My sons are well mannered polite young men who have never been in trouble before and as far as i was aware ,have no reason to feel negativity towards the policeforce.after much talking it was apparent that they feared for my safety describing what i might be up against on a friday night even though i do shukakai.and they said i would not fit into the police force. they both recounted 3 situations where they had met police officers and they had been spoken to like scumbags.my youngest son had been searched in the local graveyard for a firearm and his friend had been knocked out of the way until it was his turn.when they asked the police officer why he was searching them he replied " see this uniform it means i can do what the fuck i want" i decided at this point not to pursue the application.my boss then expressed her relief,she is married to a traffic policeman and had given me a reference however she explained what twats her husbands colleagues were, and how her husband has fun with motorists when he is that way out! he also said the force is not a place for women as they are useless. Are these isolated incidents which get the rest of the hardworking policeforce a bad name and cause shocking apathy from the general public when help is needed by a policeman in danger ie the video.Or is the police force full of this type of officer who would rather alienate people than befriend them.perhaps it is the state of society today, we all want some-one to blame for the chaos on a friday night and its easy to say the police arent doing enough! the police are so stretched and cant control little jonny so its obviously the parents fault. nb little jonny is not frightened of being searched in the graveyard as he has no respect for the law anyway.So,whose fault is it that these kids and young men get pilled up, get pissed up and cause chaos to such a point my sons do not want me to volunteer to be part of this scenario . there are good and bad in every profession but reading some of the comments in this thread i think you lot need tasars to regain the streets and you need to get back into schools to earn some trust and respect from the kids today who are the youth of tomorrow and you need some compulsary communication courses that are pay related.Yearly pay rises should not be taken as a god given right.i know i will get a load of stick for saying it but what the hell.
 

Kusabi, Why don't we just get rid of the Police, you seem to think the public are trustworthy enough to Police the streets themselves, with firarms to boot.
Are you that stupid to think that the public also consist of robbers, burglars and people with mental health problems.
 

Addressing anaonymous 1.44pm's comment - have you tried reasoning with drunks before? I try it time and time again, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I don't disagree with the push to create space for ones self, no-one wants someone infringing in their personal space. We don't know what is being said to the officers and/or what the officer is saying to them. I also don't disagree with the baton being drawn. If you want some indication of what the males mindset was, look at what happened next. I think they'd pretty much decided they were going for him by that stage.

Anonymous 3.40pm - I've never understood why anyone did the job voluntarily considering the risks to ones safety but I do admire them for it. I'm the first to admit you would not catch me doing the job for free, albeit putting the bullshit aside, still love it when I'm allowed to do it.
If what your son is saying is true and they were polite and courteous - not just because of the uniform but because it was a fellow human being and they spoken to like that, then thats clearly not right. Sometimes we have to adapt our communication style to fit the situation if you see what I mean. For example, I'll always try to gain compliance by being polite and courteous, but a lot of the time we have to 'up the ante' when they refuse to comply and strong verbal commands may be required or you'll become less polite shall we say to demonstrate you're not going to be a pushover and that they have to comply. I strongly disagree with your comment re. women in the Police. Indeed, on my old team, the females outnumbered the male and certainly they are not perceived as being useless unless they really are useless. The majority of the women I've worked with have been good officers and am fortunate enough to work with some good female officers at present. It seems just about all of your points are hearsay and while I say that the point re. your sons being treated in an ill manner is clearly wrong unless the circumstances called for it (if their account is correct), you need to make the decision yourself and not use their opinions to influence you. If I'd listened to my friends I'd never have joined.
Re. being in schools, I've never known Police not be in schools though perhaps thats just the areas I've worked in the two Police forces I've been employed for. A lot of time is already spent on communication already and while I'm happy to go on another useful course while getting paid and takng me away from dealing with absolute dross, you have to adapt to the situation and quite simply, the different situations is unlikely to be covered. You learn with experience and hopefully (in an adequate way) from those around you. I also disagree with you re. pay rises. Based on the jobs with which ours are compared, everyone else had a 3% increase. An agreement is in force saying we should have one and the government has gone back on its word yet again. If you were in a particular industry and those around you had a pay increase but excluded yourself, you'd not be happy and it would not be fair. Its the same here albeit where as you would have the right to strike and kick up a stink, we have not.
 

It's very easy for people to criticize the way these officers dealt with the idiots in the clip. Like officer Tackleberry says you cannot hear what is being said and sometimes you have to up the ante so to speak. We the Police are supposed to be in control and in authority, we cannot and I will not pander to aggressive drunks who try and intimidate me on the street. Where would we be if we allow that to happen, I would rather quit and do a regular job. We cannot instill order by asking kindly and nicely for the male to behave himself, and please stop threatening me.
There are occasions where calm and politeness are the way to get the result needed, but I do not believe this was it.
 

Reading all the officers comments, I have to admit that there may still be good grounds to hope for a better conclusion to future policing methods in this country, given the decent, intelligent and brave individuals who frequent these threads.

Until then, do you have a collective contact number should I need you - other than 999?
 

Kusabi, I notice your delusions have expanded further, not only do they include the whole of the Police Force and the Government, but also the two main opposition parties as well. Although I think we can safely assume that the Greens would be against gun ownership as well. And th emonster raving loony party, unless they were filled with orange juice or something. How long before the only persn not in this conspiracy is you?

You say the general public are not to be lumped in with criminals, but how is someone in a gun shop supposed to be able to tell the difference? Crims don't exactly walk in with a big sign round their necks. There are controls in the USA about stopping criminals and mentally ill people getting hold of guns in the USA, but they don't exactly work so well, do they? Even if they did, the state of Florida recently concluded that stolen weapons were more of a threat to people than legally held ones (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/usr/wbardwel/public/nfalist/fl_aw_report.txt)
, so weapons being stolen is clearly big problem, one you have totally neglected to mention or address. Until you can invent some magic device that can me if someone is a criminal or not, or will ever become a criminal or not just by looking at them, you'd better go back and hide in your litle fantasy world
 

Kusabi, I notice your delusions have expanded further, not only do they include the whole of the Police Force and the Government, but also the two main opposition parties as well. Although I think we can safely assume that the Greens would be against gun ownership as well. And th emonster raving loony party, unless they were filled with orange juice or something. How long before the only persn not in this conspiracy is you?

You say the general public are not to be lumped in with criminals, but how is someone in a gun shop supposed to be able to tell the difference? Crims don't exactly walk in with a big sign round their necks. There are controls in the USA about stopping criminals and mentally ill people getting hold of guns in the USA, but they don't exactly work so well, do they? Even if they did, the state of Florida recently concluded that stolen weapons were more of a threat to people than legally held ones (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/usr/wbardwel/public/nfalist/fl_aw_report.txt)
, so weapons being stolen is clearly big problem, one you have totally neglected to mention or address. Until you can invent some magic device that can me if someone is a criminal or not, or will ever become a criminal or not just by looking at them, you'd better go back and hide in your litle fantasy world
 

to officer tackleberry i am anonymous from 340 ( my name is jacky) you are right most of my comments are hearsay i obviously know and love my boys but i am not blind or stupid as to their imperfections.we have 2 family friends who are in the poilce force both females one is a sargeant and one is a trainer in wakefield both of these women are known and respected by my boys so i know they are not anti police and both of these women say go for it,( being a special that is) i appreciate your advice on making my own decisions however i am solely responsible for my boys we live as a close team and have noone else and they need to be behind me on a big decision like this.i also cannot afford to be sustain injuries such as the ones discussed earlier in this thread as i rely on night pay and extra hours from the nhs. seeing this video did frighten me not because of the violence but because of the lack of assistance from the general public. i have worked for the nhs since i was 18,and i have been belted and spat at a fair few times more so in the last few years but on each occasion i have been assisted by relatives and other patients.i am now back in midwifery and drunken social problems do have a go but again other visitors and relatives help within seconds.it amazed me that no one helped these officers is this a normal occurence?.to the schools point neither of my boys have met a policeman/woman in their school life so far, i have just asked them.my eldest son says he met a tiny blond pc with a pony tail in leeds centre last feb when he and 6 yorkshire rugby team friends were taking a kicking from a big group of asian youths in cars on a sat night.he says she resembled lara croft the tomb raider she was amazing and he owes her and her colleage big style however he maintains there is good and bad in every profession and i think he is right.we are all human but when dealing with the general public our communication skills have to be better than average as it makes a difference. to the payrise; we work in jobs that the gvmt consider comparable i have an apprentice style 3 yr srn ,a diploma in applied nursing i am a midwife i have a degree(2,1) and i work for the princely sum of 14. 12 per hr. i am on call from 5 pm till 0830 pm for homebirths or help labour ward if chaos occuring for the princely sum of 15.25 per night .no this is not a printing error it is 15.25 per night .granted you might not be called out but you cant go anywhere out of bleep range or have a glass of wine and you cant sleep well thinking your bleep has gone off and you have missed it. my pension is pathetic as i had 6 yrs off to enjoy my kids and hopefully instill some morals into them and i have to say your pay is phenomenal compared with mine .i work extra hours and i am paid a lower hourly rate as it is bank rate,you get paid overtime .dont do it i hear you say but a.i need the money and b i cant see my colleages in the proverbial as i have been there and it is crap unsafe and scary.women can and do die having babies or end up with hysterectomies and then we are sued.are you being sued at the moment? i pay 200 quid a year to the union to pay for lawyers bugger the negotiations for payrises i think you need to look carefully at who you are compared with and ask yourself a would you swop and b does everyone in your station ,unit, group, beat, area, shift pattern actually deserve 3 per cent as it adds up to a lot of money .ps i cant strike either as i have morals not because of an agreement struck up with mrs thatcher ,do you remember? jacky
 

I notice your delusions have expanded further, not only do they include the whole of the Police Force and the Government, but also the two main opposition parties as well.

Oh dear, on one hand someone assures me that the police, and the public, are 100% against gun ownership, and on the other hand someone else asserts that I'm 'delusional' for thinking so! And you can't even use the term 'delusional' correctly, since there's nothing delusional about recognising that the politicians et al have no good grounds for keeping guns banned, and there reasons for doing so have more to do with a twisted sense of paternalism combined with wanting to lord it over the public. Think if public support of gun ownership grew, that the politicians would unbegrudgingly give way?

You say the general public are not to be lumped in with criminals, but how is someone in a gun shop supposed to be able to tell the difference?

Not by supposing that everyone who walks through the door is a criminal, and denying sales to everybody on those grounds. Plus, since what we are concerned about is criminal/wrongful usage of those guns, what happens in the gun shop should not be the only check on that. An armed law-abiding public is a very good check on criminal behaviour.

There are controls in the USA about stopping criminals and mentally ill people getting hold of guns in the USA, but they don't exactly work so well, do they?

No, they don't, so it's sheer stupidity that you insist on placing your faith in such controls, and think they'd work better if they were extended.

the state of Florida recently concluded that stolen weapons were more of a threat to people than legally held ones

That's right so, you have basically no justification for thinking - as you do - that guns in the hands of decent people would be an unacceptable danger that would lead us to catastrophe. You should therefore conclude that legally-held guns, in the hands of decent people, would not be such a heinous problem.

so weapons being stolen is clearly big problem, one you have totally neglected to mention or address.

Watch as I again neglect to mention or address the 'problem' of weapons being stolen. I'm sure this next bit will not be to your satisfaction, but see, I don't see why 'weapons being stolen' should be the main concern, except to a mindset of 'control crime by hoping to make the criminal impotent to commit crime'. An approach which has many deep flaws...so in fact I have addressed the above point raised many times before.

Don't let that stop you overusing terms like 'delusional' and 'failed to address or mention', though. God knows you must need to pretend there's some way in which you're 'above' me. Perhaps I shouldn't have made that crack about your effeminancy, if that's the effect it's had on you.

Until you can invent some magic device that can me if someone is a criminal or not, or will ever become a criminal or not just by looking at them,

I would continue to treat members of the public as if they were criminals, as far as this matter goes, because I do not wish to use my own judgement to any great extent.
 

It will all be o.k when we can deal with these people by way of Fixed penalty for assault on police.....won't it?
 

Jacky

I have great sympathy for nurse's and think they do a brilliant job for little money. However at the end of the day the 3% pay 'increment' was promised to us and must be honoured. This is a matter of principle not whether we deserve it or not. If we simply allow the government to break the agreement then what impression does this give? They will soon be doing it across the public sector. The deal was that we get our annual increment but we lose the right to strike and hence it became illegal. Now the increment is being deliberately reduced without any reason given and we still have no right to strike. This is called taking 2 bites of the cherry, again a matter of principle.
 

Yet another news hitting story from the US, Guns for the public, great idea.



Pennsylvania police are investigating why a gunman killed five girls at a rural primary school which serves the Amish, a pacifist Christian community.
Police say Charles Carl Roberts was heavily armed and equipped for a long siege at the Lancaster County school.

But shortly after entering the school he forced the boys and four women out then tied up the girls and began shooting them, before killing himself.

Five girls were injured - one is in a serious condition and one is critical.

The White House has said it plans to host a conference on gun-related violence in schools after what is the third fatal US school attack in a week.
Pennsylvania state police commissioner Jeffrey Miller said Roberts did not appear to be targeting the Amish and apparently chose the school because he was intent on killing young girls "in revenge for something that happened 20 years ago".


Stricter gun-control laws would not have prevented this gruesome act
 

PC South West said

Stricter gun-control laws would not have prevented this gruesome act

Too damn right they wouldn't. Hey, how come you never addressed the examples I gave of people delivering themselves from serious danger by using guns - examples which really do prove guns in public (not criminal) hands are effective?

Because you don't want to consider anything which proves your ideas and attitudes are stupid, is that it? How dishonest of you.
 

NO I DIDN'T, that is what the news article says.
Gun control may not have prevented it, but not having any guns may have.