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# I think the de Menezes family need a good mugging to calm them down and appreciate
How many of their freedoms are protected.
(, Mon 27 Apr 2009, 14:51, archived)
# Sorry, but that was a couple of years ago
and teenage politics has grumbled about the police for decades.

Grr they won't let us do as we please.

I'm not saying it should have happened, but is that really the reason why policemen and women get gobbed on, attacked, called pigs etc?
(, Mon 27 Apr 2009, 14:54, archived)
# easy target.
One police officer shoots someone, so all police are basically bad and totally new world order and baw and shit I better stay home and tell the internet that the police are to blame for everything because they shot a suspect. In fact, applying very similar logic, I could conclude that the police are people and one of them shot an innocent person so that means all people are fucking pigs and I hate them and baw and suchlike *wrings hands*
(, Mon 27 Apr 2009, 14:58, archived)
# It was more the closing of ranks, covering of tracks etc (see below)
that I think people found a little ... distasteful.
(, Mon 27 Apr 2009, 14:59, archived)
# I would be inclined to suggest that the backtracking and bullshit was the politics and politicians involved in the matter
as well as the higher ranking officers (who lost their jobs) talking shit and trying to defend themselves and their authority as an institution. I don't think their handling of a difficult situation should reflect badly on the average bobby.
(, Mon 27 Apr 2009, 15:05, archived)
# Oh well if it was a couple of years ago then it's ok, I suppose.
The fact that an innocent man was shot, and the police immediately tried to backtrack and cover their trail, closed ranks and then blamed the general public for breeding a climate of fear (comment by Cressida Dick) is forgivable I suppose.

It's a bit like rape victims going on and on and on - "It was ages ago, love - stop moaning."

(, Mon 27 Apr 2009, 14:58, archived)
# one incident. Top cops tried to shush it up.
What's PC Whatever got to do with it? Why's it his fault?
(, Mon 27 Apr 2009, 15:01, archived)
# A bit like individual bankers not bringing down the economy?
Don't make me invoke Goodwin - the point stands - the organisation as a whole has a massive PR problem at the moment, and really isn't helping itself.
(, Mon 27 Apr 2009, 15:03, archived)
# This just in
Large organisation has corrupt members in high positions. Honest(ish) junior members tarred with same brush

also, Titanic Sinks, John Peel in Thames
(, Mon 27 Apr 2009, 15:06, archived)
# Exactly like that.
Most police officers are lovely people who really are doing the job to try and make wherever they are a safer place, and the idea that some grumpy arses can't tell the difference between the police force (many) and one police officer (one) really does make me very sad.
(, Mon 27 Apr 2009, 15:07, archived)
#
some grumpy arses Scum/Express/Mail "journalists" with a podium to spout from and their readers/apostles.

I have no problem taking the piss out of my mates who are coppers mainly for the reasons you've just mentioned, but wouldn't like to go on record calling them all dicks, mainly cos i might get a kicking
(, Mon 27 Apr 2009, 15:10, archived)
# ^
(, Mon 27 Apr 2009, 15:17, archived)
# the general public are not guilty of breeding fear
but it has been a trend exacerbated by politicians and the press over years for their own gain. People are more nervous in general, and police are people too. Some people are good at their job some aren't. Some people make incorrect decisions, some don't.

It really isn't as simple as saying that because isolated incidents occur, then the whole organisation is fucked and all police officers are rabid gun-toting harbingers of death. Life is sadly not as black and white as that and a bit of knowledge of societal trends and the police force would make this an obvious point. Reading headlines is quicker though, I suppose.

(, Mon 27 Apr 2009, 15:13, archived)
# Ah right OK.
I'll just accept my lot, go and watch a nice warm story at the cinema and stop complaining.

I'll sleep well knowing that - hey! It's not like some countries where they have REAL violence, is it?!

Because that makes it OK.
(, Mon 27 Apr 2009, 15:19, archived)
# complain all you want.
People tend to listen more if you know what you're on about. I think considering that the police are people, and that people make errors in judgement, that they do rather well, considering. Compare the Met kills record with police in US cities. The british police do not have a habit of killing innocent people. Single errors by a single member of the work force do not define any other workforce, so why should it be so for the police?

I would suggest that the media have a lot to do with it, stirring up the moral outrage.

Compare and contrast:

Man pushes another man over. Man later dies of a heart attack. Murder? No, not even manslaughter.

Policeman pushes another man over. Man later dies of a heart attack. MURDER! FUCK THE POLICE.

I don't defend the police's actions in pushing people over, or hitting people with batons like they did, but to go accuse the police because a man had a heart attack after getting pushed over, is nonsense. Similar precedent in criminal law demonstrates that this sort of death cannot be considered as murder or homicide.

What should the police do when surrounded and outnumbered by a baying mob? Should they be completely chilled? Sit down and try to ignore them in they hope they go home quietly? As I say, I'm not defending the attacking of the "innocent" people, but the stresses of the situation need to be considered, and no amount of training of any humans will produce a police force who make 100% correct judgments at all times.
(, Mon 27 Apr 2009, 15:43, archived)
# You mean abdominal bleeding, at least until the next post mortem is done.
And that probably would be manslaughter.
(, Mon 27 Apr 2009, 16:10, archived)
# depends, really, on the cause of death.
if the bleeding is causally related to his heart attack, then manslaughter is a possibility, though a difficult one to make stick.
The causal link between a man falling over and having a heart attack is a bit tenuous, and precedents like "thin-skull".

I think it's quite clear that the policeman did not exert deadly force, so should not be culpable for his death. Thing like this happen regularly and they're not blown out of all reasonable proportion because the newspaper don't jump on it and make a big drama out of it.
(, Mon 27 Apr 2009, 16:18, archived)
# Surely the question is why any force was used at all?
There may well be a reason why he was shoved to the ground without warning and not arrested, I don't know.
(, Mon 27 Apr 2009, 16:51, archived)
# I know.
I agree with that, it was wrong, but it was an error made by a human in a stressful situation. It wasn't a premeditated act of murder.

I'm not defending the policeman, I just think the reaction to it all is rather over the top.
(, Mon 27 Apr 2009, 17:16, archived)
# i'd feel a bit better if the murderers of de menezes were convicted
and there was no excuse for the policeman in the protest clubbing that woman. it doesn't matter what she said to him or what her political views are, that's assault
(, Mon 27 Apr 2009, 15:00, archived)