Police state?

The Met has always been out of control. Back in the early years of the last century, the local priest used to ask my grandmother to go down and negotiate with the police when young lads, children we would call them, got picked up by the police and were in danger of being framed for petty crimes they hadn't committed. A woman defused the issue and my grandmother had both diplomatic skills and was a strong character.

She lived her life in London, starting in poverty in dockland and rising to middle class respectability in the leafy suburbs of south London. Thorough out her life she never trusted the London police.

I for one am glad there is the thin blue line .
#Even if sometimes it gets blurred.

I accept that there must be many, many, police officers who are just as frustrated as the rest of us when their colleagues do things that cause the public to lose respect for the police.
It is not so much the individual rogue copper that bothers me, but the whole culture of senior officers schmoozing with MPs and journalists.
The Met was clearly not only racist, but senior officers shared a Freemason lodge with known criminals.
I know that some officers did try to tell the truth about Hillsborough and they were bullied into silence.

Thin k the latest one was Ian Tomlinson who died of a heart attack after being shoved over by the police during the G20 riots. He was only making his way home from work.

They are not all whiter than white.

Local authority staff cleared it up. The police say they seized nothing.

You know what doesn't add up? The highly paid and skilled officers of the Met suddenly lowering themselves to clean up contaminated refuse. Please. Pull the other one.
My attitudes were formed re the police on the Stop the 70s Tour demo in Swansea where I along with other demonstrators was crushed against a brick wall by a linked rank of police and then witnessed them picking on random demonstrators, arresting them violently and then charging them with "assaulting a police officer" - a very serious charge. A dozen students were tried, found guilty by magistrates and acquitted on appeal.
I thought Life on Mars was probably very tame and cosy compared to reality of policing in the 70s.
I do think things have changed somewhat for the better since then, but there is a way to go.
I am still amazed that the last chief of the Met thought it was fine to accept lunches in the Ivy and a stay in a villa at Champneys from work contacts.

Oh yes! Like an Ofsted for hospitals.

Care Quality Commission

What the you-know-what is the CQC?!

And don't get me started on the IPCC either - they make the CQC look competent

Lies not lurs

But there have been so many 'never should have happened' events - real corruption and perversion of justice. Of course the majority are not corrupt but there is still a prevailing culture that tolerates such behaviour and turns a blind eye. What makes this so serious is that police corruption can result in people losing their liberty and having their lives ruined. And the guilty going free to commit crimes again. The only thing that stops another Hillsborough style cover up is the mobile phone I'm afraid. Thats how their wicked lurs about Ian Tomlinson were uncovered.And the legal aid changes will make it worse. We have to take it really really seriously when those who exercise power on behalf of the state betray that trust. And don't get me started about the police's record on dealing with domestic violence and deaths in custody and rape....

Yes, anno there are some smashing police officers and they must despair about the negative reporting regarding ill treatment of citizens.

I suspect that the decent police officers outnumber the corrupt ones by a considerable margin but it's the latter that get all the headlines.

I am totally cynical about the police. One of my nephew's friends gave up after training because he was so disgusted by the sexist, racist, homophobic and snobbish 'canteen culture'. He said the women recruits were subjected to crude remarks and the one Asian was given all the worst jobs to do.

This is not new, of course. My brother-in-law had a scrap metal yard in the 1970s and received a visit from the local CID sergeant every month, who demanded a bribe to stop the yard being 'turned over' again and again.

Hillsborough and the murder of Stephen Lawrence just confirmed my opinion.

It must be very hard for those officers who are honest and unbiased. I know that they would risk being ostracised or worse if they blew the whistle on certain practices. (Of course, this is true of NHS staff too).

I know that when my father retired from the Met. in the late fifties, he told me he did not like the look of some of the people joining the force...

I did first say that I might be biased because.........*Jingle*, then went on to explain why that makes me think the police are not aways as squeaky clean as their statement tries to make out.

You have to think of the local residents. It can't all be about the down and outs. Taxpayers should be able to expect safe and clean surroundings. You can't know that the police were heavy handed. To talk about boot marks is emotive. It doesn't' t seem to apply to the situation.

I think homeless people should be allowed sleep in doorways and disused areas with their sleeping bags, dogs etc. What else are they supposed to do?

Mmmm!!

But not in the doorway of my local Waitrose. In fact not in my nice affluent little town at all.

When did I say that?

Well as you said J0 they would say that wouldn't they? There are ways of doing things and then there's the Met's way

"“A local school, which had raised concerns for their pupils, allowed police access to a disused swimming pool on 15 May to remove trespassers."

" Local authority staff cleared up drug paraphernalia, a soiled gym mattress, rotting food and other rubbish from the location."

Come on! What are you complaining about?

I might be biased because I've been there when police officers have charged in with their size 11s and used sledgehammer tactics that are completely unnecessary. So different from child protection police officers, who are amazingly sensitive and aware, in general. I have seen boot shaped bruises on ribs and police dog bites on legs and hands, when police have turned up to disperse homeless people who were eating food we had just distributed. Someone had complained about a 'drunken mob' who were just a steady stream of (noisy) homeless people heading for the soup van. They acted first and then asked questions later. The men who were sleeping rough complained to us, didn't leave names and disappeared. Leaves you with a terrible sense of injustice!

And When is absolutely right - she gets my vote as well!!

Call me an embittered old cynic but if I have to choose between the Met and the Indie, I know exactly who gets my vote. Just think of what the Met has been upto even recently and look st their compassionate (ha) record with the poor and dispossessed. They have a PR machine second to none and pay handsomely for it