Police that can’t be trusted

A serving police officer abducting a complete stranger and raping and murdering her is a very unusual case.

Would anyone distrust and avoid all builders because of Fred West? Am sure that some builders have committed rape and murder whitewave of their partners/ wives/ girlfriends etc.
Trying to make a case to distrust the police is very wrong in my view.

There wasnt what appear to be systematic failings in the building trade.

But my point is that a police officer committing sexual acts on women without active consent isn’t is it?

In fact it is alarmingly high.

And the murder rate seems higher than in the general population.

My point about the Clapham Common vigil is that the police need not to attend. There was nothing going on that should have attracted a police presence.

lemongrove

Would anyone distrust and avoid all builders because of Fred West? Am sure that some builders have committed rape and murder whitewave of their partners/ wives/ girlfriends etc.
Trying to make a case to distrust the police is very wrong in my view.

I’m not making a case to distrust the police, but I am making a case that the police need to get their house in order big time, before their trust can be earned.

Since 2009 15 serving police officers and former police officers have been charged and convicted of murder, all as far as I can make out were of either their wives/ girlfriends/ partners, and in one case, his own Mother.Not random victims abducted and murdered.
There are 44,600 serving in the Met and around 153,000 in the UK ( full time serving officers.)

The police service does have to do all it can to protect the trust needed by the general public but there are bad apples in every profession and walk of life that often are impossible to predict before an event happens.
The police face dangers and difficult situations on a daily basis, and deal with the worst sort of offenders and yet are expected to do all that without much respect from the public.
Only when a member of the public actually needs the help of the police does that happen.I am constantly amazed that anyone wants to do this job ( these days!)

The police did need to attend because of covid restrictions prohibiting large gatherings. There wouldn't have been an issue if people had simply laid flowers and lit candles which is what a vigil is for, and then departed.

Waving placards and goading the police officers who were there was disrespectful to the memory of the victim and her family.

Whitewavemark2

My point about the Clapham Common vigil is that the police need not to attend. There was nothing going on that should have attracted a police presence.

Wrong.
They had to be there, as there were no large gatherings allowed at that time.
A few ( note, the few) women who were arrested were there to cause trouble and rabble rouse the crowd.One had a loudhailer for goodness sake!

Exactly lemongrove so the mention of that incident and the inflammatory photograph posted on this thread lends nothing to the discussion.

lemongrove

Would anyone distrust and avoid all builders because of Fred West? Am sure that some builders have committed rape and murder whitewave of their partners/ wives/ girlfriends etc.
Trying to make a case to distrust the police is very wrong in my view.

Quite right, I wouldn't distrust and avoid all builders because of Fred West.

All builders are individual builders but each individual policeman wholly represents the police force and everything it stands for. When you approach that man in uniform, or he approaches you, you expect a standard of behaviour that means you can trust that man utterly even when you are at your most vulnerable.

‘I am constantly amazed that any one wants to do this job, these days’. I wonder if that’s one of the key problems lemongrove.
Over the past 11 years, public services, including the police have faced cuts as a result of political decisions. We no longer get have police on our streets, their ability to investigate, to respond to crimes like burglary, car theft etc so restricted it seems handing out a crime number to enable an insurance claim is what happens.
There are fewer supervisors, the once excellent training courses diminished.

We need to invest in our society. Police, criminal justice, education, health, nhs, fire service etc etc. Instead, public services have been devastated by cuts. Little wonder we have more serious drug/alcohol problems along with the child neglect and domestic violence that go with that.
I do trust the Police. My experience of working alongside them, including training officers increased my trust. The police are drawn from society, so reflect it.

No....not talking of money/cuts etc but for quite a while now the utter lack of respect for the police from the general public and from criminals of all kinds is so dispiriting to police officers.They soon find that out once they join.
Look at how ambulance drivers/ paramedics and even sometimes, firemen are treated by the public at the scene of an emergency, it’s appalling and a sad reflection on society.

So bad. Police are authority - we’re all conditioned to do as they ask (well mostly). How is a woman, perhaps tired and maybe a bit tiddly ( because you’ve had a nice night out and maybe a few drinks with a friend ) going to ask all those questions ? Did you see about those two young women in Derbyshire who went in separate cars with their takeaway coffees to a beauty spot for a walk and got surrounded by THREE police cars because of covid ‘rules’? Police work by intimidation. Some teenage girl friends of my daughter got stopped by 2 police officers when the were messing around at a bus stop - an officer of the law pushed one of them against the wall with her arm up her back. They were being cheeky - they were 16. What chance they asked for their ID? Ridiculous .

But the cuts have to be pretty dispiriting too don't they?

The police obviously felt they had to attend the vigil for Sarah, but whoever sent so many policemen that evening surely got it wrong did they not?

The photograph of the young woman, police hands all over her and her face amongst their boots reminded me of the police treatment of suffragettes.

www.museumoflondon.org.uk/discover/black-friday

Re; the vigil for Sarah Everard....
The amount of police there was because it was banned!
........................................

Planned evening vigils were called off because of Covid restrictions, but hundreds gathered at Clapham Common.

It led to confrontation with the police who tweeted that it was "unsafe".

the austerity agenda came from a government that sought to reduce spending on all public services, including the police.
The message was that public services were wasteful, private not only more cost effective but better.
The pandemic has shifted the dialogue, clapping the carers, fibs about 20,000 more police when of course, 20,000 and more had been let go.
The cuts have not helped our country in any way. We have increased drug/alcohol use, with increased violence. Anti social behaviour includes verbal and physical abuse of all public servants. The police inevitably are all to often the targets.

Constantly blaming ‘cuts’ for lack of respect is simply the wrong answer.
Lack of respect for anyone in authority has been going on for a long time but getting worse with every year that passes.
Police, teachers, firemen, ambulance paramedics, and hospital staff etc all suffer as a result.It’s the climate of ‘Nobody tells me what to do!’ And ‘No, I won't wait, I want xyzz right now!’ And
‘It’s my right!’ Social attitudes have changed and are getting worse as time goes on.

Everyone feels ‘entitled’ now, you can see this all the time on social media and in the news generally.

Nobody is blaming the cuts for the lack of respect. Only you linking the two unless I've missed something.

lemongrove

Everyone feels ‘entitled’ now, you can see this all the time on social media and in the news generally.

No. Not everyone.

Indeed he felt entitled to kill a young girl, he felt entitled to go to McDonalds with no trousers on, he felt entitled to be racist and sexist with his mates, and on and on.

Yes Scones ...I think you have missed something indeed.

Where has anyone linked funding cuts to lack of respect please lemongrove? I honestly can't find it anywhere other than in your comment.

Many years ago a friend of mine agreed to let the police use her flat for a surveillance exercise - the police officer made a pass at her when he was in her home and they were alone.

I also had problems with a policeman - I had been accosted by a weirdo exposing himself when I was on my way back to my student flat - for weeks afterwards I was plagued by a policeman coming round and asking me out.