It Would Never Have Happened To Smeaton...

So, after I posted a blog entry entitled "The Blame Game" exactly what do we blame for the causation of the Summer riots of 2011?


The 'original cause', the death of Mark Duggan has been  significantly over shadowed by the riots which took an even uglier turn with the death of six people across the country and the destruction of peoples homes and businesses.


Tariq Jahan eloquently, wisely and whilst still grieving for the death of his Son called on everyone for peace.  The Duggan family also told the nation that they condemned the riots and did not want them carried out in his name.


So, what caused them?


These riots were going to take place no matter what.  An antiques dealer in Tottenham started to receive telephone calls about a week before they took place, asking if he wanted "protection should anything happen"  This would suggest to me that this was going to happen even if Mark Duggan wasn't fatally shot that August day.  This death was merely a catalyst for events that were going to happen, like it or not.


So where do we start this "Post Mortem" of the events that took place.  What caused this Cancer that spread very quickly across this great city and then the country that I love?


It is very easy and quick to blame the police.  The police would have received the blame whether Duggan lived or died, the fact that there was an illegal firearm, fully loaded in the vehicle he was in, keeps escaping people.


Here in lies the problem.  


The 24 hour news companies were quick to film people on the street hearing that the "police don't respect us" or "the police here don't do nothing to help us" and "the police are always harassing us"


Well, in my opinion, respect is earned.  I hear this a lot in my job "Don't DISS ME" "You need to show me respect"


Funny how quick those who have none for other people are quick to expect it shown to themselves.


"You're only stopping me because I'm black" 


No, it's because I saw you slip a knife under your jog top, or you blew through that red light with no care for anyone else and you have no insurance, MOT etc but, no, lets blame it on the fact you're black being the reason I stopped you and not because you committed a crime.


"If you touch me, I'm going to sue you"


Thank you America! This is another thing I hear regularly.  Including my Mother In Law who is an English teacher.  Some of the story's she tells me, I would quite happily take a machine gun to her pupils. [edit due to complaints on Twitter: This does not mean I will do this literally!  For God's sake get real people! If I meant every time I said to my brother I was going to kill him, I would still be slopping out at Parkhurst!]


My own 11 year old Godson said something similar to his mother the other day when she said to him "You're not too old to get a slap"


The fact he meant what he said shows how damaging our culture has become over the years with discipline.


Our 3 year old daughter was kicking off the other day and my wife said to her "I will count to five and if you don't stop I will slap the back of your legs"


The look of disgust she got from a woman who overheard, speaks volumes, in my opinion of the interference from outside agencies in just simple discipline.


I'm in no way condoning violence towards children but I believe, children need to be taught from an early age that every thing in life has a consequence.  


It is my belief that there are too many groups these days who leap out and attack the ways of parenting and even criminalising parents who have smacked their children when the real abusers slip through the net.


Then we have the schools.  In my day I would get the cane.  I got it twice and never again after that I can tell you.  The mere fact that it was on the wall on a plinth above the Head meant it was destined for your hand after the talk was over.  I respected my teachers and in actual fact, I still speak to one on Facebook who sent me for the cane.


Now we have pupils fighting against teachers, parents who, instead of trying to find out why their little darling set fire to the chemistry lab, want to blame it on the teacher for daring to give their son or daughter a detention for throwing things at another pupil.  In some cases, teachers have actually been attacked by parents for showing discipline to their children.


My Mother In Law will not walk down the road of her village or to our house in case one of her pupils sees her.  She's had her house egged and her windows smashed by her own pupils many times.


However, if my Father in law got hold of one of them, he would be the one arrested.


How wrong, is that?


We have football players who think it's ok to have multiple affairs, to commit numerous criminal  offences and be seen to be rewarded with multi million pound contracts.


These people are supposed to be role models.  


Gangsta Rap which tells their listeners to kill one another for daring to live in another post code or come from another class.  


Single parent mothers who claim they cannot control their child as they have to work every day and that the council took away the local youth club.


"They're bored"  


Well, I grew up in East London, right where they are building the Olympics.  We had miners strikes, Cold War, recessions, 3 day working week.  We didn't have iPods, Nintendo's, X-Box, PS3's etc.  The latest thing I wanted was a set of clackers which you could bounce faster and faster then lose your knuckles in a blinding flash! 


We went out in groups on bikes.  Budgies, Boxers, Strikers, Choppers and Grifters being the fad in those days and we played cricket with a bat made out of floor board and a tennis ball.


We would disappear for hours with our parents safe in the knowledge that we would come back in one piece and with what we went out with.


These days the youth are taught that if you want something, take it.  Kids are bombarded with images of the latest tech and if you don't have it, you're a target in the playground and even the classroom.


We are a society that is quick to take, quick to throw away and quick to blame someone else for your own wrong doings.


I learnt very quickly when I was young that everything has a consequence. 


I got into trouble when I was about 11 and my Dad informed me that I would come home from school, do my homework and I would not watch TV for a week.  For me, this was a disaster, early evening TV was a must. I knew that if I timed it right, I could watch the tele and turn it off just before my Dad got home from work.


My Dad got home, walked to the TV, put his hand on the back, felt the warm glow and then I felt the warm glow of that hand as it connected with my backside.


I didn't do that again, I can assure you.


I was grounded.  My Dad then saw me frantically riding home on my bike with my mates as he crossed the park walking back from the local Underground station.


I learned then too.


I was always told that if I ever brought the police home or got into trouble at school I would suffer the consequences.


Imagine my horror when the local bobby, a big bearded fellow, followed my friends and I to the garages behind my mates house as we collected his bike!


"What's going on 'ere then?  Breaking into garages I see!"


Cue frantic explanations that we were just innocent lads getting my mates bike from his Dads garage.


"Let's just check this lock here then" 


Praying that Tony had actually locked the garage and what on earth my Dad would say if he heard I was taken down the local nick even though I was innocent.


I feared the police, but respected and even admired them all the same.  I called him "Sir" and I meant that too.  These days I get no respect.


Nowadays it's "See that man, he's the one who will take you away when you're naughty"


Or in one case: "See that son, it's a pig"


The police were a "force" not a "service".  If you got on the wrong end of the police you would expect a clip round the ear and taking home to your parents where you would receive a belting for not only breaking the law but bringing the "Old Bill" round the house!


These days, if a police officer lays a finger on someone it's on the news in seconds, filmed on mobiles and shown on You Tube.


Police officers fear striking back for losing their jobs, their homes, or worse, be imprisoned. 


So what is to blame for these riots?


Well in my opinion I would say it's a combination of ill discipline starting with parents, schools which results on a lack of respect for those around.


The "I want it now" and "I'll just take it" culture caused by the mass media marketing strategy from everything from a pair of new trainers to the latest car.  The "upgrades" which means people have to have the latest and you can include football kit.


We didn't have a lot when I was a kid.  Mum only started to work again when we went to school full time so Dad had to pull in a lot of hours.  We got by, but we were well taught that if we wanted something, we had to earn it.


We had to make do and live with it.


What's the solution?


If I knew the answer to that I wouldn't be in this job, I would be earning a fortune on the lecture circuit.  


But it's my belief that if we allowed teachers to regain the classroom without fear of reprisals, parents to take some responsibility in their offspring instead of expecting others to do their work for them, the police to become a "Police Force" again instead of a "service" doing Social Services job for them and take away the mindless amounts of red tape and the ready critical media we have.  Stop this blame culture, the ambulance chasing solicitors who immediately say 


"Where there's blame, there's a claim"


If we get this little bit sorted, perhaps, just perhaps, the world may be a better place.

The Blame Game

First Tottenham, now Hackney, Lewisham, Catford and reports of disorder in East Ham, Ilford, Barking, Birmingham and Leeds.

The Home Secretary Theresa May pays tribute to the "brave police officers" but makes no reference about how she is going to assist officers with solving this problem. 

All we heard was typical government rhetoric and political avoidance of direct questions.

Earlier on the BBC I heard a young woman on scene at Tottenham who stated that it was:

"Justified to loot as the government had fiddled expenses, the banks had bankrupted the country and the police were taking back handers"

From where I was sat it appears that yet another person live on television had decided that the blame lay firmly at someone else's door, and not theirs.

I've heard the police are blamed, I've heard the government are blamed, the local councils, rival gangs, everyone blamed for who is the cause, the catalyst of this rather than those who are picking up the bricks and bottles themselves.

This is the society we live in.

The blame culture.

Blame everyone else for the situation you are in rather than taking responsibility for your own actions and taking stock of your own life.

The latest apparent reason for this riot in Hackney is because a black male was searched.  A crowd took umbrage and the officers were surrounded.  It all went off from there on.

Excuses, excuses.

These people were organising this before this search even took place.  They just wanted someone to blame in order to "justify" starting it.

Again, we are hearing "the police are racist" as they dared to stop a black male and search him. "It has been building over the last 20 years" said one male to Sky earlier this evening.  "The Brixton riots started with overbearing policing and now this."

Well, because of the "overbearing" policing the Police And Criminal Evidence Act was brought in to sort this out.

An officer needs to justify and have a reason, unless a Section 60 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 has been put in place in an area which gives police the right to search people in a defined area at a specific time when they believe, with good reason, that: there is the possibility of serious violence; or that a person is carrying a dangerous object or offensive weapon; or that an incident involving serious violence has taken place and a dangerous instrument or offensive weapon used in the incident is being carried in the locality.

This law has to be authorised by a senior officer and is used mainly to tackle football hooliganism and gang fights.

What these mindless thugs are doing are destroying communities.  Destroying communities that have worked hard to get where they are now.

They are destroying the very fabric and ripping out the heart of where they live.

They have destroyed homes, belongings, work places and put people, their own neighbours into school halls and shelters to sleep and possibly will make more homeless as private businesses are destroyed and livelihoods are ruined.

The repercussions of this will stretch far and wide.

Just like the football violence of the past, it has denied us hosting World Cups and other major events. 

This will have major effects on tourism.

Al Qaeda don’t have to do anything to us.  We are destroying ourselves.  They will be sitting there and laughing at us as our way of life crumbles. Our monetary system has collapsed and the streets are over run with thugs.

How do we sort this matter out?

Therein lies the Sixty Four Thousand Dollar Question.

I would like to see this Government stand up and be counted for once.  Stop pussy footing about and let the police do the job we were employed to do.

Stop the pathetic form filling for every time we look at someone, give us the tools, and we will give you the results.

I want to see a Met Commissioner and a Home Secretary have the balls to say:

 “Deploy the water cannon, deploy the baton rounds, deploy tear gas”

Stop letting the “Human Rights” of these thugs get in the way of finishing this. 

What about the Human Rights of those innocents effected by this? and including this I mean the police officers too who will no doubt have family and friends worried sick about them at this time as they are pushed to the limit physically and mentally.

The government have reacted too slow over this.  The officers on the front line are tired, over run, stretched to breaking point and low in morale.

This is only going to get worse.

The public need to wake up and smell the coffee.

If the police cannot sort this out now due to low numbers, criticism by the public, media and government interference in tactics. When these 20% cuts bite you will hardly see any officers out there to deal with this.

The Neighbourhood Policing Teams will be decimated through these cut backs and could potentially cause more of these scenes in London and other cities and towns.  

These NP Teams have created massive links to the local community. 

Lose these and you will lose them.

Well, You're Damned If You Do......

So Mark Duggan, a man in his own Obituary picture shown on national news is posing using what appears to be his fingers shaped like a gun looking like gang signs is pulled over by armed police in a taxi and during an altercation a shoot out takes place resulting in one  officer shot and Duggan fatally wounded.

What we saw last night was according to one "witness" on the BBC "The locals taking revenge for the killing of a brother" and "The Police don't police our community they only turn up when this happens"

Memories of The Broadwater Farm riots in 1985 where many of the rioters were not even born or too young to remember were being tossed about by "witnesses" being interviewed on TV.  "This memory is in our DNA where Cynthia Jarrett died after police broke into her home" said one representing the "Youth of Haringey"  "We may have not been there but it's passed down to us"

Cynthia Jarrett dying is in no way even the same as Duggan dying and comparing the two is an insult to Cynthia's memory.

People on tv last night were calling Duggan "Their Brother" and even they said they didn't even know him.

Duggan lived by the sword and by the looks of it, died by it.  He allegedly shot at officers and therefore was shot at in defence and was killed.

Some bright spark witness on Sky was complaining that Duggan didn't have the safety equipment that the armed police officers had and therefore it was unfair and a reporter on Sky even had the gall to say "We don't know who shot at who first"

There are internet rumours going round that someone who knows someone spoke to someone who saw someone see a 16 year old girl allegedly beaten with sticks by police for no apparent  reason. What angers me more is depending on who you believe is that this was used as a "reason" for a full scale riot in Tottenham last night.

There was a protest about the killing of Duggan and the way the area is policed and this was presented to the doors of the Tottenham police station.  For whatever reason after that, it went down hill from there on.

Then a police car with two officers was hijacked and pushed into the road and set alight. This was then a beacon for others to start violent disorder.

The police were then lambasted by locals and the media for not policing the riot properly and their tactics used.  Some complained that the police were only targeting black rioters and some even complained that the police were too soft.

Damned if we do and damned if we don't.

What angers me more through all of this, is the two faced cheek of the government and media.  Suddenly to the government we have their "full support" and "no justification for the aggression shown to the police" with the media it was the complete lack of support and the cutting off of anyone who dared to voice support to the police coming under attack.

The media completely ignored the fact that Duggan shot at officers, completely ignored the fact the innocent bystanders were caught up in the riot, and that the reason police let the bus and buildings burn is because it was unsafe for the London Fire Brigade to go in and put it out.

The government talk about the "aggression shown to police" but fail to realise the irony of their aggression shown to police with the cut backs to the front line and to the police pensions and pay which are about to take place.  The "thin blue line" is so thinly stretched it's fracturing at points and last night was a case in point.  I think you can expect more of this to come.

What the government and public fail to realise is that Public Order trained officers and others like myself with specialist skills in areas including firearms are all volunteers.  We get no extra money and certainly thanks to Hutton, Windsor and May we won't be getting any more for a few years.

We can just as easily turn our passes in as easy as we got them.  If I don't want to be a Public Order trained officer any more I can turn in my certificate.  Just as easy if I don't want to do CBRN or Search.  I can easily fail to sign up for the next refresher or fail the fitness test.

If this carries on with the front line being savaged by the government and public alike I can see many officers ditching their specialist training.

Why should we face a barrage of petrol bombs and rocks whilst the ones that govern us and take away our rights, pensions and wages are sleeping soundly in their beds?

I can see many officers failing to come in when off duty, the sounds of unanswered ringing phones deafening.  The number of mobiles that suddenly had no signal.

We don't get paid a call out fee, so why should we come in?

One Inspector said to me that you could face disciplinary action if you are on a call out list.  Well, prove my phone had no signal, prove my phone rang at my home and not at the exchange.

We have enough restrictions on our lives as it is without placing me under virtual house arrest in case another riot takes place.

It's about time that the government realised that last night is a taste of things to come.

Mess with our tactics, mess with our numbers, budgets and wages and this is what you get.

A lot of innocent people cleaning up after a night of disorder and many officers injured.

What I will say is that it's going to make the Notting Hill Carnival an interesting two days.

Haven't you got anything else better to do?

As much as I moan about my job and the political goings on in the background I do generally love being a policeman.  


One thing that always amazes me is that over the years the same questions and statements arise time and time again from members of the public who whilst in conversation either bring them up or actually ask them as the main reason for stopping you.


Here are the answers to the questions to save you asking me next time you see me and in some cases are actually what I really want to say next time I'm asked:


How can I get to the most obscure and insignificant named street the complete other side of London?  


I don't know.  Simple really.  You're standing outside a W H Smith try buying an A-Z.  I am not a black cab driver and I've never done the knowledge.  So why would I know where this street is approx 10 miles in the other direction, way off my patch?


But I thought you policemen knew every where in London?


Refer back to my original answer.  As I stated, I'm not a cab driver.  Do you know where every single street is in your city?


I've got this map and I need to get here (pointing to location) from where we are now (again pointing to location) How do I do that?


Follow your finger along the line!  No, Seriously?!  You have a map, shown me where we are on it, shown me where you want to go on it and yet you want me to show you how to get there.


(After showing them how to get there) No, that's not right, I would go this way.


Then why ask me in the first place? You have the map, use it!


Why do policemen always have their hands inside the stab vests?


Because it's considered rude and unprofessional to have my hands in my pockets and I need some where to rest my hands.  It's also because I'm bored of this conversation and these stupid questions.


I'm going to ask you about the most obscure piece of legislation known to man and then moan because you don't know the answer to it.


I'm not a legal expert. I've had training in the law, yes and I've an A-Level in Law but I don't know the law about it being illegal for a lady to eat chocolate on a conveyance.  If you want the answer to your question either seek a solicitor or better still, research the internet.


What time does this shop close?


So I look like I work for Tesco now?  I must have not noticed that the average Tesco worker carries cuffs, baton, spray, wears a stab vest and a hat which has sign clearly saying "Police" written on it.  I guess it must get a little fraught at Customer Services with all these customers asking stupid questions!  You must have walked past exactly the same sign as me on the way in and as it's 3am I'm guessing it's open all night.


Do you think you should be eating that?


Well, no actually, I was going to use it to throw at speeding motorists to make them think they've hit someone.  I tell you what, I'll take a look inside your basket and start asking why it is you only have "Meals for One"


Shouldn't you be in the doughnut aisle? 


I think you are confusing us with the American Police.  If this was a kebab van, then you've got me.  Stop watching all those films and thinking it's real life.


You can't talk to me like that!


But you think it' perfectly acceptable to talk to me like that and not expect anything back.  Listen. You've been tugged for a perfectly good reason.  You decide to trap off and call me every thing under the sun and because I tell you to wind your neck in and shut your mouth, suddenly I'm the one being rude.


Can a pregnant woman wee in your helmet?


I've been asked this one about a thousand times.  Truthfully I don't know but why on earth would anyone want to do that when they've probably walked past so many toilets, pubs, cafes, restaurants and bushes is beyond me.


Do you get many people asking to take your photo.


Well, it's dipped to only about five hundred today.  Yesterday was well over seven hundred by the time I booked off.


You can't stop me, I know my rights.


Once again, my friend, you seem to be mistaking us from our cousins across the pond.  I have a reason to stop you, and I have grounds therefore I am detaining you for this search and or stopping your vehicle as I suspect you've committed an offence.


This shop won't give me a refund.  I want you to go in and arrest them.


I cannot help you I'm afraid.  However, I suggest you write to customer services.  They have their own internal department that can arrest any person found guilty of holding onto a dumb arse customers money who think that a policeman can help them get a refund for returning a worn pair of pants.


Haven't you got anything else better to do?


Actually I have better things to do, I'm just not doing them right now.


Enough to put you off your public service!