Oh! You Don't Wanna Do It Like That!

So it appears that the world and their partner know everything they need to know about how the police should do their job and exactly how they would run it if they were Chief, Commissioner or Mayor.

It seems that wherever you go, people are quite happy to tell you how you should be doing your job, where you are going wrong and exactly what they would do if they were you.

Critical of our job, many members of the public think it's perfectly ok to berate us for carrying out a dangerous, thankless task even to the point of shouting out "Haven't you got any rapists or murderers to catch?" if you dare to deal with them for law breaking.

Would any of these people dare to tell their dentist how to pull a tooth, or a doctor how to perform heart surgery?

I ask this because it looks like even Mayoral candidates such as Green Party member Jenny Jones has suddenly became an expert on policing despite never having stepped foot on patrol in a police uniform and having never carried a warrant card.

Her comments for the incident involving the recent pit bull terrier in Forest Gate spoke volumes:

“Calling in CO19 just seems such an expensive way to deal with a mad dog. Could they not have used a Taser?

“Police should have done their homework before carrying out that operation.

They should have realised the potential for a dangerous dog at the premises.”

Not one quote from her concerning the five injured officers. Three with life changing injuries.

...More concerned about the cost.

I would like Jenny Jones to actually attend Plaistow, or Forest Gate, the area where these injured officers police and actually spend a front line shift with some officers and see exactly what we do.

When an incident like this occurs, Ms Jones, we front line officers do not put a thing like "cost" at the top of our list of priorities.

We put ours, our colleagues and public safety first and foremost and therefore I'm sorry if the cost of a couple of CO19 officers was too much and blew the budget.

Maybe if the officers had have put this thought first, the budget would have been saved,

....several officers and public may have been killed by a crazy dog, but at least some money would have been saved.

As for the remark about the Taser. I seem to remember you stating that it would be a bad idea if police officers routinely carried Taser. Stating that we would be "paramilitary"

Having worked alongside many Taser trained officers, I know for a fact that a Taser would have been no good against a fast moving animal. It takes a couple of seconds to reload a Taser and the chances are the probes could have hit someone else if the dog darted out the way.

Two quick bullets, however, did the trick.

....it also saved on the vets bill as after all, that dog has already been destroyed.




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