This weeks "Total Prat" award goes to Daily Mail journalist Peter Hitchens for his article on Sunday 15th September 2013 titled
Get rid of the guns, cars and Tasers and we might just end up with real policemen
I must admit that I don't expect anything else from the Daily Mail when it comes to police bashing which they seem to do in the most derogatory, holier than thou manner but Hitchens has sunk to new lows even for the Daily Mail.
Published three days short of a year since Greater Manchester Police lost two of its finest, PC Bone and PC Hughes (18 Sept 2012) Hitchens goes all out in an ill educated and insensitive way.
For those who can't and won't read the Daily Mail because it makes you feel physically sick, I shall sum up Hitchens words for you.
Hitchens says:
What use are the police these days? We know they have a pretty ambiguous attitude towards us, the public, avoiding us where possible by staying indoors or racing about in cars, and seldom going out alone in case one of us actually approaches them.
He then waffles on about the incident at Buckingham Palace with the Duke of York and drags up the incident with Andrew Mitchell which he conveniently fails to ask the question which we all want to know the answer:
"We know, what you claim you didn't say Mr Mitchell, but what did you say?"
Water off a ducks back, but what really angered me was Hitchens stating:
Call them all back in. Take away their guns and their Tasers and their stab vests, sell their helicopters and their fast cars with the go-faster stripes. Give them proper British police uniforms, which mark them out as the people’s servants, not their masters.
And send them out on solitary foot patrol, yes, even in the rain, where they might once more meet those they are supposed to serve.
What planet does this idiot live on?
I would love to see Hitchens join us on a late or night shift when we have to deal with call after call to fights, drunks, drug addicts threatening us with knives and needles.
When those we arrest are kicking, punching us and spitting in our faces and the calls are mounting and mounting because there are so few officers on such a massive patch.
This man calls to "take away their stab vests and their Tasers"
We all don't live in gated communities and the particular area I police is one of the roughest areas I've ever covered. I've got ten years in and I had a wake up call!
I do not go out without my stab vest, I have had many occasions when a knife has been pulled or a knife has been found on a person I've arrested and or searched.
There has been many occasions where a Taser would have finished a dangerous situation safely for everyone, especially the public but instead, people and officers have been hurt.
A year in three days time we lost two officers to a man with a gun who were tricked whilst they were attending a routine call.
Without the fast cars, helicopters, Tasers etc that Hitchens wants to remove from us this man could have and would have carried on killing officers.
Hitchens has never had to deal with a violent person day after day, week after week, race to a call that may affect someones life with the outcome.
He's never had to pick up the pieces after a road crash, literally in some cases.
He's never had a malicious complaint made against him and still has to carry on, still having to deal with the violence, the sadness of delivering death messages.
Never helped endless lost pensioners, children, adults, or dealt with mental health patients.
Never spent hours on paper work in order to send someone you know is guilty of a serious crime and if you get it wrong you're in serious trouble,
He's never seen the tears and the anguish of a rape victim.
I bet he's never heard the last words and seen the last breath of someone fatally injured.
What angers me even more about this lazy style of abusive journalism from Hitchens is that if he was ever burgled, he would expect the police to turn up with their fast cars and their helicopter and if the suspect was found on his property and was violent towards him, he would want them tasered and if we wasn't there in five minutes, he would be the first to complain.
Yes Hitchens you and I may go home to our families at the end of the day, but I treasure mine the most.
....and lets face it, the public needs the police far more than they need journalists.
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