The Ultimate Sacrifice

This week has seen the loss of two officers whilst on the front line helping those in need.

PC Mark Goodlad of West Yorkshire Police and Garda Ciaran Jones of Garda Síochána County Wicklow.

PC Goodlad was struck by a lorry on the M1 Motorway after he stopped to assist a stranded female motorist who had broken down on the hard shoulder.

Garda Jones, whilst off duty and in some of the worst conditions in living history, left his car to warn drivers that a bridge near his home was about to collapse. He was washed away in the flood water and believed to have drowned.

These two officers without a second thought for their own safety, went to the assistance of those in need. Something that takes place every day with every police officer around the world.

Is this bravery? I would say, no, it's the job that we do and is an everyday occurrence.

However, to be killed doing it brings home the very dangers that us officers face day by day.

Yes, soldiers face danger day by day, but with all due respect to them, if you sign for the Armed Forces you don't join to study the flora and fauna.

What angers me, is the total lack of media coverage for these two officers.

These two officers represent the majority of officers world wide. Those that join the job, serve, committed, professional and want to go home safe at the end of every tour.

However, the media chose to focus their attention on a Met PC call handler who "inappropriately handled emergency calls"

Whilst I agree that, yes, this does require attention, but to have on the tv full interviews with the IPCC and only give brief coverage of the two officers was simply not on.

It seems to me that lately the media only want to concentrate on the bad side of the police.

The riots, what we did wrong, the student protests, the sit in at St Pauls, Dale Farm etc, all concentrate on the "lack of police response" rather than, "the police finding themselves the targets once again"

Every day, an officer does something that can save or change a life. Do we hear about it? No of course not, it would become tedious as after all, if you speak to any police officer they will say the same thing:

"I was only doing my job"

However, it is about time that the media and government stop getting into bed with each other and realise that police officers are human. We have lives, we have feelings and if you push us we will break.

But we will always continue to serve

... even if we have to pay the ultimate sacrifice

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.