The Thin End Of The Wedge?

Take a look at the picture on the left. If you can't see it clearly, click it and it will enlarge. Who are the the two officers in uniform? In a rush or in an urgent need you may well think you are looking at or talking to police officers but you will be wrong!

They are in fact Community Support Officers, in this case belonging to Devon and Cornwall Constabulary. Their uniform is extremely constable like and their hats adorn a chequer band all be it blue and white as apposed to black and white.

Unison, which represents the majority of police staff across England and Wales have petitioned the Home Office to issue CSOs with a standard kit to ease public confusion and their plans are to be similar to Devon and Cornwall's Sussex and Cambridgeshire's CSO's.

The union said it wants to routinely issue CSO's with stab vests (no arguments from me there) and have said that "to do the job properly CSO's need the right kit, a uniform that is distinctive, practical, smart and carries the authority of office."

Now, excuse me? "distinctive"! How can looking almost identical to fully trained, fully sworn constables be distinctive?

The Federation and ACPO have urged caution with the new standardised uniform because they look too similar to police officers.

In my opinion it will cause greater confusion rather than lessen it if their uniforms were standardised like the above plans! Unison said the new uniform could lessen the furore around such incidents when the CSOs from Greater Manchester Police did not jump into a pond in Wigan where 10 year old Jordan Lyon drowned in May.

How will it lessen the furore? As I asked in the first part, what if there is an urgent situation and you need a police officer and instead you get an under trained CSO who walks into view. The member of public will see a police uniform and expect that person to be fully equipped and more importantly, fully trained. When the CSO claims they can't deal with the situation because of various reasons this will most likely infuriate the member of public causing possible danger to the CSO or worse still, like the Wigan incident, result in death!

The public see a uniform and react, they know what a police uniform is, they've been brought up around it. When someone is popped into an extremely similar uniform and placed onto the street there will be trouble to follow.

If, the CSOs at the Wigan incident were in a very different uniform to a police officer then people would have probably understood a bit more, instead, they saw someone wearing a police uniform doing nothing! Even the newspapers called them "cops"

A definite difference needs to be made and an explanation to the public about the powers a CSO has.

If Unison wants similar uniforms, better training and betting equipping CSO's then what next?

Will they start to encroach on the jobs sworn officers do?

.....OOPS!!!! TOO LATE!!!

If you make CSOs look like Police Constables, train them up better and better equip them, surely that makes them Police Constables?

.......at half the price!

Police defend drowning death case

Snippets taken from the BBC and interlaced with my thoughts on this subject.

Police chiefs have defended two community support officers (PCSOs) who stood by as a 10-year-old boy drowned in a pond.

Jordon Lyon leapt into the water in Wigan, Greater Manchester, after his eight-year-old stepsister Bethany got into difficulties on 3 May.

Two anglers jumped in and saved Bethany but Jordon became submerged.

The inquest into his death heard the PCSOs did not rescue him as they were not trained to deal with the incident.

His mother, Tracy Ganderton, and stepfather Anthony, of Bluebell Avenue, Wigan, are demanding to know why the PCSOs did not try to rescue Jordon and why they did not give evidence at the inquest held by deputy West Manchester coroner Alan Walsh.

Mr Ganderton told the inquest: "I don't know why they didn't go in. I can't understand it.

"If I had been walking along a canal and seen a child drowning I would have jumped in.

"You don't have to be trained to jump in after a drowning child."

Mrs Ganderton said on Friday that the PCSOs in question should be named.

"If you're walking down the street and you see a child drowning you automatically go in that water.

"You don't care if you're going to lose your job or not, you don't care do you.

"I want them to be named. I want to know why they didn't go in, I want to know why they weren't at the inquest when I had to turn up there, and go through the pain of it all.

"I want to know why they didn't have to be there as main witnesses.

"They should have to be there. They shouldn't have a job."

Paul Kelly, chairman of the Police Federation in Manchester, said PCSOs do not have the same level of training as police officers to deal with life-saving situations.

He said: "The message is clear and unambiguous - it's the government, they are trying to fool the public.

"They take a person and dress him up as a police officer but they just don't have the same powers.

"Every single police officer I trained with left training school with a life-saving certificate of some sort."

He said the PCSOs might not have been able to swim and in that case they should not have risked their lives.

But he added: "People throw themselves into rivers and ponds to save people every day because it's the right thing to do.

"This is an accident waiting to happen again."
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My heart goes out to that family! What on earth must have being going through those PCSOs heads as the boy struggled in the water to save his sister then his own life?! Then to watch two anglers go in the water to rescue them whilst they just stood there adds insult to injury!

If they couldn't swim then fair enough to a certain degree but what are the odds of both PCSOs not knowing how to swim? Paul Kelly is right about one thing, you would go into the water to save them, I would most certainly do it! Even if I did lose my own life but I rescued the child at least I can rest peacefully! It is the right thing to do!

You don't just stand there and watch a child drown because you didn't have the correct training! That's absolute bollocks! You're own survival instincts and protective nature should kick in and you would go in after them.

What the hell everyone helping must have thought whilst these two cowards stood on the bank is beyond me?! I'm sorry to say it, but in my opinion they are just that, "Cowards!" to hide behind the excuse "We've not been trained" not to go in the water is inexcusable!

This will happen more and more often, cheap officers who don't have the powers to deal are only going to injure themselves and others and in this case the loss of a life!

Scrap the PCSOs now! Re-invest the money back into the force and employ more Police Constables! We are trained to deal with these situations and we have an oath to save life and protect property!

If you train and equip a PCSO properly then surely they are Police Constables!

Rest in peace young Jordon! You were very brave and far braver than those PCSOs!