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.

911 caller kills home intruder

A woman kills a home intruder while on the phone with 911. KWTV's Jacqueline Sit reports.

BLUtube is powered by PoliceOne.com

Could you imagine what would have happened if this was in the UK?

She would have been arrested for Murder, firearms offences and jailed for life.

If he had survived, he would have been the victim, sued her and claimed HIS Human Rights were broken not hers.

In America your home is your castle and if you fear for your life and you shoot them, the law protects you not prosecute you.

Makes me sick to the stomach to know that the Justice System in this country defends those that break the law.

ACPO: UK Not Awash With Guns

The most senior policeman spearheading efforts to reduce gun crime has insisted that the country is not "awash" with firearms and that the problem was not out of control.

Chief Constable Keith Bristow, the head of Warwickshire Police and the Association of Chief Police Officers' (ACPO) spokesman on the criminal use of firearms, stressed that gun crime had declined in recent years.

Speaking ahead of a major ACPO conference to discuss how to tackle gun crime, Mr Bristow said a "concerted effort" was needed from police, communities and other agencies to tackle gun-related violence.

Here again is another yet pointless conference in a series of "how to tackle things"

Usually they throw money at these sorts of things because when the government and public want to know what has been done by the police they can show the budget spent on it and claim they did all they can.

We suddenly end up with teams of fantasy squads who are about for the life span of a May Fly, usually joined by the station cats and Olympic torches so they can get all of the latest bits of Gucci kit which will no doubt be gathering dust in their lockers as soon as the squad is finished. We all get Monday morning emails detailing to us the wonderful way we are going to tackle the latest problem that has cropped up. For "We" read you or me, not the ones who sent it.

Simply put, the way to deal with these latest problems is cut the red tape! Allow us to get back on the streets and be a presence in the neighbourhoods so these gun, knife wielding nutters can see us. I am fed up of arresting someone then to be stuck in the nick doing paper work for it for the next six hours and fed up putting case files together and gathering statements for a job that has already been closed by either No Further Action or a caution! We have plenty of weak and weary officers who are close to being pensioned off for having a finger nail out of place, why not use these as case builders and allow us to write our notes and just go back out there?

I agree to a certain extent with Mr Bristow that this country is not awash with guns but it is most certainly is heading that way. The story of murdered schoolboy Rhys Jones is still fresh in everyone's minds and thus can fool the spirit into thinking that this country is a gun riddled toilet. In my 5 years of being in this job I've only ever had one gun incident. (Thank God!)

Allegedly the FBI warned the UK government some years ago that inner city gangs would be the new thing, what with the rise of Yardie and wannabe Yardie gangs in the USA. Drugs and guns would soon follow. Allegedly the government did little or nothing to act on stopping it.

The rumour that you can walk into any pub in most towns and buy a gun must be wrong. (surely!) Either I look like a copper off duty as well as on because I have never been approached by anyone who's asked me if I've wanted to buy a gun (or drugs for that matter). In fact, most pubs I've been into in the past 15 years I've legally been allowed to drink, you can barely buy cigarettes let alone a hand gun! Anyway, how on earth do you start a conversation about buying a gun in a pub?

"Barman, a pint of John Smith's and a Walther P38 please"

or in some pubs "Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?"

In my humble opinion, gun crime is being highlighted by the press more and more. This sparks a general consensus that this particular crime is spiralling out of control. Because we hear of it more.

Yes, it's great that the public are hearing of the horrors which hopefully will dissuade others from committing the same crime but I'm not so sure it is a good thing to keep on and on about them because what I do know for certain is that if you keep highlighting the same subject over and over, people will eventually take no notice, they get bored of it and that can be dangerous, because then it's becoming the norm.

Eventually it no longer becomes front page news which is where it should belong. It ends up migrating through the newspaper and shrinks in size until it makes a small footnote at the bottom of a page. Stories like the one about Rhys Jones should always belong on the front page national news because here is a young boy gunned down at 11 years old on his way home from football practice.

However, hearing about a gang fight between youths and a gun being seen or heard, (especially if it's at the Notting Hill Carnival as it's always happening there) should never make the national news as it waters down the major tragedies and that most certainly is a crime.