Police above the Law

[gratedenini]

Edit - In response to GrateDenini

Oh I fully believe we need a police force. We don't however need to put up with scum in the police force. There are enough people wanting the job that we don't have to keep these scum in, what is really quite a priveledged job.

My original rant is simply against those members of the public whose very job it is to enforce the law, breaking the very law they should be enforcing i.e. Going about attacking and killing people and then not only being found not guilty of a crime that the whole world has watched them commit, but keeping their jobs, that of enforcing the laws they just broke.

If that ain't FUBAR then I don't know what is.

As an aside, I was reading about the policing at the G20 and how, despite there not actually being any law allowing it, the police were confiscating all photography equipment. 1) What have they got to hide ? Well we all know the answer to that by the fottage that did escape these searches. 2) It is yet another example of Police thinking themselves above the law and able to do as they damn well please without even a passing reference to what is and isn't legal.

At the end of the day, Police are just jumped up security guards, no better no worse and the bad eggs should be sorted out and discarded.

[worm]

What I said applies no less to those who think of themselves "professional upholders of the law". Because they think themselves professional, they think of themselves as good at their job at upholding the law.

[eFestivals]

The guy said some police officers are good i.e. generally well meaning. You came back with a load of convoluted shite about them not being good. The end.

PMSL - I did the exact f**king opposite you complete moron.

[worm]

The guy said some police officers are good i.e. generally well meaning. You came back with a load of convoluted shite about them not being good. The end.

[eFestivals]

You replied with the supposed good guys not being good here.....

perhaps that's your reading of what I said, but it only would be if you've suddenly rejected the psychology you've said applies, or if you're incredibly dense.

I wasn't saying they're not good. I was saying they're simply guys.

There are no good guys, there are only guys. Or are you able to show me these perfect people you're imagining?

[eFestivals]

As I said at the time and ever since, the alternative is that they may not act 'just like that' ever.

There are people that on a bad day will not beat people up.

They might not act "just like that" but they'll act similarly badly in relation to the expectations from a copper.

There are no people that on a bad day won't act badly.

[worm]

They might not act "just like that" but they'll act similarly badly in relation to the expectations from a copper.

There are no people that on a bad day won't act badly.

[worm]

perhaps that's your reading of what I said

[eFestivals]

Point missed again.

There are good police officers who will draw the line at beating people up, whatever day it happens to be. We aren't talking about having a few petty discretions Neil, we're talking about drawing the line on gross misconduct.

As this court case got to show, beating someone up isn't gross misconduct.

All the same, no matter how good and righteous any copper considers himself to be, there will be times when that copper over-steps the line in the eyes of some of the public and in the eyes of what coppers are expected to work within. Every copper considers himself to have 'right' on his side (unsurprisingly - there are laws that give them that right), yet when dealing with someone who they (for whatever reason) consider to be a crim they will treat that person as a crim - someone that they have the 'right' to use their power over - even if they are innocent.

And via doing that, they cease to be anything 'good' no matter how much they regard themselves as perfect; the very fact that they are arresting someone - using their powers over someone - that has done nothing wrong makes them less than perfect and makes them less than good.

And leading on from that, protests by that innocent person of their unfair treatment (it cannot be anything but unfair: they are innocent) get to be considered by that copper as obstruction of him in his duty, thus giving that copper self-justification to use his powers to a greater extent - and that copper will use his powers to whatever extent he feels is necessary; this will always result on occasions of him using more power than is necessary or justifiable; there is no perfect copper who is able to get it right every time.

Within the 'professionalism' that coppers are meant to work to, and often thought by the public at large to always work to (hence the shock of some at the cctv footage, yet similar could be found at any police station in any year), they are often over-stepping the line into 'misconduct', as those coppers see their actions which are technically misconduct as justifiable in the circumstances, and 'the system' will back them up with that. 'The system' *HAS TO* back them up with that, else 'the system' does not work.

If you had read the research that you claim, you would know that this is recognised as happening from every copper, as necessary - but not right.

[Stalemate]

I saw the footage/pic/article and posted a topic for it on another forum I visit, I was so disgusted.

[eFestivals]

Beating someone up because you had a bad day is not good behaviour Neil. You said that the majority of good officers would 'act like that', while referring to beating someone to a pulp.

He didn't beat her up.

(tho most coppers have no problem beating people up, as the facts get to show).

He man-handled her, and that man-handling resulted in her receiving injuries, injuries I'm sure he didn't mean to cause.

(coppers don't like to cause visible injuries to their prisoners, they have a habit of coming back on them, as this case proved).

Will EVERY officer man-handle a prisoner in that manner if that prisoner wasn't co-operating, as was the case here? Without exception. Their job requires them to.

What is that man-handling? In law, it's assault, a criminal act.

But you say there's coppers who don't break the law.

[Binky]

having being arrested only the once myself(in coventry 85 ) i was grabbed by the scruff of my neck and thrown against some corrugated fencing by some thug copper then dragged and thrown into the back of a wagon and the lies he spouted in court the next morning were unbelievable

local copper getting away with things not violence but could have killed someone just as much let off on appeal

[llcoolphil]

The copper in this case was reported by a young female officer. There's an exceedingly high chance that she has now been 'blackballed' by her fellow officers and intimidated out of the job - that's the case in well over 90% of cases where one copper is dobbed in by another.

[eFestivals]

In over 90% of cases where one officer reports another, the one reporting leaves the service as a direct result of other coppers' responses to their action? Id like to see a source for that because it sounds statistically unfeasible

it's in a Home Office research report from around 1996, I forget which. Go find.