Young People Are Angry
The aftermath of a fundamentalist terrorist attack.
Young people being angry.
You can understand anger at the police when an unarmed man is accidentally shot by an officer wearing too-big gloves in a raid based on malicious intelligence. Incidents like that are embarrassing to say the least. Yet the residents of Forest Gate did not see the need to rush onto the streets and set fire to their own local shops.
Mark Duggan, who was shot on Thursday, came within a whisker of shooting dead a police officer before he was "gunned down" - as the papers describe it. The Daily Mail, Independent and Guardian have been quick to quote friends who called the gunman "a good daddy" and "not a trouble-maker".
Now local dismay at Duggan's death has been hijacked by arsonists and rioters, who have created scenes similar to those seen on London's streets after the July Bombings. Yet the usual apologists are already out bemoaning police action to every BBC camera crew they can find. If the killing of an armed attempted murderer justifies widescale looting and petrol bombing, and the hospitalisation of eight police officers, you wonder how the family of Jean-Charles de Menezes - a genuinely innocent victim of botched police work - restrained themselves from blowing up Parliament.
Young people may well be angry. The police are now angry. Boris is fuming. 2000 officers are due to be cut from the Met, and if Blandshire Constabulary has used up its year's overtime budget in four months, I dread to think how London's two forces are faring.
The tide is turning against law and order in the Capital, and those responsible for stopping it it are facing total decimation of their role, working conditions and pay. It's not a happy time for the people of Great Britain.
On the plus side, I'm soon due to receive £5 a month for a year from a guy who assaulted me two years ago.
Updates:
Community organisers say "the police are absolutely culpable" for the rioting because no senior officer came to speak to them between 5-9pm on a Saturday/Sunday night. Trust me, nobody can get a senior officer to speak to them on a Saturday/Sunday night. Maybe next weekend when I'm trying to get hold of the Duty Super, I'll throw a flaming missile through the window of his office.
The Guardian quotes a source saying Duggan's handgun was found in a sock, and the police officer was shot by friendly fire. If true, this is a disaster. If not, now no one will ever believe the truth. If people think we on the front-line enjoy this kind of misinformation and confusion, think again: most of us would prefer our senior managers released far more information to the press to prevent rumours/unjustified IPCC statements.
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'Diary of an On-Call Girl' is available in some bookstores and online.
posted by PC Bloggs at 13:54
18 Comments:
Well the biggest question here is what you going to spend your fiver on?
07 August, 2011 16:35
Hardly a surprising reaction by the local 'yoof', or those who heard local MP David LAMMY's first soundbite to the BBC (R4)when the shooting was first reported.After hearing his comment listeners might have reasonably thought that the police had done something wrong causing the IPCC to instigate an investigation. This investigation would have happened in any circumstance and he should know that. I trust that local residents who have lost livelihoods, jobs or homes remember this in the future.
07 August, 2011 17:17
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07 August, 2011 18:01
So the BBC are at it again, whipping up a media storm about an initial incident of an officer who was SHOT AT by a gunman, who was then killed by return protective fire. If the tone of the BBC's reporting was again moralistic and judgemental disapproval of the officer who fired the shot at a GUNMAN WHO TRIED TO KILL A POLICE OFFICER, then they really do need their corporate backsides kicked for such biased and dangerous reporting of the facts.
I noticed that the BBC were pushing for John Yates to resign a few weeks ago, over a storm in a tea cup.....And some politicians who really should have known better, didn't back up John Yates, who would have made a good job of being the top boss of the Met.
This riot may not have gone too far if Yates had been in charge. The Met had Intel that this was going to kick off.....although the TV news has quoted them as saying that they "could not have predicted this level of violence". Hmmmm
It sounds like the porkies about the Intel the Met and MI5 had regarding the terror attacks on the 7 July 2005....which WERE PREDICTED in security service records, along with a great deal more besides. The Inquest into 7-7 was a political whitewash.
The previous government, and current, were and still are very fond of denials of the Intelligence the security service HAVE in records, because they do like to cherry pick what they will and will not take notice of, despite the warnings, and predictions, being there to PROTECT PEOPLE and this country.
The Met have had some bad press over the past few years due to some unfortunate incidents, but the blame lays at the top and with certain politicians, and not with the majority of the rank and file officers, the troops on the street.
The BBC appear to have an anti police agenda, and that is undermining OUR national security.... As are some politicians by their mistakes regarding harsh cuts, and a refusal to take notice of serious Intel warnings.
The police are being undermined.
This riot could have been prevented and officers need not have got hurt.
The media are out of control and on a witch hunt, stirring up negativity and hatred. How dare they do that.
07 August, 2011 19:02
What type of gun shoots a pellet (oops, sorry, bullet) that gets stopped by a police radio? Just wondering.
07 August, 2011 19:39
@ Jill - one that has a bullet resistent vest behind it, which is the standard issue for firearms officers in these circumstances - Doh........
07 August, 2011 19:54
One fired from a re-activated firearm using home made round...like most on the street.
07 August, 2011 22:26
One fired from a re-activated firearm using home made round...like most on the street.
07 August, 2011 22:26
It's interesting isn't it that, as you point out Ellie, the Brazilians didn't riot when Jean-Charles was shot. The Irish
weren't out blowing stuff up in response to Harry Stanley. Yet there's a riot when the residents of Tottenham can't get into their new Ikea store.
Broadwater Farm, Toxteth, Brixton, Tottenham and LA. There's only one common denominator.
07 August, 2011 23:06
The BBC appear to have an anti police agenda, and that is undermining OUR national security....
No, the BBC has a vaguely pro-civil liberties agenda. I wish they were far more robust in defending our rights, which are stolen from us alarmingly by the "forces of law and order".
As to the incident that precipitated the current riots, given Jean Charles de Menezies, Harry Stanley, Mohammed Abdul Kahar, et al., it is only reasonable to assume that the police have shot yet another innocent man by mistake. If you don't like the fact that people leap to this conclusion, the answer is simple: stop shooting innocent men. Only when there is a whole new generation of police officers who have never shot an innocent, and a leadership that actually takes responsibility rather than lying and covering up the details, will people start to trust the Met again. Until then, the Thin Blue Line only has itself to blame.
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Incidentally, why do so many people insist on posting as "anonymous"? It would be so much better if we could reference names directly.
Thank you.
08 August, 2011 06:13
Compensation! A nice bottle of Chablis, bi-monthly - what a reward. But do you have to hire a solicitor to recover your losses if payments are missed?
08 August, 2011 08:56
@ Kimpatsu - your comment exagerates and distorts the facts, which undermines your credibility.
Harry Stanley may not have had a gun but claimed and acted as if he did. He was shot and after many years of investigation a jury decided that he was lawfully killed. The police account was correct.
Kahar was shot completely accidentally and I don't ever recall the police trying to say otherwise. Thankfully he survived.
How is the rioting, looting and disgusting lack of leadership in the black community helping anyone's civil liberties? Do you have any thoughts for the residents and shopkeepers whose homes and livelihoods have been ruined?
I wish naive Guardian reading liberals could be picked up and dumped in a State where there is the law and order you so desire. With mob rule and anarchy threatening your civil rights you would be the first banging on the door to get back into this country with your asylum seekers ticket.
08 August, 2011 09:12
"Community organisers" always pop out of the ground like mushrooms at times like this. Who are they?
08 August, 2011 13:36
Don't forget the British Transport Police, I am sure they are in it too.
08 August, 2011 19:20
Kimpatsu......So it turns out that the man who was shot hadn't shot his gun at the police, as originally reported by the media.
That's a tragedy, that he lost his life and that the officer who fired the shot will probably be put through the mill by the bosses and the press. A soldier in Afghanistan wouldn't be subjected to the same sort of media witch hunt. There has been a problem of gun crime and gang wars in London.
Everyone involved in this mayhem is in a very dark place at the moment. That sort of situation is NOT helped by the media making negative assumptions about the police and reporting it on 24 hour rolling news, along with scenes of rioters in London. Monkey see monkey do, and low and behold it kicks off in other major cities!
The real culprit behind the erosion of civil liberties, is the leader of a political party whose "vision" was for the STATE to collect data on every citizen.
And to know what EVERYONE was thinking and talking about, privately. He wanted society monitored closely and unable to do ANYTHING without the STATE knowing about it. He wanted to eliminate benefit fraud and tax evasion too and granted local authorities undue powers of surveillance and data collection upon the population, which had always been the historical role of the police and the security services.
The BBC were/are biased towards Labour. Labour did the police, who are in service for the crown, no favours and in fact did a great deal to undermine the police's role. The BBC do appear to have gone along with that Labour agenda.
I post as anonymous, because it suits me to do that, and to avoid being targeted and got at in sneaky underhanded ways, by people who don't like the truth being told on blogs like this one.
10 August, 2011 03:35
Any way you squint at it, he had a gun.
It's only when you really close your eyes that you can start seeing him as a victim.
11 August, 2011 20:21
Do some of your commenters, Elle, never get tired of swallowing the official line, and running [their mouths off] with it?
The suspect fired at the police (except he didn't)... the suspect was wearing a heavy jacket and vaulted over a barrier (except that he wasn't and he didn't)... a man died of a heart attack at a demo, and the mob threw stones at the police while they tried to tend to him (except he was knocked down by a policeman who was never going to admit to it, and the crowd were asking the police to help Tomlinson).
What do all these things have in common? The transparent fact that when the police screw up, they and their media department go into lockdown, yet somehow a whole rake of justifications seem to get fired off into media-land, and then latched onto by the 'It's PC Gone Mad' brigade.
I know people are now disposed, for some strange reason, to think ill of the police's excuses, but just once, when they tell you, via a legion of whispers, that a dead man got what he deserved, will you just consider the possibility that PR departments aren't always *entirely* truthful?
11 August, 2011 23:28
I think I posted the comment below to this thread, but it hasn't appeared. Gives me the chance to add that in this case, it was someone from the IPCC, apparently, who made the claim that Mark Duggan fired at police. Which does reinforce an impression that the IPCC jumps to make excuses for the people they're supposed to investigate a little too quickly...
Do some of your commenters, Elle, never get tired of swallowing the official line, and running [their mouths off] with it?
The suspect fired at the police (except he didn't)... the suspect was wearing a heavy jacket and vaulted over a barrier (except that he wasn't and he didn't)... a man died of a heart attack at a demo, and the mob threw stones at the police while they tried to tend to him (except he was knocked down by a policeman who was never going to admit to it, and the crowd were asking the police to help Tomlinson).
What do all these things have in common? The transparent fact that when the police screw up, they and their media department go into lockdown, yet somehow a whole rake of justifications seem to get fired off into media-land, and then latched onto by the 'It's PC Gone Mad' brigade.
I know people are now disposed, for some strange reason, to think ill of the police's excuses, but just once, when they tell you, via a legion of whispers, that a dead man got what he deserved, will you just consider the possibility that PR departments aren't always *entirely* truthful?
13 August, 2011 15:30
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