Met criticised over Clapham vigil policing

Politics
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One final comment from me. I take the following from a website established by the public of Manchester following the murder in 2012 of two female police officers. It was written by a young copper yesterday. I make no apology for posting it given some of the media posted here by others previously. It’s quite long - its up to you if you read or not.

"…I debated for hours whether to post this or not…

I’ve read lots of tweets and posts over the last week, and especially in the last 24 hours which have made me angry, sad, furious, shocked, mortified, confused, and just plain pissed off.

As ever the police are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Don’t enforce the law = massively criticised / hammered in the media.

Do enforce the law = massively criticised / hammered in the media.

Ask yourself what are they supposed to do? Coronavirus legislation is what it is, we are still in the middle of a global pandemic, and 10’s of thousands of people have died as a result, directly or indirectly depending on which view you take of Covid.

But the fact is the rules are laid out, as per the wishes of the government. And they are there ultimately to attempt to keep us safe. The task of enforcing these laws (as always) falls to the police, along with everything else they’ve got to do.

So again, what are they supposed to do? Enforce the law, or don’t enforce the law. They will be hammered either way. Can’t win.

What happened to Sarah Everard was utterly horrific. And it goes without saying i completely understand the strength of feeling towards the case and the issues raised. The sad reality is what we all saw last night was the blatant hijack of a vigil (which had been rightly told not to go ahead and backed by the courts) by activists, anti-police agitators, opportunists with ulterior motives and those hell bent on causing a disturbance. All under the ever present camera lenses of those with other agendas.

Spraying “All Coppers Are Bastards” on a police van is not supporting Sarah’s family.

Shouting “No justice, no peace” is not supporting Sarah’s family.

Holding up “Defund the Police” banners is not supporting Sarah’s family.

Unfortunately a reaction was sought by some, a reaction was had (through the clear disregard of the law, public safety, call it what you will), and the aftermath perfectly timed and captured for the media to lap up and farm out.

I know who WAS supporting Sarah’s family though. The police family liason officer’s, sticking by them throughout the most awful time of their entire life.

The investigation team which has worked and IS working tirelessly to put the person responsible for this horrific act behind bars.

And let it be said right now, if it even needed saying: NOBODY HATES BAD COPS AS MUCH AS GOOD COPS.

They go against every oath we hold dear. They ARE NOT us.

Last night could have been and should have been a huge outpouring of support for Sarah, with doorstep candlelit vigils across the country in scenes like we saw with “clap for our NHS heroes” albeit an unbelievably sad reason on this occasion.

But in all the noise and smoke, the real message and the real show of support has been lost, as we woke up to celebrities, government officials and the *media lambasting the police.

*The utterly poisonous mainstream media quite literally, day in day out, wake up with the seemingly sole intention of dividing people, and causing hate.

In any way they can, they sow the seeds of hate between us, whether it be race, religion, gender, anything. Because it generates clicks, and in turn money.

We’re at a point now where the police are always seen as the villain. My inbox has been pinging away with calls of “murderers” and “scum”. We’re so quick to forget names like Wayne Marques, Ian Dibell, David Whyte, Keith Palmer, Nicola Hughes, Fiona Bone, Stephen Oake, Sharon Beshenivsky and many others. Who risked everything and in some cases gave everything to try and keep us safe.

I don’t know where this all ends up. I don’t even know why i wrote this. Maybe i’m just sick and tired of hearing the one sided narrative, and want to try and give a voice to the “silent” majority.

Don’t get me wrong, we are NOT perfect, never claimed to be. We’re only human and can / will make mistakes, it would be hugely naive to think otherwise. But we’re not the enemy.

I guess i’ll sign off by saying this is only my opinion. I’m not speaking on behalf of the police, although in amongst the handful of likes and comments it will inevitably get, i just hope the message gets through…"

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42

and some were female officers IIRC :roll_eyes:

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Yes I think it is fairly universal, at least in France we know they have a tendance to be quick on the draw when it comes to gassing and battering - but where does whataboutery get us?

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He’s not been with us long either.

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The Gold Commander for the Clapham vigil was deputy Assistant Commissioner Matt Twist, who was also the officer who leads Operation Lorimar which was set up by retired High Court Judge Sir Richard Henriques following the £2.5 million enquiry into false claims of a murderous Establishment paedophile ring made by Carl Beech.
Sir Richard identified 43 mistakes made by The Met and made 25 recommendations.
No officer has been held to account for the mistakes, with Steve Rodhouse, who was in overall charge, allowed to take up a £250,000 a year Job with the National Crime Agency.

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It wasn’t a protest, it was meant to be a vigil.

In this instance it is - if you are not meant to gather in groups for safety reasons then you are not meant to gather in groups. There are no exceptions.

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47

Also - don’t forget this is the Met who have long been known for being misogynistic twats. And the rest. Even neighbouring police forces roll their eyes and say “oh gawd the Met”…

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48

Perhaps the Met should be broken up into smaller units like it used to be. Large organisational inertia comes to mind… it’s just too big to manage. Nothing wrong with co-operative units sharing information as they do in the provinces and better autonomy might just equal better accountability.

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Society is at war with itself UK, France, Spain etc etc, as one person said:
“The utterly poisonous mainstream media quite literally, day in day out, wake up with the seemingly sole intention of dividing people, and causing hate.”

and I would add social media dominated by Joe public is also complicit.
I want news bulletin…not 1/2 hours of people ranting their views through the airwaves of the BBC, ITV, Channel4 et al …bad as they all are I’m tired of Brxeit, Covid, Black L matter, and now Reclaim the streets becoming campaign items on news bulletins…there are also many other bits on NEWS that should be on the airwaves.
The news media seems to now sees itself as living in a campaigning world

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If it had been a group of men would there have been this hassle? They were wrong and many of them will be the “professional” protester type. It achieves nothing and just joins in with all the other common street protests which seem to use any reason as an excuse to be stupid.

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I was once one of the “misogynistic twats”, so I have been following the story with interest. I think the Met should probably have just maintained a quiet watch but that’s easy to say with hindsight. They got suckered into some difficult interventions which lead to all the wrong headlines. I’m not quite sure why they have made such a fuss about a woman being handcuffed, if an arrest has been made then it needs to be carried out properly. The politicians have seen a vote catcher and have jumped on the bandwagon. The actions of Khan and Patel are inexcusable in tackling the Commissioner in public. By all means be critical if it is appropriate but behind closed doors. The police I feel sorry for are those who were charged, rightly or wrongly, with upholding the current legislation. Some body with egg on their hat and shoulders has said “Clear that lot” and so the plods have to comply.

I find it extraordinary that a forum moderator refers to people as vaginas.
Moderator, moderation?

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I find it extraordinary that you would refer to a site owner as a moderator. Shows a complete lack of understanding of how this site functions. And your inference that twat = vagina reveals an equally complete and utter lack of understanding of how language is used today.
I suppose it is a generational thing.

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54

And just as an aside, over the 12 plus years that we have been running SF, I have remarked on numerous occasions how it is (almost always) men and (almost always) men of a certain age, who will have a ‘pop’ at some of my postings and never, ever, ever (or at least very rarely) do they ever do the same to James. Maybe because he is a large scary bloke…?

Misogyny is alive and well online as well as on the streets and in the Met.

Perhaps us ladies should get back in the kitchen and revert to talking about fluffy kittens.

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and here’s me thinking that a twat referred to a pregnant fish…

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It’s just plain bad manners. I have criticised a male for referring to Patel in an unpleasantly derogatory manner.

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That’s your opinion and you are perfectly entitled to it. It is not however, one that I share.

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Maybe it is a generational thing… as the word referred to has always meant - and continues to mean - an unpleasant way of describing part of the female anatomy as well someone who is a horrible nasty person. Maybe its a regional thing? And to be honest, I didn’t see anything in his post that was meant to be nasty to women. I did however think your comment about “the Met” was a pretty insulting. There are 44,000 people who work the “the met”. 34% are women… 3 of the top 9 posts are also held by women… so that leaves a helluva lot of mysoginists .

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4 if you count Doris :slightly_smiling_face:

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:grinning:Quite right

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I didn’t ever say that I personally think that the Met are mysogynistic twats; just that they are generally held to be and that this has long been the case. That’s my experience as a Londoner.

And my second comment was directed at those older white males who appear to have an issue with women using language which ‘they’ deem unacceptable.