To feel a bit bad for the met police on bbc panorama undercover

Yanbu op it's a really hard job and gallows humor / bravado mainly. I've heard way worse said by teachers / medical professionals etc about the public. Its human beings beings human beings and the journalist is a total weasel / creep himself.

Richly deserved and long overdue. No pity, no sympathy, no mercy.

I find it strange that these police officers never encounter any violence or threatening behaviour from white men, who are responsible for quite a lot of violent crime, even in multicultural London, that cause them be traumatised into to saying offensive things about them. And that their experiences with women, not traditionally committers of violent crime in general, are so awful that it turns them into misogynists.

Or indeed that many police officers, including friends of mine, experience awful things and hover near burn out without also being racist women haters.

Has it occurred to people that maybe some police officers become racist over time? Maybe they weren’t to begin with or kept it to themselves, but maybe they changed their view over time.

Yes, of course. A racist environment produces racists.🤷‍♀️

Stephen Lawrence’s murderers walked free with the help of Met officers because they were institutionally racist… a former senior Met officer went on record 20 years later in a BBC documentary as saying that Doreen Lawrence was “an angry black woman” and difficult to warm to…they’d learnt nothing. Sarah Everard was murdered because a misogynist culture was just seen as “how it was”… the serving officer who murdered her was nicknamed “the rapist”.

The Met needs burning down and starting again. I don’t know what the answer is… maybe something like what happened with the Patten report which recommended that The Royal Ulster Constabulary be replaced with The Police Service of Northern Ireland. But as a Londoner I don’t trust the Met to keep me and my family safe, and I’m white! God knows how black and ethnic minority families feel.

You do realise that recruitment doesn’t stop people with racist or misogyny views? When they fill out the application forms and or interviews, I very much doubt they would write or say anything that would show this.

Has it occurred to people that maybe some police officers become racist over time? Maybe they weren’t to begin with or kept it to themselves, but maybe they changed their view over time.

Im sorry but vetting won’t change this. When people join the police they aren’t going to say anything bad to stop them getting in, unless they are stupid.

Apart from criminal record checks or whatever it’s called nowadays, what else can they do?

@toonananana
Am so sorry about what has happened, and I echo the post above, hope you and your children doing much better now. Am so sorry that the very people who were supposed to help you made it worse. It really has to stop. x

I hope you and your children are safe and happier now.

Please go ahead with that complaint x

Ps. I was once given the case of a young, 14 year old white boy who refused to talk to me (because I was a brown “bitch”) but told other members of staff at school that every time he saw me, he wanted to throw acid on my face and fuck me as I lay screaming as my skin burnt off. This young man’s aspirations for the future were to either join the army or the police…. Anything for control and power to justify hatred towards others.

Fuck off @Bloodyscarymary. Im
undergoing an acrimonious divorce after a long period of DV. What made me stay longer than I had to was police minimising my reports as “domestics” and warning me I had to behave and if I made another report, they’d have no choice but to take me in for questioning too. After yesterday’s documentary, I’m going down the official compliant route for police failings. Earlier this year, my dc told the police what they’d seen- their dad kicking and punching me and when their dad angrily replied “SHE’S LYING DONT BELIEVE HER”, the PC said “I won’t, children often lie when they see us”. My children were left traumatised and my daughter kept saying “I’m not lying, mummy tell them I’m not a liar”. Police inaction (and social care failings where I am) have left me feeling suicidal- I was made to believe my worries and concerns about mine and my children’s safety was a ‘me’ problem and not the result of broken/toxic systems.

But, I’m a woman and from a global majority so wtf do you care, eh?!

For balance, I’m a titled professional working with vulnerable children, many of whom don’t have anything positive happening in their lives- if I relied on dark ‘humour’ to minimise their struggles or used their circumstances not to do my job properly, I’d deserve everything coming my way.

You have no idea what other people’s lived experiences are so fuck off and do some reflecting.

no.
i.
am.
not.

and as some of us have pointed out if you don't at least stand up to it, gainsay the racism etc, walk out or report it - you are complicit in that being the culture of your workplace

(to be clear: I was in the army in the 80s, i pointed out sexist and racist behaviour, my life got a whole lot worse to begin with but it worked out ok in the end. I KNOW what happens to whistleblowers)

“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”

I’m pretty sure that has already happened

The constant implication by the sneak that they were holding back. Well that’s not really on - lif you don’t have proof you can’t accuse.

Thank goodness the upright, unbiased, clean as a whistle BBC found this out .

Just to add that I feel no sympathy for them whatsoever. If it was a bunch of MPs caught talking like that in the members’ bar I would expect for them to be named and for all of them to resign.

How do you work that one out?

No, we’re definitely not.

Hard no.

No fan of the police but we're all racist some hide it better than others.

No fan of the police but most people would agree with them. We're all racist some hide it better than others.

I think if you took a sample of young male soldiers and big city police across the world, posed as a peer and egged them on to share their views during smoking breaks/at the pub, laughing and encouraging them - you would get very similar responses a lot of the time.

This is the entire bloody problem FFS.

As a side, I have a family member in the police (not Met). He is nearing the end of his career now. He was a very gentle and kind young person but there was a massive change when he joined the force. Very opinionated and self-righteous, know-all and inability to see anything from another persons perspective. This change was noted by several family members.
No doubt you toughen up when you join that kind of work, but there is definitely a culture among male officers.

It’s a shame the documentary didn’t say that out of x thousand arrests in Charing X we recorded these things happening. The guy was there 7 months.

And stating some ‘some police do a good job in Difficult circumstances’ -is about as pathetic praise as you can get . And how many work at Charing x ? It’s manned 24/7, that’s a lot of staff.

not saying these lot dont need dealt with but to then to go on about ‘it’s not one bad apple’ with no reference to numbers is poor reporting.

I’ve watched it now and whilst I entirely agree that man is an absolute disgusting specimen and entirely deserves to lose his job…I will say again, you cannot remand someone based on the fact that they are an awful person.

Remand means the case will be heard at trial the following day. If the case doesn’t pass the threshold test in terms of how complete the evidence is, the CPS won’t charge someone with an offence and then you can’t remand them. So for example, if key witness statements were outstanding or there was CCTV that couldn’t
be obtained within the 24 hour time limit, CPS will refuse to charge. And if CPS refuse to charge, the police
don’t have the option to charge. I will also say, there is also a good chance that the court would let him out on bail the following day, awaiting trial.

They said the man was bailed so that means the investigation is still ongoing, it just wasn’t ready to put in front of a court. Bail conditions would be put in place to prevent him seeing the victim (albeit in theory!).

Again, I am not defending that man or his comments, I am just saying you cannot say the police didn’t do their job because they didn’t remand him. Even in the documentary, they acknowledge they don’t know the full facts.

I don’t think it helps the situation of dealing with the people who are awful if they also get berated on decisions where people don’t know the full facts which could actually have a sound basis.

A lot of that documentary was horrific and I hope a lot of them lose their jobs but that particular issue needs more facts.