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

I've just heard the BBC news in brief. The headline response is indeed 'don't worry, those disgusting people will be removed as soon as possible'. Nothing about the causes, the culture, the pervasiveness. Bad apples gone, barrel all good. Exactly as you feared.

I’m not sure how to otherwise say it, sorry. I’m saying that it’s a pointless task, exposing a minority of officers in this way. It’s akin to swatting a few flies when you have an infestation. It needs tackling further up.

I suppose I question whether it will be ‘fixed’ @godmum56 . This way makes it really easy for the Met to sack these officers and carry on as if nothing happened, they give their line ‘racism etc is not tolerated’ and all stays the same.

It’s been what, thirty three years since Stephen Lawrence’s murder and the Met are STILL racist.

Take a look at what what was happening on TV this morning Police officers clearing the public away from the danger.of a terrorist bomber. The police stood their ground, not knowing if there more terrorists about. No one is writing furiously about their courage and sense of duty.
I suppose that gets taken for granted.

I’m increasingly suspicious of the BBC and its motivations. It is a left-wing organisation, and the left have always disliked the police, who they regard as “tools of the capitalist oppressors.” It’s hard to imagine the BBC exposing ANTIFA or Just Stop Oil, put it that way.

You see their left-wing bias everywhere. Radio 4 can’t even discuss Jane Austen or Tennyson without linking them to slavery or colonialism in some way.

Personally, I don’t think we give the police anywhere near enough credit or support. The majority of police officers I have met have been thoroughly decent men. If I had to deal with vicious, ignorant, foul-mannered little scumbags day in day out I’m sure I’d blurt out horrible and offensive things as well.

I’m not sure how to otherwise say it, sorry. I’m saying that it’s a pointless task, exposing a minority of officers in this way. It’s akin to swatting a few flies when you have an infestation. It needs tackling further up.

I suppose I question whether it will be ‘fixed’ @godmum56 . This way makes it really easy for the Met to sack these officers and carry on as if nothing happened, they give their line ‘racism etc is not tolerated’ and all stays the same.

It’s been what, thirty three years since Stephen Lawrence’s murder and the Met are STILL racist.

The point if the panorama show was to bring the public’s attention to the problem of everyday, taken for granted, misogyny , racism, and abusive behavior in the forces. That is the job of journalists—to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

The specific men identified are not the issue but without identifying them the same people who continually bleat that its just “a few bad apples” or “just bantz” will simply say “oh fake news.” Now its all “pity the poor menz with their hard jobs.”

Its all ridiculous—policing is not the hardest or most dangerous job in modern society at all —social workers, EMTS, firefighters et al work in the same conditions, often alone, without guns, and are expected to manage the same populations without whining all the time.

Look up the stats—factory and farm work results in more injuries and deaths per year than police work.

We have to stop excusing racism, violence, and misogyny as the rightful recreation of the warrior. The police force is not entitled to this deference and subservience because they “do such a hard job” or “have to deal with the public.” we all deal with violence, racism , abuse, fear and we are not therefore entitled to act out and abuse the very members of the public we are hired to protect and serve.

Yes I agree. And junior officers will take the flack for this and nothing will change apart from everyone making a statement about how horrible all the police featured are.

There were also clips of statements in a wider conversation that were easy to take out of context. There was the guy on the smoke break who seemed to me to just be joking with the reporter that he joined the force so he could “get into legal scraps” because he, like the reporter, was a “Bermondsey boy” - it just seemed like banter to me and obviously not meant to be taken seriously, do we honestly think he was serious there, and given we just saw a snippet of the convo how could we even judge it beyond reasonable doubt anyway?

I just feel like there should be a higher threshold for reaching the level of public interest to green light exposing secret recordings of conversations with identities attached.

Where does it end? Should it be legal for any undercover reporter to get a nurse drunk and ask her what she really thinks about trans women in women’s wards and then put that online with her face, place of work and name?

Take a look at what what was happening on TV this morning Police officers clearing the public away from the danger.of a terrorist bomber. The police stood their ground, not knowing if there more terrorists about. No one is writing furiously about their courage and sense of duty.
I suppose that gets taken for granted.

Take a look at what what was happening on TV this morning Police officers clearing the public away from the danger.of a terrorist bomber. The police stood their ground, not knowing if there more terrorists about. No one is writing furiously about their courage and sense of duty.
I suppose that gets taken for granted.

@Pigeonenglish I think you’ve isolated the wider issue quite well, exposing identities and focusing on individuals is all very well to get dramatic tv and maybe prove a point, but it doesn’t really delve into WHY the culture is so bad or suggest any ways to improve it, other than “let’s all say how disgusting we think these men are”.

A documentary that actually looked into why so many police officers at the met are this way would be more helpful.

Is it that they attract “bad apples” in the first place? Is it that somehow they promote “bad apples” more frequently which impacts the whole culture, is there something in the performance management that tends to see these types rise to the top that could be changed?

Or is it that most police officers do start their job full of good intentions and it’s just being on the coal face of the very worst and weird of society day after day that grinds them down and makes them start to see people as stereotypes/become callous?

Is it a combination of all three?

If police officers start out “good” and become bad apples due to the job - what can be done to support their mental health/outlook on people in an ongoing way so that they stay good and hopeful about their impact on society?

If the force is attracting sociopaths and promoting sociopaths - what can be changed recruitment and promotion wise to block those kinds of hires in the first place or change what is valued so they aren’t promoted.

I can’t see how catching out a few officers and publicly ruining their lives will solve anything.

@Pigeonenglish I think you’ve isolated the wider issue quite well, exposing identities and focusing on individuals is all very well to get dramatic tv and maybe prove a point, but it doesn’t really delve into WHY the culture is so bad or suggest any ways to improve it, other than “let’s all say how disgusting we think these men are”.

A documentary that actually looked into why so many police officers at the met are this way would be more helpful.

Is it that they attract “bad apples” in the first place? Is it that somehow they promote “bad apples” more frequently which impacts the whole culture, is there something in the performance management that tends to see these types rise to the top that could be changed?

Or is it that most police officers do start their job full of good intentions and it’s just being on the coal face of the very worst and weird of society day after day that grinds them down and makes them start to see people as stereotypes/become callous?

Is it a combination of all three?

If police officers start out “good” and become bad apples due to the job - what can be done to support their mental health/outlook on people in an ongoing way so that they stay good and hopeful about their impact on society?

If the force is attracting sociopaths and promoting sociopaths - what can be changed recruitment and promotion wise to block those kinds of hires in the first place or change what is valued so they aren’t promoted.

I can’t see how catching out a few officers and publicly ruining their lives will solve anything.

Doesn't surprise me. A former friend of mine is a police officer and she invited me out a couple of times with her colleagues. They were horrid. Just spent the night insulting people they were supposed to help. They also had a Lego figure they would carry around and would take pics of it posed in ways they had found victims/vulnerable people. I found it so grotesque that I stopped being friends with her. That and the fact she had an affair with her married sergeant.

I was disgusted and shocked to the core. I am a senior police officer (not MET) of 17 years service, line managing a high number of PCs and Sergeants and I can genuinely say I have never heard ANYTHING even a fraction as inappropriate as what ive just seen on that programme. Its made me really sad. We work SO hard in incredibly challenging circumstances and facing pressures that most people cant even begin to fathom and its embarrassing to share a career with people like that.

"Anyone who wants to have sex/marry a child is scum"
The problem with that sentiment is that the people that say it tend to assume that anyone who isn't white is guilty of it! It's a much favoured statement of the far right! You can't have people in the police force that assume every man of ethnicity is guilty of these things. You can't walk around wanting to shoot men in the head based on racist assumptions.

I’ve no idea what you’re trying to say or push here, but the fact is, if these officers are all sacked then that’s a start right there.

But they aren’t going to deal with ‘the people’; just the ones who happened to be caught on camera, so to speak.

Indeed but how are they going to be found without undercover reporters? That’s the heart of the issue. Because if anyone thinks ‘BBC have shown bad men, bad men have been shown the door’ they are unfortunately misguided and naive.