The police

Firstly Lucy Letby has no be convicted of any crime yet and has rightly or wrongly pleaded innocent, so innocent until proven guilty please, any police officer should know and adhere to that.

Interesting to see that a supposed police officer who says 'it never happens, not in his force' shows exactly what happens, even in his force.

Forgive me if I am wrong, but didn't the NHS investigate and condemn Letby when it all came to light?
It's not really comparable to the police who when something happens either double down and call everyone bigots, or say it's such a small minority it needs little action.

Firstly Lucy Letby has no be convicted of any crime yet and has rightly or wrongly pleaded innocent, so innocent until proven guilty please, any police officer should know and adhere to that.

And what makes you think everyone on this board is pro NHS and thinks all it's workers are wonderful/beyond reproach? I'm certainly don't, as I judge as I find. I have had too many bad NHS interactions and am candid about it. So I shall also be candid about my experience of the police force recently and many I am sorry to say Felix in my circle feel the same way, that vast majority of UK police officers today are careerist, selective bigots, and not interested in upkeeping justice if it's to taxing. Yet it's those exact same type of officers that paradoxically seem to rise in the ranks of the police force and set the awful tone of the whole police force today, not the minority of decent officer

Not sure what the other thread was - something along the lines of the police being too woke. @Felix125 Oh boy. Are you going to spend the whole of this thread saying 'this doesn't happen' again? And demanding that we provide the links to where it is happening all over? And then disregarding them all again?

And demanding you have your say because it is a discussion forum makes me laugh.

If you don't think it happens then what is there for you to discuss?

Is it not happening or it is just a tiny minority?

If it is a tiny minority is that just the tiny minority that have been found out thus potentially be quite a big minority?

How big a minority does it need to be to be a 'fucking big problem'?

It is a massive problem if you are at the arse end of someone who can deny you your freedom/rape you in custody/put you into prison with rapists/shoot you/kill you legally with state sanctioned firearms.

It is a massive problem when a police officer can arrest you and hold you in custody and sieze hold all the family's IT for weeks on end [without a warrant] for some tweets that you didn't actually make.

Is it a small percentage though? The recent inspection report on vetting didn't say so. And it said there have been warnings about vetting going back a good ten years.

It also didn't reflect on other associations you used to hear about within the police like the masons, which seemed odd. It would have been good to know that association was wrong or is now banned if it was happening.

(Bernard beat me to the point)

What about the recent revelations about subpar candidate screening? Are we allowed to consider those reflective of the whole?

It's the 'poison sweetie' problem. If one of you/your colleagues is a murderous <insert pejorative here>, given the power to mess up people's lives you all wield, it's safer for me to assume you all are and avoid all but the most essential interactions with your profession.

I can't see anything but distrust being the default for me, moving forward.

when it's the police (who can literally deprive me of my liberty) and one of the bad things is rape and murder?

yes it is fair to see that any shitty behaviour reflects on the entire organisation

But is it fair to use a small percentage 'bad' things to be reflective of the entire police force?

Can I say that nurses in the NHS hate children due to Letby & Allitt

so to us, a member of the Met raping and murdering a woman, and a member of Manchester Police tweeting that Terfs aren't welcome in their city are all just example of police misogyny

see this is interesting. there's a conflict of perspective here

we, the laywomen, see 'The Police' as a single entity. And there are plenty of examples of 'The Police' getting involved in gender woo - see West Yorkshire Police and Mermaids

@Felix125 sees the local force they're part f scrupulously avoiding this crap and says 'hang on a minute, you're not being fair to my local force'.

we're each talking about different things and assuming it's the same thing, leading to miscommunication

the general public doesn't understand the structure of the police @Felix125

we just see 'The Police'.

I think it's inevitable when charities become too political then organisations that support those charities risk being contaminated, for want of a better word. And Stonewall definitely have become too political. The Met have completely blotted their copy book with Couzens and the other revelations about their culture and recruitment. Other forces have the same or similar failings but not all. I suspect, in the eyes of the public, NAPFALT doesn't wash. The fact that different forces are different is a niceity that is lost on the majority of the public.

In a job I had, public facing and often dealing with adversarial situations, I always saw myself as an ambassador for my organisation. Failings on my part affected the perception of the entire organisation. My heart would drop if I heard about a screw up, I felt shown up!

I don't think that's a particularly idiosyncratic view of mine. You stand and fall by your weakest link.

Rainbow washed cars, arrests for stickers, apparent support for an organisation awash with misogyny doesn't make women confident about seeking help. A woman could be intimately search by a tw police officer! That the chances of it happening might be vanishingly small is irrelevant, that a force sees no problem with that?

Any chief constable looking at the response to the rainbow cars has to see how polarising it is. That they plough on with it regardless speaks volumes about their disregard of people's concerns. Perhaps the chiefs of the 'uncaptured' forces could have a word, even if it's just 'Guys, you're making us all look bad'.

IcakethereforeIam
Not sure what the other thread was - something along the lines of the police being too woke.

I personally agree that we should't be getting drawn into things like this. But things like dancing the macarena would have been a spur of the moment thing. Each of those cops would probably be on cancelled rest days (so if you work mon-fri - it would be like being told on Monday that you're next weekend is cancelled and you're working it, not for money but for 2 days back on your card. So you're effectively working 12 days solid)
Those cops also could not deal with anything else that day, other than that parade - they will have been directed to patrol from the burger van to the Ferris wheel only for example, so if there is nothing go on at the time - is there anything wrong in lightening the mood of the crowd and dancing for a few minutes? Would it makes us seem more human and more approachable? - so a missing child would be more confident in seeking help from us?

Like I say, we don't do rainbow cars or rainbow lanyards. We also don't wear poppies or Ukraine badges or any charity pin badge as it is unfair on the others. We used to have Dementia Friends stickers on the cars to support that initiative, but those have now been removed.

We used to have a force charity each year - but that went. We also can't promote one DV help agency over another - if we know one is really good at one thing - we can't promote this to victims; just pass them a card will all the numbers on it and it will be up to them to find out.

Are we doing things right?

Yes. The contrast between the way police forces have not only failed to tackle VAWG but actively condone harassment and misogyny within their ranks and how they have embraced TWAW and participated in attacks on freedom of speech in the cause of Queer ideology is blatant.

Maybe police forces could redirect all the £££ & officer time being spent on political initiatives with anti women organisations like Stonewall into better vetting so that they don't employ all the criminals and sexual predators that currently work in different forces.

"Forces have accepted applicants with convictions for robbery, indecent exposure and domestic abuse. One recruit was a pimp!...
His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services said that hundreds if not thousands of corrupt officers were working in England and Wales. Forces had a risk threshold that was “too low” in their drive for recruits and, in at least one case, to improve diversity.
In the latest review lambasting the state of policing, the watchdog also uncovered a culture of misogyny and predatory behaviour".

This of course goes some way to explain how predatory values about women not being entitled to boundaries and punishing women who speak out have got such traction amongst some officers in certain police forces.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/3722ad9c-5a1d-11ed-962f-53da0c787308?shareToken=b3a018cd96dfd27293880c4b0a34c961rainbow

Rainbows are not just virtue signals, they are political signals.

Essentially only white straight men can expect the Met to investigate crime without prejudice.

Here www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-61909143.amp

Are they standing up for LGBT? Case quite recently, can’t remember much detail, but they failed to adequately investigate a murder and may have prevented another but assumption behaviour of gay men when the victim was gay meant they jumped to a particular conclusion and got it wrong.

Rainbows are just virtue signals, they don’t prove actual support.

Trans people have exactly the same rights that everyone has.

But if, for arguments sake, they didn’t then the police force STILL must not get involved.

Exactly. It’s a bit sad that we need to point that out.

I don’t want police, or anyone else, spending large or small amounts of time undermining women’s and children’s basic human rights. Rights to safety, physical integrity etc. Real human rights that everyone should have.

Trans people have exactly the same rights that everyone has. What they call ‘trans rights’ are special privileges, to breach women’s rights eg to single-sex spaces and children’s rights eg to be protected against unnecessary medication.

@Felix125 once again thank you. If you've already tried to cover this on another thread I understand if you're not willing to be drawn on this one and just recover old ground. It must be very frustrating.

For myself, I think gestures like rainbow cop cars and dancing the macarena might cost little in money and time, it demonstrates a completely tin ear to wider perceptions of that force in particular which spreads to the Police in general. Even those forces who don't care or even actively avoid the 'woke' stuff will share the negative perceptions.

I've just been reading the Stonewall 2023 stuff, my eyebrows (which were just venturing back down after all the Mermaids stuff) may never return from my hairline and Police forces are indulging this!? The bit about leaning on suppliers is particularly pernicious. This is happening behind the scenes, the rainbow cars and badges are just the tip of the gi-ceberg. We can see, and object to those.

they don't support a political party - we can not align with any party.

Actually it is not about political parties; you must not get involved in any politics. Pride marches are very much political affairs and you have no more right to be supporting them than you are to be waving flags and blowing whistles at a Labour Party conference.

IcakethereforeIam
Its up to the police force in question and what the particular act is I suppose.
Even supporting charities is questionable - as to what other charities are not being supported and why.

If what ever the act is doesn't distract from the day to day response from the cops, it shouldn't be an issue. We had a recent discussion on this forum, that went on for months - so I suspect we will never agree on here

Shelefttheweb
they don't support a political party - we can not align with any party.

Which political party does your force support?