How can we trust the Police?

[icelolly12]

From the Daily Mail:

Other comments and content shared in the group referred to disabled people as 'mgs', travellers as 'ps' and people of east Asian heritage as 'c*s'.

Mr Hobbs further detailed comments Thomas made about Officer A, a junior female officer who was assigned to their team for a period of time, calling her 'f ugly'.

In a separate conversation, Thomas suggested to the WhatsApp group that he name his dog 'Auschwitz', 'Adolf' or 'Fred' or 'Ian' after 'my two favourite child sex killers'.

Elsewhere, Thomas referred to a black Police Sergeant being disciplined as 'the biggest threat of him ending up back in chains,' the hearing was told.

Referring to a 'blind man' who once boarded a train he was on, former Police Thomas wrote in the chat: 'Poor c*t I hate the thought of being blind. I would prefer being in a m*g scooter for the rest of my life.'Mr Hobbs explained that what Thomas meant in his reference to a 'm*g scooter' was a wheelchair."

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11776595/Met-police-sergeant-racist-jokes-Katie-Prices-disabled-son-Harvey.html

How many misogynistic nasty power wielding Police are out there? I feel sick reading some of that article.

We can’t.

Yes this. I don't know why people are surprised about corruption, racism, sexism etc.... in the police. It's been going on for years.

I've never trusted them.
I don't want to have anything to do with them

The police are made up of humans.... At fault, predator, bullies... Thick and stupid.

Some are also wondeful, sharp and moral...

As ever we need proper legislation to protect us from. The bad stuff

@Cakemonger

You weren't aware of the whole rochlade stuff??

They are deeply misogynistic and awful.
That affects half the population.

The police officers I have met have generally been decent people. The two men who turned up the night my dad died were very polite and respectful. And so was the officer who took drove me to the station after an accident.

The problem is, people treat the police like the enemy, which lowers morale and drives the best ones out. If the general public treated them with respect, as we do nurses and paramedics and firemen, we’d get a better service.

The problem is, people treat the police like the enemy, which lowers morale and drives the best ones out. If the general public treated them with respect, as we do nurses and paramedics and firemen, we’d get a better service.

SWs get treated like scum. They don't do the same. Power corrupts. And people that want power and aren't selected and trained properly, will be corrupt.

I have come across some nice respectful officers of both sexes, and some really horrible ones of both sexes, in my time in my job.

I don't trust them in general though. I used to go to Championship football matches and the local constabulary always treated fans with disrespect. I stopped going after a while because of the pushing, the bad language and threats we got.

As a woman I would never want to be left alone with a male officer. I'd only want to (reluctantly) speak to a female officer. I try my best not to get into bother to avoid contact with them altogether. At work, contact is often unavoidable.

I grew up in the era of incidents like Blair Peach, Greenham Common and the Miners'Strike, so I've never been particularly trusting of the police.

I generally don't have much occasion to deal with them, except for an incident a few years ago when my husband was out for a walk with our young children and was randomly attacked in the street. Some drunk guy 'Paki-bashing'. Took my husband to the ground with our kids crying and shouting.
Someone called the police and a patrol car drove past, watching.

We can't.

As well as the foul ones actively doing these horrendous things, there's the ones staying silent about it. The culture is toxic.

And I don't actually believe posters who come on and say I / my partner is in the police / was in the police for a hundred years and never ever saw or heard about anything like this ever so everyone's lying the police are heros...

Having seen the shit they did during the miners strike and Hillsborough nobody will ever convince me they are not, as an organisation, completely corrupt. They are unfit for purpose.

The job attracts abusers who get off on having power over people. It's apparently one of the professions with an disproportionately large number of people with psychopathy traits and you can see it very clearly.

Regarding the whole "the vast majority are good" argument.
No.
The vast majority know this shit happens and say nothing.

That's not good.

That's enabling bad.

I have a good friend who was a DC in the Met. She was dedicated and hardworking, and It was all she wanted to do. But she gave it up because she was fed up of being violently attacked. Her last stay in hospital was nearly six weeks. She now has a scar, amongst others, that runs from her back along the side of her chest and ends just short of her nipple. Nobody was prosecuted for the attack on her. She runs her own inquiry agency now focusing on insurance and credit card fraud mainly for large insurance companies. She was traumatised by her time in the Police. That’s the other side of it.

It’s not the other side of it. The police being attacked is awful, as is anyone being attacked, but it is irrelevant to the discussion here. There is always someone who says yeah well the police have to see horrific things or are sometimes in danger as if that somehow justifies the corruption and the toxic culture, but it doesn’t. In fact, the less the public trust the police, the more the police will find themselves in dangerous situations as tensions will be more and more heightened. I hope your friend is happier in her new career though, it’s sad when good people are driven out.

Yes, the 'the problem' is that people don't respect the police enough, which drives them to racism, misogyny, violence and corruption. Would you say that about domestic abuse in a relationship ?

Not the point of the thread, but can we please stop using Nigel in this context? It's as offensive as Karen.

Oh lovely! Please take care of yourself.

Can I just slightly defend the good officers do nothing bit? One, they do. They absolutely do. My DH is a boss who does and calls it out at every level. His own team is one of the good ones or DH wouldn't work with them.

BUT I don't think the repercussions of calling it out are completely understood. The same bullying behaviours can happen within and when the roof over your head matters to you, sometimes the fear of reprisals is too much. Hence, institutionalised behaviours. Nobody benefits when this is the situation. Of course not everybody calls it out.

It's a sinking ship.

To be clear, on a pro police thread, I would wax lyrical about the wonderful stuff I've seen. And the integrity I know exists out there. Of course. It's irrelevant though, isn't it? Not with the magnitude of the situation.

I have never trusted them. An old friends DH is a policeman, an extremely bigoted man.

BUT I don't think the repercussions of calling it out are completely understood. The same bullying behaviours can happen within and when the roof over your head matters to you, sometimes the fear of reprisals is too much. Hence, institutionalised behaviours. Nobody benefits when this is the situation. Of course not everybody calls it out.

Yes, and that is the crux of the matter. The fact that these officers with unpleasant views are able to continue to get away with their toxic behaviour. They are being enabled by the people in senior positions who have the power to do something about them. What does that tell us? Those who speak up, should be commended, not vilified.

ChilliBandit, totally relavant. It's what the Police have to cope with every working day of their lives. The thing is if you reject/dismiss the Police then the criminals will take over. My friend would argue that they already have.

I’m sorry that people have had bad experience with the police, but I think there’s far more that are decent and strive to do their best also. All the dealings I’ve had with them have been fine.

The thing is, there are ‘bad apples’ in teaching. There are abusers and predators who work with children specifically so they can groom and abuse them. We know this.

But what we are seeing in the police is more than a few bad apples. There is pretty clearly an horrific and widespread culture of racism, misogyny and other types of hideous attitudes that go unchallenged. Even when it is challenged, offending officers just seem to get away with it - at worst quietly slinking off to enjoy their early retirement. There seems to be no concept of these people being public servants who should be working to the highest values and held to account to high standards.

The last lot of unsavoury Whatsapp messages that were revealed (think it was last year?) was a whole group of officers at a central London police station. Pretty much half the bloody police in that building, talking about raping women and racially abusing colleagues.

It’s absolutely fucking sickening. And until the police stop taking this pathetic ‘few bad apples’ approach and face up to the fact this is a massive institutional problem, nothing will change.

@Pyewhacket - it’s not relevant, it’s a seperate issue and is being used as a smoke screen to defend police corruption and brutality. It’s like someone trying to dismiss what Jimmy Saville did because he gave lots to charity or Mussolini was a dictator but he made the trains run on time so it’s ok.

I am not rejecting or dismissing the police. On the contrary I am saying as an institution they need urgent and extensive reform. This will help both the police and the public. A public that by and large trusts the police are less likely to attack them.

Attitudes like your friends are unhelpful, the criminals have not taken over. Unless you mean taken over the police force, then yes they probably have. This “us and them” attitude by the police is a huge part of the problem. Dehumanising “criminals” is part of what leads to the problematic attitudes we are seeing from the police. Crime doesn’t exist in a vacuum only perpetrated by inherently “bad” people. The woman stood vigil for Sarah Everard were not bad or criminal yet the police viewing it as us vs them and look what happened.

Exactly. The saying one bad apple spoils the barrel is spot on and proven time and time again.

Something is fundamentally wrong with the police force as an institution and nothing will change if people refuse to accept that and act like the individuals abusing their position has no impact on the system as a whole.

I agree@BetterArf .