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.

"How can we trust the police", that is a very sweeping title which assumes that everybody thinks the same as you.

If they aren't intelligent enough to understand the Policing by Public Consent concept -

"To recognise always that the power of the police to fulfil their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behaviour and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect."

... and know where it comes from, then they have no business being employed as a member of the Police Force.

Unfortunately it is all too common now. They've seriously eroded any trust some of us once had.

They are totally distant from the public now. When was the last time an officer on the beat said hello? All I see now is more often than not, two coppers walking the beat together engrossed in their own conversations. Sadly Police Standards have dropped to the point that I would be very reluctant to call them about any crime.

Until they're seen to be transparent not hiding such incidents from reaching the public, then it is with great regret that things will only get much worse.

It is as though they've become on the one hand, so woke as to elbarrass themselves in much of the publics eyes. On the other hand, well that is the most troubling part of their existence, when officers use their uniform and status as a means to exert power and control over innocent victims. (I refer to men and women as they are not mutually exclusive) I for one have not seen an iota of proactive system of outing the dross and the trashy. The Met Police commissioner is an absolute tool. He makes a good argument about sacking those who have crossed that thin blue line, but he's simply just full of hot air and wind. If he follows through and vets everyone already in the police, then jeez, the force would be thinned down by 90% 🤣😂

I trust them, just like any other organisation, the few bad ones stereotype them for the rest.
Who on here actually knows more than a hundred officers or is it just the few you came across that makes your mind up.
The media obviously jump on these stories, so many are swayed by what they read.

The media 'jumps' on the stories? What, like the stories of a police officer kidnapping a woman on the streets and then murdering her? That he was known as 'the rapist' by the people he worked with?

Did the media 'jump' on the story about the policeman who raped at least 50 times?

Or the police at Charing Cross who were found to be misogynistic, discriminatory and guilty of sexual harassment?

Or the police who strip searched minors at school without adults present?

Or the policeman who are currently on trial for rape?

Or the police who had a WhatsApp chat that slagged off Harvey Price, called disabled people 'mongs' and women slags?

Or the police that killed a man during a protest and lied to protect their own?

Or the police whose intelligence was wrong and shot and killed a completely innocent man who was on his way to work - and tried to lie about that too?

Or the police who were found to be institutionally racist?

Or the police who were found to be institutionally corrupt?

Or the police who sent sexually explicit messages to victims of sexual assault?

Or the police found with photographs of child abuse?

Or the policeman who attacked a woman walking home at night?

Yes yes. All those poor police who are 'jumped' on by the media.

Tell me you are white and potentially middle class without telling me you are white and potentially middle class

No it's a title which can generate discussion and debate.

Yet again, the ‘it’s only a few bad apples, the rest are good’ rhetoric.

The evidence clearly demonstrates massive failures in the police (certainly within the Met) at an institutional level. That means a lot of people don’t trust the police AS AN INSTITUTION.

I’m sure there are many decent human beings in the police. But as an institution, they have shown time and time again to be riddled with corruption, violence, racism and misogyny. The decent ones should be acknowledging this and standing up against it, not minimising and defending.

I am directly related to about 5 through blood or marriage, I then know about 10-15 because of that. I am white and middle class. I still don’t trust them.

I can’t see how I would trust them as a Black woman. I remember my little brother being stopped and questioned what he was doing waiting at a bus stop aged around 13. He was a shy kid and it really affected him.

I’ve had a police officer literally yelling at me for apparently not getting out of his way quick enough in the car when I was in 4-lane Central London traffic at a busy junction and it wasn’t safe to swerve into another lane. But he was really threatening - shouted that he’d write me up for driving without due care and attention until I gave him a grovelling apology. He was on a complete power trip. I get panicky now when driving past police officers

Maybe he will instigate a clean up operation.

They could call it ... oh I don't know . "Countryman" or something.

Bound to sort it out.

He has Dame Lynne Owens as Deputy Commissioner so I feel fairly positive.

On the subject of joining requirements I tried to apply a few years ago but couldn't get past the first page as I don't have an 'A' Level of any kind! I was trying to apply in my 30s as a late starter so had plenty of life experience but no, I need an 'A' Level!

I don't know if you are still interested but the British transport police recently had a thing where they were looking for candidates who didn't have the traditional educational qualifications required, it was about 12 months ago though so I'm not sure if it's still a thing

A colleague was planning on applying for it and then changed his mind and I was so relieved, he's sexist, racist and thinks its okay to use violence on people who are arrested/stopped on the street because they are probably guilty of something

Cressida Dick was useless at getting to grips with the problems, within the Met

As someone who managed to oversee an innocent man having his head turned into 3 litres of mushy puree with zero comeback, I think she did very well for the Met.

Cressida Dick was useless at getting to grips with the problems, within the Met

She should never have been promoted so far after that fiasco - a classic case of someone being promoted beyond their capabilities. Were the Met so desperate to have a female chief that they employed the best of what they had, rather than the best person for the job (male or female!)? London fire brigade did the same with their chief who had to resign after Grenfell when she made stupid comments during the formal enquiry (comparing Grenfell to a space shuttle landing on the Shard!), and also her apparently "not remembering" what she did during the Grenfell fire when every other fire officer remembered!

I think there is about 225,000 police in the UK (including police staff and PCSO's)

Of this, how many would fall into the category of being corrupt/criminal?

Good question @Felix125 . We have no way of knowing and now our trust is shaken. Do you know the answer and can you think of a way of restoring that trust?

Don't know what the answer would be - but I can imagine it would be a low percent.

The vast majority of cops are honest and do the job for the right reasons

Restoring trust is a huge topic:

Police need to be more open and should be able to publicly show conclusions and result from enquiries

Police should be able to show BWV of incidents when they are being criticised in the press

better vetting and continued vetting

Not being able to align ourselves to political things, charities, campaigns etc etc

Cressida Dick was indeed appalling. I don't think it was so much a desire to have a woman in charge of the Met as someone the Home Secretary liked. The Met commissioner is the only head of a police force in England and Wales whose appointment is under direct control of the Home Secretary of the day, and Dick had support, albeit grudging, of the rank and file because she wasn't going to challenge them.

Dick, like Met Commissioners before her including Sir John Stevens, the man revered as the "coppers' copper", was perceived to have control of the dressing room as they say of football managers. Which meant she and other Met commissioners were policing London for the benefit of Met police officers, not the people who live here. Given the exalted status of the Met police commissioner as the country's most senior copper, that was the whole of England and Wales too(Scotland is a bit different).

Fans of reruns of The Sweeney and the Daily Mail's Richard Littlejohn aside, I do not understand why anyone thought this was a good idea. Littlejohn stans Stevens and The Sweeney so much I'd seriously consider a restraining order if it was me.

It is because of successive Met commissioners "managing the dressing room" that the people of London have such an enormous problem. If you don't live in London I wouldn't kid yourself that these things don't exist in your local constabulary btw.

None of them has been any good and people like Sir Paul Stephenson and Lord Bernard Hogan-Howe have been astoundingly bad.

I used to think Sir Ian Blair was crap but now I wonder if he didn't do what they wanted so was stabbed in the back. Cressida Dick was one of his deputies.

Let's see what the latest one, Sir Mark Rowley, will do. He used to be in that gang too.

I'd like gone for no raping, no killing, no racism personally

That should say have gone, but my phone has lately decided to randomly change the correct words to different ones because it think it knows better than me what I want to say

Don't know what the answer would be - but I can imagine it would be a low percent.

Imagining is no longer good enough @Felix125.

Neither are your empty claims like: "The vast majority of cops are honest and do the job for the right reasons". What proof do you have? The police are allegedly quite keen on proof, aren't they? Can you come up with some?

I do agree with you that restoring trust is a huge topic. We differ in that I don't believe it can be taken on trust. Why do you think it should?

Yes - i think those go without needing to be said.
Any kind of criminal behaviour or committing offences should render you gone.

Apparently the met police need reminding of that though, its one scandal after another out of that force in particular and the racism is horrific

If you say its a low number of officers responsible then I'm afraid I can't believe you. There is institutionalised racism in at least the met police if not more forces and those officers are not being removed

So no, actually no raping, no killing no racism absolutely needs to be said because apparently some police officers haven't heard it yet

limitedperiodonly

The proof would be the incidents of criminal/bad behaviour over the total number of cops.

I would say it was a relatively low figure still