Imagine the shame you would feel if you were Cressida Dick now.

[Sep200024]

It’s just unfathomable.

I’ve held senior roles with something of a weight of responsibility on my shoulders before. It’s not easy.

But to have it made so public that you are responsible for such a vast level of incompetence in such a vital public service organisation must be crippling.

To know the suffering, the injustices, and the lives that have been lost because of your policies and your decisions.

I don’t know how she lives with herself.

The police will never support those with less power. That's not what they are there for.

I think this goes back years if not decades. I know a retired police officer whose tales of what went on regularly are frightening, misogynistic thuggery, as well as cavalier, reprehensible and morally indefensible.

I'm not condoning him at all, but when you consider that the police and other emergency services have to work very closely with the worst aspects of human nature, have to deal with things that would leave the rest of us traumatised...
maybe only a certain type of personality can cope with that?
Or maybe most people become hardened and damaged by what happens in the emergency services?
I don't know what the answer is 🤷

I also think that one coping mechanism is a strong camaraderie, a need to form very definite ingroups and outgroups, they have to be absolutely certain that colleagues have their back and will be loyal to them, holding views that are offensive to those on 'civvy Street' is perhaps a kind of default strategy for testing each other's loyalty?

Again I'm not trying to condone any of this I think these coping mechanisms probably arise instinctively/automatically / by default.
Maybe the answer is to do with identifying all these things and looking for better coping strategies?

There’s no shame there.
Wasn’t she complaining not long ago that her authority was undermined by the mayor stating he had no confidence in her leadership. Not a bit of self reflection on why that might be the case.
She should never have been appointed. Her instructions on the day of the killing of Charles de Menezes were deleted. She never accepted any accountability for that incident. Her statements at the time we’re insulting to the victim and his family. They campaigned against her appointment and the message it sent.
The officers who took and shared pictures of the bodies of Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman were given written warnings. The mother of the sisters fought for this case to be taken seriously. Eventually they were charged and faced justice. Mina Smallman called for Cressida Dick to stand down.
Could she have solved the problems in the met during her tenure? Maybe not but she could have done a hell of a lot better and cared a whole lot more. This is not misogyny. It is nothing to do with her being a woman.

Looks like Sadiq Khan was right about booting her, wasn't he?

She managed an operation that saw an innocent mans head turned into tomato soup.

So I don't think there can be any capability for shame there whatsoever.

What's that you say ? At least she wasn't promoted after that ? Get real, she was promoted and honoured. This is the UK.

His only sin was taking too long to do it!

My contempt hit a new level at the Sarah Everard Vigil.

Our institutions countrywide are in a state of collapse. I sometimes wonder whether we need a new police force to protect us from the old one.

I doubt Cressida Dick feels an ounce of shame.

I listened to an American podcast on the subject of the Sarah Everard case and the unshockable hosts were appalled and horrified at the way the Met attacked those women attending the vigil.

Great post and the previous one, I agree

That woman knows no shame. She should have been fired and lost most of her pension many years ago

Dick feels no shame. The MET feel no shame. Boris Johnson feels no shame.

I feel sad and angry that my country is a shambolic, corrupt mess.

It's not reasonable to blame this culture on Dick. Its a long standing problem.

i disagree. When she took over it was well after the force had been branded (correctly) as institutionally racist. And she did the square root of fuck all to address it.

And that allows other things to slide. She was about herself only. Ruthless determination to get the top job and hang on to it. She should have been fired long long ago.

But paramedics and firemen generally aren’t like that. Firemen in particular are just spectacularly nice to the general public.

The Met Police have a very “them and us” victim mentality. If you aren’t a copper, you are the enemy. A&E staff - enemies. Members of the public - enemies. Victims of crime - enemies, and liars.

This inquiry - enemies. So no need to listen to it or make any changes. Cressida Dick will be digging into her bunker, as will the current leadership team.

Sounds to me exactly like your condoning the behaviour.

It's always the way...

there are better ways of knowing your team have your back in dangerous situations than sharing selfies of you with dead bodies. Or sharing disgusting talk about your female colleagues.

When i was working in dangerous situations, that didn't happen. There was a tendency to sexism, but we did manage (in my team at least) to nip that in the bud.

Firemen don't have to "police" though

It must take its toll dealing with people behaving at their worst, day in day out. Domestics, shoplifters,druggies, drunk drivers, people off their face in a fight on a night out. Kids stealing cars, being antisocial etc.

No. He did his best to point out that other areas were doing even worse than him, as if that is how he measures of successful outcomes for London. He's an absolute dick.

One person on their own can't change the way some people think. You can try to cover up racism and homophobia, but as long as there are people who hold these views, not much can change.

I'm old enough to remember the MacPherson inquiry after the murder of Stephen Lawrence.

Officers have joined, served and retired since then, and fuck all has happened.

The one area the police should never investigate is the police. It really is marking your own homework.

Yep, I can see how dealing with joyriders and shoplifters could lead you into abducting, raping and murdering women, being a wifebeater, being a serial rapist, taking selfies with corpses, covering up racist murders… oh hang on, no, I can’t.

And the evidence is that a lot of these high profile “bad apples” were already known to be offending when they joined the police - it’s just that the Met doesn’t see being a rapist as being a bar to being a serving police officer, they see it as a funny joke and use it as a hilarious nickname.

One person on their own can't change the way some people think

FFS she wasn't the newest PC on the beat - she was the head honcho. The big cheese. The one who could have really got the ball rolling by making some changes, however small.

She sat there with her thumb up her bum and her mind in neutral until she was finally (yaay) fired.

Is there any hope of real change with people like this idiot? Ken Marsh, chairman of the Police Federation :

“I think it is a bit disingenuous to say there could be another David Carrick or Wayne Couzens in the Met police. I don’t think we will see another person like that in the police.”

“It is quite scary what we are creating here. The punishing of police just does not stop."

You just despair.