To be angry that the Chief Constable chose the words..

[seeker]

"gentle" and "a chatterbox" respectively to describe the two women police officers who were murdered on duty yesterday.

Can you imagine those words ever being used to describe a man?

If words are important - and I think they are - then it's no good saying 'this is not the time'. Clearly all times have to be the time - or there will always be a reason not to talk about things.

MrsDeVere, this is what some were trying to get across in a non emotive way. Really think eveyone needs to agree to disagree maybe?

Good point MrsDV

You are so wrong I don't even know where to begin.

Why is it your business how they are spoken about by their friends? Why should their friends words not be used? In case they offend you? Oh dear, poor you.

You give feminism a bad name, finding fault in everything despite the bigger picture. So bloody wrong. Get a fucking grip.

Ohnomyfoot.
That's how I feel. I dislike it when people tell me hoe bereaved families will be feeling.
It's projection of how people imagine they would feel.
None of can know unless it happens to us.

I remember after my DD died. Some random made some feckin awful mawkish 'tribute' video.
It enraged me, it distressed me because it was so wrong.
Shouldn't I have been obvilious to such trivialities? My child had died fgs! I should have been busy grieving in the correct manner and not noticing such things.
Everytime she was described as a 'cancer victim' I wanted to punch whoever said it.

Words mattered to me hugely. Someone else may have been obilivious.
Everyone is different and every sitution is different.

OhNoMyFoot - the words 'chatterbox' and 'gentle' were those used by the family. The Chief Constable repeated them, they were not his words. I linked the the statement showing that back at lunchtime on this thread.

I would also agree with someone (sorry, can't remember who) who posted earlier about the regional variations in language. Girl and lad are extremely commonplace in more Northern areas, and I would venture that there is far less baggage attached to the term for someone from this area than there is for someone who is not. But again, I reiterate, the Chief Constable didn't call them girls. The Police Federation guy did.

Yourshoesarewhereyouleftthem - thank you for a beautiful, eloquent post. A friend who also served under him has only ever had good things to say.

wow melody. if you think about it mumsnet or any other forum wouldnt exist if we all minded our own business and as for getting a grip.

I haven't read the whole thread so apologies if this has already been said!!! I thought it made them both seem "real" ifyswim. Words that were used were normal, everyday, down to earth descriptions and to me it humanised the victims. The descriptions were quotes from colleagues and friends, from the colleagues who knew the victims on a personal level and that's just what these descriptions were, personal!!

Sir Peter Fahy is the same age as my Dad and my dad will call a female a "young girl" even if they are in their 30s; He still thinks Of his 3 Adult daughters as "girls". To a man in his 60s 23 and 32 may still seem like young girls regardless of their career!! Again I feel the wording is to personalise the victims.

Although I may now seem hypocritical I do agree with other posters that the descriptions of these 2 brave officers is completely irrelevant and focus, thoughts and prayers should now be on the family friends and colleagues who are grieving for these 2 officers. God Bless

It's not your business how they were described by people who knew them.

It's a pretty amazing thing to get angry about when two people are dead.

And yes you should get a grip, this thread is unbelievable.

At the end of the day Seeker was talking from her stance on what someone said over a news bulliten. I quite rightly, in my own eyes winced about his vocab. I dont know him or them, nor does the OP. Now it's just going to show that personal should stay just that, personal.

Why? In case those words offend people like you (for no bloody reason at all)

Bloody Hell...

Writing the way you just did melody shows that you maybe need to get a grip?

"In the extremity of grief people unused to public statements say all sorts of things. That's fine. What's not fine is for senior staff to quote them directly on things they might wish they'd expressed a little differently in a less heightened moment."

The problem with that is you don't know they'll regret it later. All you have to go on is the quote given at the time.

Would it be any more reasonable for the CC to have spoken to the family and got a quote then overridden the quote just in case they did change their minds? Surely that would come across as though he was saying he knew their feelings better than them? Some would find it offensive if in his statement he didn't include a quote from the friends or family.

Again I ask, can people not see how using those words might actually be advantageous?

I think the equivilant would be "he was a bit of a joker always laughing". That's not disrespectful. I don't see that as being any different from chatterbox.

It was a quote from family and friends.
Surely that is the gist of it?
Or am I going insane?
The most important thing is they were clearly loved and respected.

As I'm not being offended by the way two people who have been killed were described by people who knew them, no I don't think I need to get a grip.

We are on a forum Melody, not on their facebook page.

And also, I'm damn good at my job. If some random lunatic shot me in the head (unlikely in a marketing department but there you go) I wouldn't want to be described as just "hard working and dedicated"as that reduces me to a cipher, to an automaton. I'm a person. These police officers were people, and what made them unique should be celebrated, whether it was their smile, their kindness or their wit and wisdom. If the only thing that can be said about me when I die is "She was good at her job" then I'd be disappointed.

If you only refer to people in the context of their job, you strip away all their personality. And if people don't see the police as humans with real personalities and lives, then the culture where police can be attacked and disrespected gets worse, and things like this happen again. So that's why he's describing them as people, not just as faceless police officers.

I think the girl comment was more likely to be down to north/south terminology - my Grandma used to call everyone under about 50 a girl, even when she was.

"If you only refer to people in the context of their job, you strip away all their personality. And if people don't see the police as humans with real personalities and lives, then the culture where police can be attacked and disrespected gets worse, and things like this happen again. So that's why he's describing them as people, not just as faceless police officers."

You said it so much better than me.

The problem with that is you don't know they'll regret it later. All you have to go on is the quote given at the time.

empusa That's why you tread carefully. And that's why I'd expect someone in Sir Peter Fahy's position to behave very carefully indeed.

I am in no way saying he should arrogantly make things up about them. He should ask respectfully, or if he's too busy, use one of his officers to do that. But he should also be mindful of the image of the police force. That's why he has press officers.

I've noted the endorsements from people who know him and I respect them and think they are very eloquent. I'm just saying that I wouldn't like to be described in the way he's described his two officers and I don't think it's good for GMP.

What's he going to say if people say: 'Sir Peter, why did you put young girls (not his words, admittedly) who were bubbly chatterboxes in a role that required tact, maturity and judgement?

I'd hope he would tell people he'd trusted them because they were professionals. But he can't really do that now.

And it's no good posters coming back to me and saying 'but you don't know how they felt'. Those two women are dead. None of us knows how they felt, so we should be careful about ascribing words to them.

I take your point about giving those officers a human face. But I think that's wasted on the kind of people whose only option to escape death at the hands of another gangster is to slaughter people just for their uniform and get kudos in prison. Because I think that's the killer's motivation.

These police officers were people, and what made them unique should be celebrated, whether it was their smile, their kindness or their wit and wisdom

That's all I'm saying clytemnaestra. You take the time to make your tribute personal and respectful.

Bubbly chatterbox is demeaning.

And boy/girl is not a north/south divide. My mother describes her friends as girls sometimes and uses 'love', 'darling' and all kinds of supposedly exclusively northern warmisms. But we're talking about the difference between professional and personal relationships here.

"I take your point about giving those officers a human face. But I think that's wasted on the kind of people whose only option to escape death at the hands of another gangster is to slaughter people just for their uniform and get kudos in prison. Because I think that's the killer's motivation."

Maybe not in that case, but there are a lot of people out there unfortunately who attack police not for any kind of gang/prison kudos, but because they don't regard the police as people like them.

There are also people who applaud attacks on police officers, again because they think police are radically different than them, and they forget or choose to ignore that they are brothers, sisters, daughters, sons, etc.

It's for those people that there is value in using these soft words, like chatterbox, bubbly, gentle and even young girl. Maybe it will make them stop and think about the young girls they know. The chatterboxes, the bubbly ones, the gentle ones.

When you hear someone described as bubbly and gentle do you think of a brutal/oppressive person? It jars doesn't it? In a way that "professional" and "dedicated" doesn't.

"He should ask respectfully, or if he's too busy, use one of his officers to do that. But he should also be mindful of the image of the police force."

So, get the quote from the family and then just not use it?

'Bubbly chatterbox is demeaning.'

Shouldn't you prefix that with 'In my opinion..'. It doesn't sound like the general consensus then, and is less likely to upset people.

I'm with seeker.