To think the police should’ve acted to stop this?

[OhhhPeee]

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/police-hundreds-gather-manchester-funeral-18150043.amp

To sum up the article, a large group of mourners gathered for the funeral of a well-known local man in Manchester. Police did not stop them, despite them breaking the rules of lockdown, because “emotions were high.” Surely that’s the case at any funeral?

Amongst the mourners, an incident occurred where shots were fired and the shooter was subsequently stabbed in the face, perhaps suggesting that these particular mourners were a volatile bunch. AIBU to think that the police were simply too scared to stop these people? And that the message is that they are above the law?

It is particularly upsetting as so many law-abiding people are being forced to miss funerals at the moment.

“Armed riot squad”😂😂😂

Surely the same tatics used when breaking up rioting football fans should have been used?

Yes. They could have. But someone decided the consequences would be worse than letting it go ahead.

Riot police would have had to be millimeters apart. And sterilising riot gear? What a nightmare. And it's a funeral so the PR is terrible.

Oh and how do you get the riot police there? Because you can't pack them into vans like normal.

And if we had woken up this morning to news that half of Manchester was on fire and in open revolt because the police had gone in heavy handed, then you would be still calling for their heads and saying they got it wrong.

I really recommend OP and others who criticised GMPs decision look online for footage from Northern Ireland when the police tried to stop the orange marches etc. When they had to deploy water cannons and hundreds of police officers and members of the public were injured in the process.

So people would have genuinely rather seen this literally turn into a riot, with serious injuries, property damage, Innocent casualties etc?

All that damage and hurt, and even more pressure on our emergency services... for what? So that the naughty people wouldn’t “get away with it”? Guess what? They would anyway.

Ponoka7 yes but add social distancing into the mix and all of that becomes ten times harder...

YANBU.

It very much smacks of career criminals getting off scot free, meanwhile the police are slapping fines on normally law-abiding citizens.

Wouldn't be surprised if someone bribed the cops.

Ohhhpeee ... as someone with local knowledge (the funeral passed by my house and blocked the road) I have to say you sound incredibly naive. In any city there are gangs / families who appear to be 'above the law' as you put it. The police simply do not have the manpower or resources to hold them to account. Sad and incredibly frustrating as it is. There were hundreds and hundreds of predominantly young men at that funeral. They were determined that they were going to have a funeral, many of them would have been 'equipped'. Had the police adopted anything other than a watching brief there would have been a riot. And the NHS would have had to deal with the injuries. The guy was a well known criminal as are other members of his family. It just would not have ended well.

The police were not bribed, FFS

Ok, fine. I’m incredibly naive to think that police could uphold the law and I’m being unreasonable. I fully accept that.

Either this funeral or another recent funeral with over 100 guests were of travellers. The police not intervening was the lesser of two evils as unfortunately some members of the traveller community are ready to heavily fight at any given moment, the last thing the police need are 100+ officers coming to a funeral to tackle 100+ travellers. It’s not as simple as telling them to leave

So, op. How would you have stopped this from going ahead?

I’m incredibly naive to think that police could uphold the law

It's got nothing to do with being able to uphold it. They had to pick the lesser of two evils and went with the option that posed the least risk to the general public.

@Ponoka7 I agree with you. The police seem to have recently been picking on & fining easy targets. They also seem to be in the pocket of certain unpleasant types such as illegal rich fox hunters.

But not all police are bad....
I know a good police officer who unfortunately emigrated due to a) the police numbers being cut which made his job dangerous & b) the CPS dropping EVERY rape case he tried to bring against men he was 100% sure were guilty.

Under normal circumstances the funeral would have been fine. It's not like they let them loot the city.

The police could have gone in. It would have kicked off (well, worse than it already did). It was risk assessed and dealt with accordingly.
Maybe think of it as being similar to when police decide not to chase a stolen car at 100 mph through residential streets.

OP please don't think people condone it. But what we are doing is pointing out that the police were stuck in a nightmare position - they should have been able to stop it but even without the pandemic all hell would have broken loose. A significant proportion of the attendees at that funeral will carry weapons as a matter of course and use them without hesitation even against the police. The danger to the police and the public was immense.

No person or collective should be above the law - but the police can only do what they can with the resources they have. We have over 20,000 fewer police officers now than 10 years ago.

@OhhhPeee of course there is. I can only imagine what would have happened if the police intervened. There would have been dead officers for sure, the same reason they don't intervene with some traveller communities.

The further link states he was jailed in 2015 for 11 years. Why was he out?

He wasn't a traveller. He was a well known criminal and a member of a well known criminal family. He'd been to prison for stabbing two men on a night out for 'disrespecting' him. His brother killed a nurse in a hit and run car accident. Criminal undercalss.

So hundreds gather, according to the headline. How many police officers do you think there are on duty in Manchester at any one time? I'd guess way less than a hundred. They can't go in and expect a good result if they are outnumbered, so what do you really think they should have done? It would be nice if we had more police officers available, but the sad reality is that we don't, and they are only human beings. They can't go in like some sort of action movie, and take on three people each at once.

So there literally are groups of people who are above the law? How scary.
You've only just realised?!

The police acted in the best interests of the wider community. Emotions run hig at funerals and many of these people will have been armed. It could have been very, very bad.

@inthemuckheap that's standard. People traditionally serve half their sentence if nothing added on while inside. Looks like he served 5 years