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Original poster

To Think The Met Police Has Lost All Control

51 replies

JediJim · 04/06/2020 22:04

I know London has for a long time now had a problem with gangs and stabbings and of course shootings.
I’ve just seen a video on DP’s Facebook of two Met Police Officers running away from a crowd of people. One of them looks like he was pushed to the ground.
This is in relation to the George Floyd protests in London.
Now I understand people want to protest peacefully after such a terrible death but we are supposedly in a lockdown ( of sorts). But surely chasing down two police officers is unacceptable? They are just doing their job and want to go home to their families.
People are angry. But it wasn’t the Met that killed George Floyd.
Seriously, what has the country come to when Police Officers are running away from a mob in the centre of London?
I really think that the Police have lost control of London, and I wouldn’t think that many will be happy about Policing the capital when the risks are too high.
I think there will be a point when Police will be reluctant to do their job with fear of either getting sacked or worse getting killed.
Respect to any of you that work for the Met, you are being failed by your government and your employer.

OP posts:
LesbianMummies · 04/06/2020 23:32

Some of the scenes have been horrific. I fully support the right to protest and fully support the black lives matter movement but those individual police officers being attacked did not kill George and have little control over the fact that the police force is institutionally racist. They are just people doing their job and shouldn’t be having to deal with this.

NameChangedToProtect1 · 04/06/2020 23:32

@HekyPeck
The violence will not bring about change. Violence will entrenche inequality.

MaMaLa321 · 04/06/2020 23:34

and what does this mean precisely?
How soon we all forget how our own freedoms were won.
Our freedoms were won through people working, through legal processes, to get their aims. Patiently gathering support. Not rioting, not destroying their own neighbourhoods in an orgy of looting.

Original poster
JediJim · 04/06/2020 23:36

Institutionally racist was what the Met was branded in the 90s by the Macpherson report. But that’s not relevant to the point I was making.
The average copper isn’t armed with a gun. They are mostly good people with families trying to earn a living a doing a difficult job.
There are 30 odd thousand Met Police Officers, they shouldn’t be targeted because of what the police have done historically, including Duggan and De Mendez.
Yes the gang culture problem is different to this specific protest, but it just seems they are being asked the impossible.
The police officers on the streets of London, or indeed the UK, are just as vulnerable as the rest of us.
I’m used to seeing the police go towards danger, seeing two police officers running away from a hostile crowd made me realise that it’s now a game changer.
Slightly different , but I know a Prison Officer in London who has been doing the job for over 25 years, never been assaulted until the last two years.On one occasion quite badly. He said society has changed and there’s no respect for authority anymore. The person that assaulted him had only been arrested the day before, he also assaulted a police officer.

OP posts:
ChocolatelyAsFuck · 04/06/2020 23:36

Don’t believe what you read online.

I live in London and have been attending many of the protests.

All the protests I have seen have been completely peaceful. People on social media have been pretending there have been riots in London and that’s just a lie. Maybe there have been a couple of isolated incidents, but no riots. The protests have been, 99% of the time, completely peaceful.

TitianaTitsling · 04/06/2020 23:43

*Protest is fine but rioting and violent behaviour is not.

Sadly that’s the only way to get change.*
So what violence is acceptable to you?

GabsAlot · 04/06/2020 23:44

i think youre right and theres no enough to stop this

of course its the government once again letting everyone down

CoachBombay · 04/06/2020 23:53

Sorry I should have added

I don't agree with violence against police. I do think and know many are just regular men and women with families doing a job they chose to do and enjoy, they shouldn't be attacked.

Violence is never the answer to any problem. When you resort to violence you loose respect.

I won't go in to why stop and search is perceived as institutional racism, but it is. I understand it's an emotive subject with many counter arguments. It's just my opinion in the past, stop and search has helped facilitate institutional racism in the met.

SheDidNot · 05/06/2020 00:02

@MaMaLa321

and what does this mean precisely? How soon we all forget how our own freedoms were won. Our freedoms were won through people working, through legal processes, to get their aims. Patiently gathering support. Not rioting, not destroying their own neighbourhoods in an orgy of looting.
Suffragettes would disagree. They had to use often violent means to be heard.

Almost universally (although I am not sure of any exceptions), people had to fight for their rights. No powerful group willingly gave them to them.

MrFaceyRomford · 05/06/2020 00:06

No way has the Met. Police lost control of London. You will know when they have because troops will be called out.

MrFaceyRomford · 05/06/2020 00:07

Sorry about the grammar.

MadCatEnthusiast · 05/06/2020 00:34

The protest went fairly well, to be fair. It was peaceful out of the many thousands of people who attended. It's a huge reach to say the Met have lost control. In 2011, they lost control. Now? They can handle it

DdraigGoch · 05/06/2020 01:08

Suffragettes would disagree. They had to use often violent means to be heard.
It has been said that their methods set back their own cause.

Violence just reinforces people's prejudices.

BigChocFrenzy · 05/06/2020 01:20

Ridiculous to say violence doesn't bring anything
Those who won wars - and those who lost them - know better

e.g. Some of the Independence movements in colonies had to turn to violence to win freedom
Ireland is only one example of countries who won their Independence through violence

BigChocFrenzy · 05/06/2020 01:23

Sometimes it's not about winning over full public opinion, but about making the cost too high for the state not to make concessions

BigChocFrenzy · 05/06/2020 01:25

In the case of London though, it is not The End Of Civilsation As We Know It
when 2 police officers run away from some yobs

Kokeshi123 · 05/06/2020 01:40

But OP, what would you prefer? Order or justice?

Erm..... how does chasing a police officer produce justice? Please explain this to me, because I would like to know.

Not only did the police officer in question not kill anyone, but the British police killed a grand total of 3 (!) people last year of all races (and those people were most likely armed criminals not harmless civilians, because the British police are not routinely armed).

Kokeshi123 · 05/06/2020 01:41

Suffragettes would disagree. They had to use often violent means to be heard.

Oh GOD, not this again. It's like the zombie at the end of the horror film.

Please go away and learn something about the women's suffrage movement because I don't know if I can be bothered to type out a history all over again.

ZombieFan · 05/06/2020 01:53

Why are the police going out unprotected? They should be wearing body armour with a shield and baton.

TitianaTitsling · 05/06/2020 08:34

I wondered that zombie is it not that if they went out like that people could then complain it could be perceived as they are intimidating to the protesters?

Notejode · 05/06/2020 09:15

The police here act very differently to the police in the US. Here we are asking for more police and in the US there are petitions to defund the police.

How many deaths between gangs these days? These lives should matter too but they are not being killed by police are they?

MaMaLa321 · 05/06/2020 09:20

Women did not get the vote due to violence by the suffragettes. Go and learn something about it , instead of trotting out rubbish.

HeckyPeck · 05/06/2020 09:24

@TitianaTitsling

*Protest is fine but rioting and violent behaviour is not.

Sadly that’s the only way to get change.*
So what violence is acceptable to you?

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots

www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/electionsvoting/womenvote/overview/deedsnotwords/

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_rebellion

As a PP has said oppressors seldom give up their power because they are asked nicely.

RelapsedChocoholic · 05/06/2020 09:38

Two policemen chased by some people is the worst you could find after protests attended by thousands, and your response is the met has lost control?

In the nicest possible way, are you generally an anxious person?

The met presence I witnessed at the protests was largely low key and collaborative, I’d imagine this was a deliberate decision on their part after an educated risk assessment.

mencken · 05/06/2020 09:41

it is good to hear that the protests were mostly peaceful.

let us hope that there isn't a massive infection spike as a result. If you know anyone who was at the protest, stay well away from them for 2 weeks.