BLM - Worried about the anti-police sentiment in UK

[Balhammom]

I went to a local BLM protest y’day. It was passionate and very good natured (and, before anyone asks, generally socially distanced).

The overall BLM message is clearly very important. I do not want to live in a world where black communities are treated differently or feel like their lives are worth less what anyone else’s.

However, the anti (UK) police sentiment troubled me. I know this isn’t universal but lots of signs features “ACAB” and messages like “defund the police “.

I appreciate the hostility towards US police, particularly in the context of the truly appalling death of George Floyd. However, how can it be okay to treat the UK police with the same hostility?

In London, in particular, hundreds of young people are dying from black-on-black violence. A generation are at risk from drug gangs. I have no doubt many protestors could name the handful of black people who have died following encounters with Uk police. But how many could name even the last couple of black murder victims?

I know they’re not perfect, but so many police are working so hard to literally save lives from gangs and solve some of these dreadful murders. Shouldn’t we all be helping them with this? Doesn’t BLM require us to end all types of unjustified deaths that disproportionately affect the black community?

[quote MarieInternette]@Siameasy
“All non black people harbour some anti black predjudice”

That is one of the most disgraceful comments I have read on mn. How dare you generalise in such a way? Imagine the calls of “Racist” if you replaced the words black with white? Maybe if you spent less time reading anti white propaganda your views would be less offensive.

And if you think that rioting in the streets, injuring police (who are people just trying to do their jobs keep people safe) shouting offensive slogans like ACAB, terrorising police horses, damaging property etc, will help people reduce their “anti black predjudice” you are sorely mistaken. If anything it will reinforce those views for those who held them previously.[/quote]
Here we go.

White fragility in action. Why not sit and think and consider this person has a point instead of a knee jerk reaction?

And I'm not going to respond to your 'swap white with black' nonsense - it's facile.

Not read the whole thread.

There have been plenty of marches about police and racism previously. I happened to be in that area when there was a march for smiley culture who had a pretty suspicious death at the hands of the met.

Just because it's not publicised doesn't mean it's not happening.

Black men are twice as likely to die during arrest/ while in custody than white men in the UK. A report flags that 'excessive force' is a big part of this and ties back to sterotypes about black men being more dangerous.

There is an org Inquest that has more details.

The met has been shown to do loads of dodgy things over the years e.g. corruption, concealing evidence, lying about events (Jean Charles menezes is one example) and of course there was the whole appalling situation with Stephen Laurence which was a long time ago now, but exposed institutional racism, and the police putting his family under surveillance rather than investigating the crime, over the many years they fought for justice.

I could go on there's so much.

My own experiences with the police have been very mixed indeed, and I'm white. So, I'm not surprised that there is anti police sentiment, at all. Especially in London.

That’s fine. Crack on.

There is nothing racist about my comments. But as usual, when you have nothing relevant to say, or you don’t like what you hear resort to calling someone a racist. Helpful. Not.
I think if you watch the news you will see there has been lots of riots here. Not quite sure how you can dispute that.

...’ I think In order to become a police officer or work within the police various tests should be completed first including psycho analysis.’

Months, if not years, of 1:1 in depth personal work to ‘plod’ the mean streets?

I assume that the Police Service uses a proven range of standard psycho-metric tests, & routine suitability & performance reviews are undertaken during training & probation to assure that the best of the bunch make it into service & are capable of working to the highest standards.

*No one has rioted here."

Well that's just silly. How did the mounted police officer end up in hospital with broken ribs and a collapsed lung in London over the weekend?

@UniversalAunt

...’ I think In order to become a police officer or work within the police various tests should be completed first including psycho analysis.’

Months, if not years, of 1:1 in depth personal work to ‘plod’ the mean streets?

I assume that the Police Service uses a proven range of standard psycho-metric tests, & routine suitability & performance reviews are undertaken during training & probation to assure that the best of the bunch make it into service & are capable of working to the highest standards.

Unfortunately the best of the bunch don’t always make it to the service otherwise we wouldn’t have the brutality we have, we wouldn’t have the injustice caused in cases because of police work. Police need to be tested to see if they’re suitable for the work they do. Police don’t just plod on the streets.

That's not what a riot looks like. Remember the poll tax riots?
L

@Hearhoovesthinkzebras

*No one has rioted here."

Well that's just silly. How did the mounted police officer end up in hospital with broken ribs and a collapsed lung in London over the weekend?

Her horse bolted and she got knocked off by a traffic light.

I don't think you understand what a riot is. It's not a bit of argy bargy, a few public order offences and arrests.

Her horse bolted and she got knocked off by a traffic light.

Why did her horse bolt?

Might have been something to do with bikes being thrown.

Agree tea and hobnob.

@Hearhoovesthinkzebras

Her horse bolted and she got knocked off by a traffic light.

Why did her horse bolt?

Might have been something to do with bikes being thrown.

Was it? I don't know. Still doesn't make it a riot.

Please do post the evidence you have at your fingertips for this riot, otherwise I might be forced to conclude that you are exaggerating.

ttps://youtu.be/hLWm60hEgRU

I see people on bikes riding away from mounted police down the street. The mounted police head into a big crowd of people at the other end. Somehow a police horse gets spooked, it's not on that video that I can see, except towards the end the video follows the horse galloping up the street.

I've seen footage elsewhere of a protester rolling a bike into the side of a police horse, but it was a different horse.

That's the horse that had thrown the police officer. As it bolted she hit the traffic lights and is now seriously injured in hospital.

There are plenty of videos on line if you want to look.

I don't think it's the same one. The horse that I saw hit by the bike was a really dark brown almost black colour and the horse that bolted was a tan colour (I'm sure there's technical horse names for these shades of brown!)

It's this footage - it's been published all over the place twitter.com/EssexCanning/status/1269327035433877506

Ok. So you've seen footage - what was the point in telling me to post it or you would assume I was exaggerating?

I'm not sure that constitutes a riot. It's not a particularly good tempered protest but I've seen riots and they're much more frightening

Huge police budget? That would be the budget that has been cut by successive governments. You really want to cut it further?

With a corresponding removal of various responsibilities that shouldn’t be in the hands of the police.

Yeah, I thought that footage was about the bike being thrown - it wasn't thrown, it was rolled, and it was a different horse anyway.

I'm not trying to be picky but this stuff matters when people have put their lives on the line, protestors and police alike. It does anyone no favours to say largely peaceful protests (29 arrests out of XX thousand people) were a 'riot' or that horses were directly harmed by people when they weren't.

That protesters or the horse weren't injured when it bolted was pure luck.

What about the police officer who is seriously injured?

And I don't think anyone has claimed the horse was seriously injured have they?

You might not call that a riot. I certainly don't call it a peaceful protest. Throwing bottles and objects at the police, vandalising the Cenotaph, setting fire to the Union Jack - what place does any of that have in a peaceful protest?

To join the Police, they are vetted quite deeply as it is, including their immediate family. They also have to pass interviews and tests. So apart form mind reading, what else can the police force to to stop racist people joining? Being realistic.
Many black people don’t want to join the police because of the stigma.
It’s a known fact that gang culture is a problem in London, including young black men. Stop and search is controversial, and I understand that black men don’t want to be searched. Who would? But if someone went on to stab someone, and wasn’t searched, the police would still be criticised for not searching.
It’s a real problem to solve that might take a generation to fix.
There are racist police officers, I don’t doubt that but most aren’t and are good people just doing a job.
I’d much prefer our police officers hear than in the USA.