To be sick of the police!!

[Noangelbuthavingfun]

Yet another one .... rapist ..before He even joined the force. WTAF is going on ?
You can't trust the very people that you are supposed to ! Add to that the failings of the police "force" dealing with Grace and Barnaby case recently and the awful disrespectful texts that we heard about .... and you just think what de hell is going on !! Unforgivable!

Did anyone watch 'to catch a copper' recently? It was awful. The amount of things they did and got away with. And most of them were clever enough to resign after being suspended on full pay rather than being fired

Body cam footage of male officers mocking vulnerable people, calling a suicidal disabled woman a "fucking bitch" and pepper spraying one in the face from close up. It also covered Lee Cocking, who drove a really drunk woman home, had sex with her in his police car, and then claimed that his PTSD meant he was "psychologically unable to say no to her"

One of the female officers threatened a mum with social services saying she would get her kids taken off her. When confronted about this, she said she would carry on saying it as it usually works as a good threat to get them to do what she wants them to do

A lot of them didn't face any disciplinary action at all

And one of them had this up on his wall

That’s horrific. But on a thread specially about police, why on earth bring up abusive nhs workers? Does that make police brutality ok? The whataboutery weakens the debate.

Anyway I agree there are abusive nhs workers. And lazy and incompetent ones. And I would say so on a thread about that, with examples. And have done. I wouldn’t say there, ‘but but police are worse!’. Raise your standards and expectations.

Exactly, the anger should be at these criminal officers being exposed, not at the general public for being upset about it.

I think all world police forces have an element of corruption and power- hungry abusers. You can imagine that a certain type of person would be attracted to the job. And that is a real shame for the many decent officers out there.

This. And this is exactly why the whole organisation is rotten and needs a root and branch sorting-out. Not all police officers are bad - but there are others who are (for their own reasons) sticking up for those who are bad, 'keeping it quiet' and turning a blind eye - or trying to brush off anyone who has the temerity to speak out. It's high time the government acknowledged that there is something terribly wrong with the police and actually got off their backsides and did something other than mouth platitudes.

(Edited for typo)

That is actually.nasty . I'm not even going to explain why. There's absolutely no point on a thread like this . You would soon be calling the police if you needed them

It would be enormously sad if decent Police officers consider retirement because of a MN thread (s). But, personally, I started with trust in the Police. I lost it, due to my direct lived experience. OF COURSE all Police are not bad (in fact, most are ok enough, & some are outstanding, like many professions) but I can't tell if the one at my door/ in the street with my vulnerable child is, or isn't. What I DO know is that there is no accountability. Whatsoever. THAT is what is affecting public confidence. Until that begins to change more & more public cooperation will be lost. Everyone loses.

It isn't nasty - it's perfectly valid comment. If you feel so strongly, why are you 'not even going to explain why'? And if there's no point in having the thread, why are you even commenting anyway?

No, please do explain why. Why is it nasty?

The police in the UK are understaffed, have no equipment, very little training and are expected to fix any problem, immediately, without even stopping for lunch.

What on earth do you expect?

Most are just trying to do their best, but they have been given an impossible job.

Let's be brutally honest here. The police are just people, they're not special, they're not Saints in uniform, they are just people. Their pay is a joke. You run away from the criminal with the knife, but expect the police to run towards them, risking their life for £2500 a month!

Are you fucking serious?

Would you risk not coming home to your family for that salary?

How about being dragged to death behind a car, left lying naked on the side of the road, dying, all because you went to stop some thieving cunts breaking into someone home.

Oh, let me guess, the sexist, misogynistic (potential rapist) of an officer deserved it did he!

But no! Let's call them all rapists and abusers instead, that's much more fun!

They are criticised if they make the slightest mistake. They are abused by both the criminals and the wider public. If one person, who works as a Police Officer does something wrong, all officers are blamed and told that they are also a rapist, murderer, abuser or any other thing. But we don't do that when a people in other professions commit crimes or make mistakes.

Most of us cause our own problems and then blame the police when they don't sort out the mess we have chosen to create.

Most of the posts on this thread are just police bashing nonsense.

If you want to criticise the police, you need to fix them first. Because blaming a person who is overworked, underpaid, badly trained, woefully equipped and relentlessly abused, is not a credible position.

Also, there are numerous forces in the UK who are run by female chief Constables, overseen by a female PCC, so we aren't any better as women.

The job of the police should be to dealing with crime, not mental health, not social work, not relationship counselling, no child care, not sorting out the problem you created for yourself.

If the police went on strike for a few weeks people would change their tune very quickly!

I'm fairly sure there is research showing the police are abusive partners in higher proportion than the general public. I can't reference it but a woman on my freedom program had a terrible abusive police husband and the group facilitator said it's a well known fact in domestic abuse charities and the research backs this up. It's as a pp said, it's a job that attracts people who like to have power

Thank you

I watched the episode with the woman on the bus who was pepper sprayed. I had to turn over to another channel before the programme finished, as I was so disgusted at what I was seeing. The officer threatening her with Social Services was outrageous, and absolutely uncalled for. Those Police were doing nothing whatsoever to deescalate the situation. And the farce of an investigation into their behaviour afterwards told me all I needed to know. The Police need a thorough overhaul, from top to bottom.

The Met have had a bad reputation for decades. I know going back to the 50/60/70s there were stories of Met corrupted officers working with the Krays and there were convictions including the head of the Flying Squad.

In my 20 years working in police admin I only ever had one occasion when an officer was inappropriate and when he was put in his place he apologised. On the other hand my husband, a black officer, suffered some terrible racism so I don't pretend they are all perfect but in a crisis I'd go to the police.

How can you say there is no accountability when we know of these cases because officers have been arrested, prosecuted and in some cases imprisoned?

If you look back I wasn't the one who brought them up, someone else did and were told it wasn't as big a problem. I was commenting on that. If you've got a problem with NHS workers being brought up maybe mention it to the person who brought them into the discussion.

Telling someone who is disclosing sexual abuse when they were a child is pretty bloody low. How low are your standards?

I recall some research along those lines, but this was back in the late 80s/early 90s.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/mar/25/police-england-wales-deleting-outcomes-misconduct-hearings
Because the MET is still routinely deleting misconduct outcomes from their own site. Because hardly any cases get that far anyway. Because the IPPC was anything but independent. Because of my own lived experience, both personal & professional (I worked with Police Scotland during my time with Women's Aid). Because improving accountability is a more positive approach than denying a (well documented) problem exists.

I wonder if the culture varies much between forces?

I strongly doubt it.

It might help if they went through their records (ha! ha! ha! What records?) and checked how many of their officers have criminal records. Getting rid of a few of those might be a start. The latest one (on the Grace, Ian & Barnaby case) had a record before he even joined. What knobhead was responsible for allowing him in? And will said knobhead lose their job? Answer = no.

They are not allowed to strike. And in case it's escaped anyone, they are paid to do a job and need to be accountable for their mistakes - the same as anyone else who is in a job, most of whom lack the power over people's lives that the police have. Heaven knows the police have made more than enough mistakes over the past few years, with no visible signs of improvement. And would people change their tune if the police DID go on strike? I strongly doubt it; for one thing the police don't turn out for much crime anyway and for another the rot has gone too deep - the majority of the public (with good reason) do not trust the police.

The main problem is that 'accountability' seems to be a word the Police Force has never heard of. Get some of that, weed out some of the criminals and power abusers they employ and they might just get a bit of respect back.

Yes and many of the opinions come from people who DO know police officers and have worked for the police, also people who have had very troubling experiences in interaction with police officers.

but I wonder where this same energy is for other professions where abhorrent crimes are committed

Other professions where they have the same power over people's lives? So what other professions are you talking of? And does the fact that other professions may have 'bad apples' of their own make the police seem any better? Don't think so. But maybe you think it's a race to the bottom?

My opinion comes from me, I am a police officer so I'm naturally going to offer it on a thread like this when I have a different perspective. No it isn't a race to the bottom, the professions I'm talking about are basically any other profession, anyone is capable of causing harm to someone else. Would you prefer I left the police or me and people like me stayed and did what we could to make things better? Genuinely asking, not being goady.

I've had terrible issues with police in the past when I was harassed by a neighbour. The leaking of information was something else and that get a slap on the wrist