To feel a bit bad for the met police on bbc panorama undercover

[Bloodyscarymary]

Just watching the BBC Panorama doco “Undercover in the Police” and I can’t help feeling a bit uneasy.

Yes, the behaviour shown is awful and they should lose their jobs, but having their faces, names and secretly recorded conversations, sometimes even off duty over a pint broadcast feels like a bit of a violation of privacy.

I honestly would have thought secret filming like that couldn’t even be made public, but clearly it’s legal or the BBC wouldn’t air it.

I’m not excusing what was said at all. The culture clearly needs to change. But is it fair to single out these particular officers when the problem is obviously widespread?

I also felt some of the more junior officers had just absorbed the culture around them, and at times the journalist might have been nudging them into certain topics. A few of the comments even felt like dark humour or going along with pub chat. Still unacceptable, but if you secretly recorded doctors or other professions that probably use a lot of dark humour to get through it, I’m sure you’d hear things that would seem really callous to an outsider.

Absolutely they should be fired/reprimanded, but do they deserve complete public exposure like this? AIBU to feel uncomfortable about it?

YABU they deserve everything that’s coming their way

YANBU it’s too much personal exposure when the real problem is the Met culture not these individual cops

The most concerning to me was the really young officer at the pub drinking with the journalist, who was prompting him, agreeing with what he said and literally egging him on to share his views when he realised he had gone too far. Yes he was horrifically racist - he should be fired as police officers must be held to a high standard of morals. But I’m not sure he deserves that conversation to be completely public for the world to see for all eternity

His parents should hear that. DS is being brought up to shut that conversation down, tell the journalist he’s completely out of order and walk away. I’d be so ashamed of DS and worry where I’d gone wrong if he’d just gone along with it ‘for the bands’.

Yes he was horrifically racist - he should be fired as police officers must be held to a high standard of morals. But I’m not sure he deserves that conversation to be completely public for the world to see for all eternity.

So a horrific racist should have his identity protected so that people don't know he's a horrific racist.

I’m increasingly suspicious of the BBC and its motivations. It is a left-wing organisation, and the left have always disliked the police, who they regard as “tools of the capitalist oppressors.” It’s hard to imagine the BBC exposing ANTIFA or Just Stop Oil, put it that way.

You see their left-wing bias everywhere. Radio 4 can’t even discuss Jane Austen or Tennyson without linking them to slavery or colonialism in some way.

Personally, I don’t think we give the police anywhere near enough credit or support. The majority of police officers I have met have been thoroughly decent men. If I had to deal with vicious, ignorant, foul-mannered little scumbags day in day out I’m sure I’d blurt out horrible and offensive things as well.

It was pretty shocking to realise the biggest misogynistic, racist, homophobic arseholes are in positions of power like this.
I feel like they should sign an oath or something like doctors have to, this needs to be stamped out

These officers are paid to serve and protect the public, and that includes some of the most vulnerable members of society.

The comments were disgusting, and as another poster said it’s endemic within the MET especially. Every single one of the rotten apples in the police force need to be exposed and held accountable for what they say and do.

Fucking hell, for a police officer to hold those views, never mind voice them, is terrifying. They are meant to uphold a code of ethics.

As a social worker I constantly have to reflect on and challenge my own attitudes and values and how they may impact my practice and the people I work with. Why don’t the police, who are also in a position of power, have to do this?

Are you having a laugh @Bloodyscarymary ?

I saw this tonight, with video footage showing the things they've said and done, including kicking a black man constantly until he passed out, and LAUGHING about it.

Then laughing at a pregnant woman who said her boyfriend had kicked her as hard as he could in the belly, in the hope that she would lose her baby. They laughed because they didn't believe her! They said 'yeah, so she SAYS! hahahahaha!'

They laughed at, and mocked people who were upset and physically hurt, and bragged about how they kicked the shit out of people in custody, and rolled around laughing at how funny it was.

Do I feel SORRY for them for getting caught out? As I said.... Are you having a laugh?! No I bloody don't! I am glad they have been exposed, and named and shamed. These were police officers who were paid good money to look after the public and uphold the law, and to try and create peace and look after people. The 'men' in this film footage are disgusting racists and misogynists, and utter, utter thugs. Always the MET police too isn't it?! It seems to attract the worst scum.

Disclaimer NAMPALT (Not all Met police are like that!) Some are though!

That’s the very reason we should see this

You have clearly not watched this documentary.

The police also deal with very vulnerable people every day who need them to be respectful, empathic and level headed. How could you trust those people to support a rape victim, or a victim of hate crime while they’re spewing the same hate?

The Met needs ripping apart and a new force built in its place.

It's too corrupt to be saved.

Yep, this. ^ Anyone defending the police in this instance needs to give their head a good wobble!

And what's the excuse for them talking about women in such misogynistic tones. Or murdering them.

How else do you think the BBC could have better told this story other than by directly showing the officers saying what they said OP? Reporting like this has to be impactful else there’s no point in doing it.

The BBC’s editorial standards on undercover reporting are wildly high, often so high that journalists can’t meet the organisation’s own bar so never get the green light for their investigations.

I thought it was a fantastic piece of journalism that will be important in the battle to rid our capital’s police force of the institutional racism and sexism that still plagued it, despite numerous investigations and inquiries over a number of years.

Well, what most other people have said really.

This is a police force found to be institutionally racist, as well as with rapists and a murderer in their ranks. It’s fucking appalling and anyone in the police who holds and expresses these views is not fit to serve the public.

YABVVVVVVVU

Both the left and the right have always accused the BBC of being biased against them. However, if you look at actual studies, it favours the right eg www.civitas.org.uk/content/files/BBC-impartiality-and-the-problem-of-bias.pdf

I’m clearly in the minority based on the comments. I guess I feel that people committing crimes (eg police brutality) are fair game for publication but recording them expressing views (no matter how much I disagree with them or find the views repugnant) in private when off-duty and publicising that with no blurred face etc is a bit Orwellian to me.

No I don’t feel bad. You can get me as drunk as a skunk and I wouldn’t say the things they said. I’ve been teaching for decades and I’ve dealt with some deeply problematic children who have even been violent to me and at no point have I felt the need to hurt them.
The searching of that woman where the custody sgt rushed down to ‘help’ was appalling. He spoke in an incredibly unpleasant way. The use of violence. The racism, sexism and hate they expressed should mean immediate dismissal.

I would have been more comfortable if the off-duty conversations had identities concealed - so we could see and hear that there are massive cultural issues but individual officers in that context weren’t singled out.

Off duty isn’t an excuse.

You don’t switch your moral compass on when you go to work and off when you clock out. This is who they are at their core, it’s their belief system, it is the real them, and they should be nowhere near vulnerable people needing help.

They fully deserved to be made examples of. It’s a strong warning to others who might be attempted to behave similarly.

I understand what you're getting at regards the issue being widespread and deep set.

But those who were exposed weren't innocent. It was their own choice to exhibit shitty behaviour and shitty language, for which there should be consequences.

Why shouldn’t they be singled out? Shame isn’t always a bad thing.

So you think these ‘private’ views don’t impact on how they treat victims of crime? You think you can be a big old racist sexist idiot who thinks truly unpleasant things but a jolly good chap once you put your uniform on?
Did you see what the other custody officer said about the SGT letting that man go despite the fact that he kicked the pregnant woman in her stomach?

This and what is really scary is that the public are at the mercy of these attitudes and behaviour. More so the vulnerability of those caught up in the criminal justice system.
There is a long way to go before the public are assured that the police force are just and fair.
There has been little change since the racist attitudes exposed in the murder of Stephen Lawrence