To think there are more than "a few bad apples" in the police force?

[nellynaemates]

I'm not anti-police, you won't hear me spouting on about the "pigs" or any such unpleasantness. I don't come to this as someone who has an irrational and in-built hatred of the police.

However, having read about the recent incidents at the G20 protests it sounds to me as though there was an organised effort to brutalise the protesters. In the Guardian yesterday a young woman described how she was laughing and joking with officers earlier in the day and how they told her that there was a surprise coming up.

Half an hour later it all kicked off and I urge anyone who hasn't to read the testimonies of these protesters. It is frightening and reads like descriptions of violence in totalitarian states.

"Peaceful" protests don't seem to be allowed to exist any more. People are cordoned off like dangerous animals and attacked for the slightest thing (or nothing at all).

I'm sure I'm not the only one who would think twice before going to a protest now because I wouldn't feel safe. In a supposedly democratic country this should not be the case.

I'm not saying all police are bad, but I do believe that a combination of the culture surrounding the "war on terror" and the fact that the police force is bound to attract some unpleasant and power-hungry thugs into its ranks means that we have real problems with trusting police to always be on the side of the law-abiding member of the public.

You really are missing the point quite spectacularly, MrsJames.

Fine, you may not care about power stations (although your children and grandchildren might well blame you for not giving a toss about the planet they inherit) but if you turn a blind eye to the state suppressing democratic protest over this issue, eventually we end up with an authoritarian regime that fucks you just as much as anyone else.

We do not yet live in a police state MrsJM, but if attitudes like yours prevail, we will.

It is not the job of the police to arrest a whole load of students on the basis that they have "given the impression" that they have "something to hide".

Well not yet, anyhow.

couldn't resist. Well I could but didn't want to

(And that's an interesting new use of 'clandestine' - didn't realise not inviting the cops round for tea and biscuits is now enough to make you an enemy of the state.)

When your children go to college MrsJM, they may want to attend demonstrations.

Will you be happy for them to be rounded up, detained in police cells, have their money taken from them as "evidence" and then released from the police cells in the middle of the night with no means of getting home?

LOL at that link.
Particularly liked the small headline next to the main story "Big Rise in Women Getting Above Themselves"

OK my impression of all this is, and I have no more info on any of this than any of you,is that the protestors intended to cause huge disruption not just to sit at the power station gates, this raid was intelligence led so it would have been very apparent that things were not going to remain peaceful.
If this had been allowed to go ahead then i would have been directly affected , me and thousands and thousands of others but I should just accept that as they are allowed to get their point across by any means necessary?

Our childre won't demonstrate, they will be so dumbed down and used to having their finger prints scanned that it won't cross their minds, it's all very very sad and unless The Sun says it's wrong nobody will do a bloody thing about it.

But of course that's your impression of this, that's the impression the police want you to have. It's not necessarily true though.

'intelligence-led' like the pursuit of Jean Charles? Or the several examples of 'terror raids' that end in apologies, climb downs and general admissions of fuckwittery?

So then Mrs J you are suggesting that people can be arrested for what they might do ? Jesus that's a slippery slope wouldn't you say ?

what? Thats the information given the same information that you have read surely?Obviously what you or I make of it is individual.

Does the fact that absolutely no-one has been charged with anything, or detained under the anti terrorism act, not give you a bit of a clue that none of these people are a danger to the state?

If the police genuinely thought they were dangerous, they have the power to hold them for 28 days. They don't need to let them out on bail "pending further investigation".

People are stupid and bovine through their own actions. There are far more useful ways to question the status quo than going on showy demonstrations which make people feel important and give the feeling they are 'doing' something. In most political organisations and lobbying groups[and I am a member of quite a few]people aren't quite so keen when it comes to the dull stuff like writing up minutes and sending e mails.

Vocal protesters enjoy turning up, shouting a bit in a showy off kinda way, then they go home and remain numbed by their shit tv and their game consoles and their bad food.

Pathetic.

And if yuo read the book I link to, you may come to the sameconclusion as me, namely that people are not being arrested with gay abandon because people believe they are dangerous. Rather, like other public servants, the police are under pressure to meet quotas and prove they are 'doing' something.

It's strikingly similar to the NHS for whom I work. We are all so busy proving that we are 'doing' sometihn g that in fact we actually do less and less useful activities each year.

Soyes, it's shit to arrest and charge people [or not] as happens, but the reasons are not necessarily the ones a lot of posters believe in.

Do they have quotas to fill in on using a 'proportional level of force'? Do they get extra points for using an 'unreasonable level of force' too?

You do have to fill out a form if you have 'drawn your baton' funnily enough.

Sure, Moondog, targets are a problem across public services - lives have been lost because some senior managers of some ambulance services were more intent on gaming than actually doing the job properly.

But that's not the only problem with policing - or with the IPCC, which is so crap that it allows bad practice to go unchallenged. No CCTV of the City indeed!

And it's ironic to argue that there are only a few bad apples on the 20th anniversary of Hillsborough. The families have still not had justice. S Yorks police are still hiding the truth, claiming they can't release documents for legal reasons, despite the fact there are no active proceedings and haven't been for donkey's years.

Look, it's irrelevant whether the students who were arrested - I'm not going to call them protestors because they weren't actually protesting at the time - are stupid and have DVD's. Whether they are stupid or intelligent, lazy or energetic, is utterly, utterly irrelevant. You appear to be saying Moondog, that protest is not a legitimate part of democratic life - that minutes and e-mails and meetings are OK, but that protest (or the possibility of protest) deserves to met with crap policing. Do you think people shouldn't have the right to protest then?

i don't buy it moondog.

I do believe that the police, ambulance service and fire service put up with an incredible amount of shit from assholes and bigots in all sorts of circumstance.

with the experience of which you allude behind them, surely they can treat citizens who are exercising the right to protest in a generally civilized manner with less impunity and contempt.

or rather, with that kind of experience behind them, it would have been a piece of piss to cope with Mr Tomlinson or that woman who got slapped about.

As in any walk of life there are good and bad and many many shades in between.

The press are quicker to highlight the exceptionally bad than the exceptionally good and are fond of totally ignoring the everyday average that fills the rest of the space.

I know colleagues who are aggressive, I know many many more who are not. I have come across many members of the public who would describe themselves as middle or even upper class and are aggressive and obnoxious. In any one day I also have to deal with the sort of people that no one really wants to see lying, begging, drinking around the streets and most of them respond better to courteous but firm words of advice than any "I pay your taxes..." The main difference is that those who come into tegular contact with the police at least somewhere, in the back of their minds, grudgingly acknowledge that they're doing wrong. The taxpayers approach it like we're servants, they forget that mostly, if we're dealing with them it's because they might just be part of the problem that another taxpayer has rung in about.

It doesn't excuse violence - nothing excuses unnecessary use of force in any walk of life. We're here to enforce the rules - you can't enforce public order on a large scale by saying please and thank you. There are people who go to rallies and marches with the express intention of causing trouble - they don't have badges, they're not conveniently labelled so unfortunately there are innocents (both officers and marchers alike) who become the victims of heavy handed crowd control because some elements of the crowd are there simply to be heavy handed.

You can't just decide all police are bad - society is reflected in its police force because believe it or not we live among you! We're recruited from amongst you! We are you!

Sorry "I pay your wages..." - too busy letting off small amount of steam!

I think it's just the nature of the beast - many would be crims become police or arm to channel their negative energiers and keep them on the straight and narrow. Thats why the criminal fraternity and law enforcement cross over so often - if's all enforcement and that attracts a particular personality - very similar to that they are 'fighting'.