Police confiscate sleeping bags of homeless

[StarlightMcKenzie]

www.ilfordrecorder.co.uk/news/crime-court/police_swoop_on_the_homeless_taking_sleeping_bags_and_food_parcels_in_co_ordinated_raids_in_redbridge_1_2206446

Excellent.

I remember being very surprised at the poster, because it was suddenly propagating such a different view from the "move them on" thing. But I may have misremembered the whole thing.

Cruel, disgusting and illegal. Theft is theft, the officers are guilty of stealing from the most vulnerable in society, how low can you get, they should be fired and prosecuted.

This is sickening.

Cruel evil and sick.

This is awful.

I live quite near to where this happened

Just heartbreaking. They should be offering them assistance, not taking their food and sleeping bags

Lets not let this drop. Theres plenty of people who dont agree with this. Can we do something en masse? Its completely unacceptable and it worries me what will happen to those people tonight without bags and food. Would a bombardment of emails work? If we did a template to make it easier? MNHQ can you take a stance on this?

No response to you chao. Individual emails it is.

I just came on to post this story.
It makes me sick, those poor people.
Surely if they were trespassing or on council property the police would need a warrant to remove them?

My DP has a very jaded view of the police and I'm always defending them but there is no explanation for this.
Utter wankers.

As for 'reducing the negative impact of rough sleepers' as long as they're not causing any trouble/inconvenience what on earth is the negative impact?!

What address have you emailed Rosh?

Aren't homeless people "the public", too?

Exactly Sanity, it speaks volumes that when they asked if they could keep the food the police said no. They clearly don't even recognise them as humans, with basic rights to food. What a disgrace.

Met statement in response to newspaper article

Thanks for linking that article.

As it seems they moved on two people who were inside schools grounds (taking only discarded items and soiled items some of which were 'a danger to health' (I wonder if they meant needles?)) and two others from a cemetery (not taking their stuff) it does put a different slant on the proportionality of police actions.

That school is a brand new academy which was built last year on land adjoining the pool. No way could homeless people get onto the actual grounds of the school as it's basically a big office block with a rooftop playground, the 'grounds' are the carpark next door. If the area was a square split into four the school would be bottom left, with the cemetery, carpark and pool building going clockwise from it. Given that the pool has been left to rot (a huge local bone of contention, we only have 1 working pool in the entire borough) I don't see why it can't be used by the homeless - they were probably there before the school was!

Whatever the 'truth' behind this story, it's good that the police know the public are not behind them if they mistreat homeless people.

Wtaf!! I really hope this isn't true, but nothing ceases to amaze me anymore!
In the world we live in, you would think they would be using their time to actually get murderers, gangs, druggies & theives of our streets, but no they waste valuable time and resources by stealing from those who have nothing-Absolutely sickening

disgraceful. Homeless people have nowhere to go. Its not like taking their food and sleeping bags is going to magic up a house is it.

Did the two posters above me read the link to the police statement?