PCs suspended over photos of murder scene

[Lettera]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-53185177

Men. They never disappoint.

Anyone comfortable with statistics will have already worked out that the chances of 2 randomly selected officers both being up for high jinks like this can only be as high as it is because most police officers are like this.

Or, to use apples:

You have a barrel with (say) 22,000 apples in it. What are the odds that two successive and random selections of a single apple will result in your drawing the only two bad ones ?????????

Now if you have 11,000 "bad apples" then it becomes much easier.

Incidentally, that is almost exactly the "logic" the police use when they racially profile. But you need to be careful if you point that out to them - they don't like it up'em as Corporal Jones said.

I am fully aware that some "bad apples" might club together. But then we're going to get Dame Cressida Dick on TV telling us how "robust" police management is, so we can discount that, can't we ? (Again, they don't like it when you actually use what they say to rubbish them).

Interesting how we haven't had anyone claiming to be a police officer on here telling us what a hard job they do etc etc etc. I guess even they can sense the indefensible.

Why not wait for the full details to emerge before constructing elaborate narratives? I do worry that the narratives are already being woven - such as a conspiratorial " no media coverage" ( not true!)

If you start ramping things up" x1000", then what you are going to get is a summer of destructive rioting or similar. That will solve nothing, and change nothing. Is it really necessary to replicate U.S scenarios recently witnessed in the media?

The full details won't emerge though, will they?

I imagine that hostility towards the police has been fuelled by their apathetic approach to this double murder case and info about the horrific abuse of power now in the public domain.

Not a few comments on a parenting website.

@SquirmOfEels

I heard their mother speak on the news last night.

She spoke domwell, and I am in awe of her eloquence.

The part of what she said that stuck with me the most, was that this was akin to the old, old photos that people used to take of smiling spectators standing next to a lynched black man still dangling.

My heart hurts for her. To lose two daughters to violence and no perpetrator yet arrested, and then to find they have been subjected to this additional violation is just, well, I cannot find the words.

Whether the officers intended violation akin to the lynching photos or if they were just a pair of dickheads in a true crime fans whatsapp who have become insensitised to violent imagery and enjoyed the kudos of getting to a shocking crime first, who knows? They may well have taken violating photos of white women (or men of any ethnic origin) too but the fact that awful, historical racist imagery can be compared to this crime
at all is beyond horrible for their family and friends, and yes, horrible for the current politically charged climate too.

My friend was murdered 21 years ago and some years later I saw one of the crime scene photos whilst sorting paperwork for his mum. It was just a completely dispassionate depiction of him as he was found, necessary documentation for the investigation and subsequent trial, but still it haunts me. When ‘the body’ is that of a loved one, it’s almost impossible to see it as such - to you, it is still the person, especially as, in the case of murder, you rarely get the opportunity to say goodbye through funeral home visiting, the way you do when a loved one dies through illness.

I imagine that hostility towards the police has been fuelled by their apathetic approach to this double murder case and info about the horrific abuse of power now in the public domain

This particular murder arose in the aftermath of a " illegal" gathering ( according to the Covid rules); and like any number of other similar " il egal" gatherings, which have now started to accelerate in number, around the country ( on beaches/street parties/raves /football celebrations/demonstrations/flares being used/stabbings, shootings, rapes........) the police have become stuck between a rock and hard place.

If they intervene to impose distancing measures they could further inflame already heated situations; if they back off things get out of hand anyway; if they do intervene they get attacked & injured.

Now obviously what is reported to have happened in the aftermath of this double murder sounds shocking and of deep concern.......let's wait and see what transpires. But feeding a very particular anti-police narrative is going to change nothing and is simply added fuel to an already flammable situation.

Anyone comfortable with statistics will have already worked out that the chances of 2 randomly selected officers both being up for high jinks like this can only be as high as it is because most police officers are like this.

Indeed. And a culture in which that's considered OK is one in which it's going to be very difficult to get any sort of justice for women or for black people. The misogyny and the racism are endemic.

A tweet passed my eyes a few weeks ago, about 3 police officers in an American city (I can't recall which one) who claimed they had been "intentionally" poisoned at a cafe. Let's call it "Joes Cafe".

The tweet said "The officers will have to wait until Joes Cafe have carried out a full internal investigation into the incident"....

It was New York and the officers inflamed the situation considerably.

What I find really awful about this story is how little coverage the murders had before this photo issue arrived. Two young women killed by a stranger in a park I'm very surprised it wasn't front page news.

I'm completely supportive of having a police force; none of the alternatives seem at all realistic to me. But the one time I really needed them - I was upstairs with my husband downstairs with a knife preoccupation and acutely psychotic - they decided I didnt need them. I do think chronic underfunding makes people uncaring; when you have to choose between 50 terrible needs you get used both to having to deal with leaving 48 unanswered and also to having the power to do that. It's the same in healthcare. But a culture like this - where do you even start.

Whilst a shocking, utterly abhorrent act ... why is it in 'feminist chat'?

The police haven't had their gender identified. You're all looking for them to be male, what if they weren't?

This type of thing is why feminism is portrayed as hysterical and man-hating, and prevents normal women wanting to identify as feminists and explore feminism further. Thus damaging your cause.

I'm completely supportive of having a police force; none of the alternatives seem at all realistic to me

The need for a police force might be taken as a sign that society - or community - has failed. Generally they are there to protect property and those who own it.

At the risk of going all hippy-trippy (well, reverting to hippy-trippy ) ...

“Before our white brothers arrived to make us civilized men,we didn't have any kind of prison. Because of this, we had no delinquents. We had no locks nor keys and therefore among us there were no thieves. When someone was so poor that he couldn't afford a horse, a tent or a blanket, he would, in that case, receive it all as a gift. We were too uncivilized to give great importance to private property. We didn't know any kind of money and consequently, the value of a human being was not determined by his wealth. We had no written laws laid down, no lawyers, no politicians, therefore we were not able to cheat and swindle one another. We were really in bad shape before the white men arrived and I don't know how to explain how we were able to manage without these fundamental things that (so they tell us) are so necessary for a civilized society.”

You have a barrel with (say) 22,000 apples in it. What are the odds that two successive and random selections of a single apple will result in your drawing the only two bad ones ?????????

The first apple is not chosen at random here - we are starting from the fact we have one bad apple and considering the chance of the next one being bad also. We are also not selecting from the whole barrel but only those close to the first bad apple and as anyone with a mouldy peach will know the mould spreads to adjacent fruit.

You don’t go straight to unacceptable behaviour like this in a single step - it takes lots of little steps where each behaviour is allowed by those around them. Which raises red flags concerning the culture in which these two police officers operated. But you cannot extrapolate this across the whole service.

posted too soon. You cannot extrapolate it across the whole service from one incident but nor could you assume the culture that allowed it was absent elsewhere.

Whilst a shocking, utterly abhorrent act ... why is it in 'feminist chat'?

Because not only were the victims women (real women) but there appears to be a strong case that their sex and ethnicity were key factors in the entire handling of this case.

Not just the lackadaisical initial investigation, but the appalling violation the victims a second time at the hands of those we charge with protecting us from danger.

It really shouldn't need explaining (and is worrying that it does).

To be honest, the sex of the officers in this incident is irrelevant - although balance of probabilities would suggest XY chromosomes are involved.

But you cannot extrapolate this across the whole service.

Why not ? Have you seen how the police treat all black people based in a sample of one ? Or women, based on a sample of one.

I warned you in the post (the bit you snipped). It's amazing how quickly the police squeal when you treat the them the same way they treat you.

By all means come back and tell us how vanishingly few officers are corrupt, violent. rulebreakers, lazy and incompetent. But then you need to explain why in a city like London blacks get stopped far more often than statistics say is random.

Whilst a shocking, utterly abhorrent act ... why is it in 'feminist chat'?

The victims were women and they were ignored by the police then the police treated them appallingly. Why wouldn’t a space dedicated to women’s rights be concerned about that?

The whole bad apple analogy is based on the fact that rot spreads and soon the whole barrel is rotten. I think this is widely misunderstood, forgotten or ignored.

I suppose it is possible that one or both of the selfie-taking officers is a woman, but I'd be very surprised and I'd immediately wonder whether she had always been a woman and been born, raised and socialised as a girl. It's not impossible but I think it's highly unlikely.

I also think two white women who went missing in similar circumstances would have been searched for more promptly and thoroughly and not left to be found by a loving concerned partner. How will he ever get over that, or even close his eyes to go to sleep at night? 😢

I understand that the victims' mother is an ordained priest in the Church of England and in post as an Archdeacon; the first black woman to hold that office here. If she couldn't get the police to take the out-of-character disappearance of her daughter's seriously, something is badly wrong.

But then you need to explain why in a city like London blacks get stopped far more often than statistics say is random

Might it have anything at all to do with high levels of gang violence and knife crime in certain communities?

My son and his friends have been stopped and searched numerous times when out late at night - if a crime has been reported in the area in which they are. And I frequently see cars being stopped and searched if police suspect they are being used to transport guns or drugs, or are complicit in organised crime.

Professor I have no idea how many police forces are corrupt by we see evidence of it in the failure to investigate/prosecute rapes, the failure to take harassment if women seriously, the ignoring of threats on social media, the ‘checking your thinking’, and so on.

You Seem to be saying it is wrong to judge on a sample of one but wish to do so as sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. I am saying if it is wrong then it is wrong on all accounts.

Just checked, Archdeacon Smallman retired in 2016. Interesting that she is titled Mrs rather than Rev or Ven(erable). You don't retire from priesthood even when you are no longer in post.

Might it have anything at all to do with high levels of gang violence and knife crime in certain communities?

Which all sounds nice, until you remember how many black people are stopped "on suspicion" which leads to fuck all. So you then go back to the "suspicion" and discover it really was "Because I am black".

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/15/man-sues-met-police-injuries-suffered-alleged-racist-arrest-tariq-stanley

“I was sitting in my car outside my home and I was watching a YouTube video. I had actually come outside to have a cigarette. I saw a police van pull up behind me. I thought nothing of this but then could see an officer approaching my car as other officers stood near the van. This officer came up to the driver-side window and asked me what I was doing. I explained that I lived here and pointed to my flat.”

He added: “This officer said he smelled cannabis and said he wanted to search me and the car. I was shocked by this as the accusation came out of nowhere. I do not smoke cannabis and therefore there is no way the officer could have smelled this. He also pointed to my car, a BMW, and said it was a nice car to be owned by someone like me."

Although I was shocked by this I told the officer he could search me and the car. I had nothing to hide so I got out and handed both my car and house keys to him. It was when I started to video record the incident with my phone that this officer tried to place handcuffs on my left wrist. He did this without warning or explanation.”

Stanley said another officer joined in the arrest and forced his forearm behind his back. He alleged that the two policemen snatched the phone off him to stop him filming the incident.

“They actually said that I should stop being aggressive but they were the ones doing all the aggression. As you can see and hear from the video, I kept offering to cooperate, telling them there was no need for handcuffs.”

Now I may not be a great scientist. But I am pretty certain you can only smell things that are there. Not things that aren't. So where did the "suspicion" come from ? Still at least they didn't use 7 bullet to remove his head, so maybe instead of whining he should actually pay them a bonus ?

One bad apple ? Or two:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-53097628

A nurse pulled over by police who drove in front of her in a "hard stop" operation, says she was targeted because of her race.

(contd)

anti-police narrative

Characterising any challenge or criticism as anti-police is how we end up with a police culture of abusing power with impunity.

You Seem to be saying it is wrong to judge on a sample of one but wish to do so as sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. I am saying if it is wrong then it is wrong on all accounts.

Actually, I am agreeing with you. But if you don't hold a mirror up to the police and tell it like it is, you are going nowhere.

I am old enough to recall Operation Countryman and the hundreds of bent coppers it flushed out (so you can guess as to how many were still left behind). And the fact that the team working on the operation were not based in London as their superiors genuinely feared they'd be victims of a hit.

I'm sure it's all different now (is what the parents of Stephen Lawrence were told 20 years ago).

No need to tell me how brave our police officers are - nor the strains and horrors that they endure. But let's always remember they aren't conscripts.

With respect, the title of the post was
'PCs suspended over photos of murder scene'

.. with the OP "Men. They never disappoint"

The post was about the police (of unspecified gender) that took the photos, not about the murder it the murderer.

It's a shame as I want to embrace & educate myself further about feminism, but I don't think the feminist board is for me.