Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
JUST PLAIN ANGRY
When I was working in politics I was given the instruction NEVER, EVER to criticise the police. They are ALWAYS doing a fine job. They are ALWAYS marvellous ...etc, etc, etc.
Well I'm not in politics now and I can tell you that although there are undoubtedly a lot of really worthwhile and socially concerned people amongst their number, for whatever reasons—laziness, being ground down by the system, hamstrung by various interest groups or procedure, personal idiocy or simple timeserving boredom--the police are demonstrably NOT doing a fine job; they are NOT always marvellous and they have become so blasé about what they regard as 'petty' crime and so unwilling to put themselves into difficult situations when it is much easier to concentrate on relatively unthreatening victims instead (remember our discussion on this site about that poor chap who found himself surrounded by a squad when he left his car running), that it is hardly a surprise that they ducked out of going for the hoodies with bricks and allowed the shops along Lordship Lane to go up in flames while they concentrated on the administrative aftermath of a gunfight.
There is no such thing as 'petty' crime. All break-ins, shoplifting, garden robberies and bicycle thefts strike at the heart of our society and our social system and any cohesion we might pretend we have.
Neither our "the police are marvellous" politicians, nor our "just look how concerned we are, let's fill out an incident report" officers of the law seem to be aware of this and the most depressing thing is that once the fuss and bother has died down, they will all snap back to default position, leaving the good people of Haringey --and Manchester and Birmingham and wherever else-- to shift as best they can.
Lydia
Tags for Forum Posts: london troubles
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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The police do have serious questions to answer over their shooting of gang member and "crack cocaine dealer" Duggan. And they will answer.
But I think that by and large the police are doing the best they can in all the circumstances.
It is hard for them to get the balance right: go in too hard and they get accused of brutality; go in too soft and ... well we've seen the result.
I would prefer they err on the side of too tough because the risks of the softly softly approach are just too great. They're what we've seen over the last four days: deaths, injuries and £100,000,000 of losses. Much of these losses will be insured, but no one should imagine it won't touch them: who pays for increases in insured losses in the long run?
The Met have possibly been lacking direction due to the resignations of their two most senior officers over phone hacking; this comes on top of years of being responsible to a bankrupt politically correct agenda that has hamstrung their effectiveness. The law must be implemented equally, without fear or favour, or it will (has) come into disrepute. The PC idiocy must surely end now; I favour the zero-tolerance approach that another contributor mentioned. This should be policy; it won't fix things overnight or even over a year. But if it's applied consistently over a long period, we shouldn't expect a recurrence of these scenes.
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Permalink Reply by pamish on
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Saturday night at Ferry Lane, the police were simply overwhelmed by numbers. The 200 or so cops that were available were in the High Road, defending the police station (command HQ presumably) and trying to get the fire engines through to the fires up the road. There were enough stone-throwers to keep them busy. Every police, fire or ambulance that went past the youth was pelted with rocks. Three police cars had been set alight, the occupants fortunately escaped.
Meanwhile word was out that Tottenham Hale and Wood Green were ripe for picking. It didnt take long for dozens of cars to turn up and to be stuffed with TVs and laptops and similar essential foodstuffs. I watched it happening.
If any police cars or vans had arrived they would have been torched. The only way to have stopped it would have been to send in about 50 vans full, or a tank. I got home at 4am and called 999 to check they knew. It took ten minutes to get through. They said they could do nothing as they had no resources left. In a choice between life and property, there is no choice. I am told that policy now when outnumbered like this, is to let the stealing happen and rely on cctv to pick up the perps later.
Tell me, what would you have done? I have no particular brief for the police but I can count.
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Permalink Reply by Lydia R on
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The point is not that they were overwhelmed on this particular occasion but that it is by now well known that the Police do not respond to reports of robberies in progress. It was therefore reasonable for criminals to assume that they had the opportunity and indeed they were right. If the police were quicker off the mark on other occasions some of those guys would not have been in a position to get out on the street and others would have thought twice. If there had been any looting there would have been a less spectacular show. Some time ago I was told by a chap who lives in Tottenham that he watched a thief breaking into a house across the road and hauling the TV and other consumables out of the smashed window and loading them into a wheelbarrow. He rang the cops and a CSO turned up two days later to get a witness report from him.
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Permalink Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE) on
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Now that Lydia is no longer working in politics, don't we all agree that she should apply for a vacancy as PCSO, or even Force Commander, in Tottenham?
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I am sure there will be a vacancy in the Commanders office very soon. I wonder if the canteen culture at Tottenham Police Station allowed for the respect of Mark Duggan's family would the riots have kicked off. The demonstration at the Station was the Commanders "Police Academy" moment.
Farcical but far from funny!
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Thanks for the suggestion about a new job as a Top Cop, O-A-E but as I told you before, I am out of politics.
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Oh too bad, L. I'm sure there's a crying need for some more mature PCSOs, though.
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Maybe not the ones that suddenly fetch up as the Wicked Witch of the West, though.
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Permalink Reply by Paul Harvey on
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Wicked,no... Ill informed, yes. Bad time to bash a bobby, have a go at the politicians squeezing resources, that's what dictates policing priorities.. Bobbys generally tend to follow orders and do the best with what they've got..... This city of ours would be in a far worse state if it weren't for the bravery of beleagured bobbies trying to restore and maintain law and order Lydia.
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Lydia - thanks for your 'constructive' appraisal of the police. I am a Haringey resident and my husband is a police officer. He has worked three 14 hour shifts in the last three days. He has been told that he will continue to work 12 hour shifts for the foreseeable future and is likely not going to be able to come on his family holiday. As for 'not being willing to put himself in difficult situations', do you have any idea what a police officer is faced with in the course of a normal working day? You probably wouldn't believe me if I told you how many injuries he has suffered in the past 12 months or some of the situations he has dealt with.
As if on cue, he has just phoned me to say that he hopes to be home by 11pm (he started work at 6.30am) and then is working tomorrow morning at 4.30am.
Please think hard before you start typing your ill-informed rants on public forums. You may think that you are a 'good person of Haringey...if I were you I'd reassess.
Louisa
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