British Police

I fear that I must be serious now, a move away from homosexuality, rugby and Japanese movies for the time being to something more political. The police in Australia are awful; one of my earliest memories is watching NSW policemen crying as they were sent to jail for perjury and obstruction of justice, fearful of the powerful raping they were about to receive. Years on, they remain biased and unfair, but that is for another article. The following is a discussion of the British police, who are, in their own way, much worse. Before moving to the United Kingdom, I had an idealised view of an honest, obsequious police force which never fired on its own people, and always gave criminals the chance to run by yelling 'Stop! Police!' Bizarrely, this is not true. 

Instead it is a country where innocent people can be killed by the police, and no action is taken. For example, newspaper salesman Ian Tomlinson was innocently walking home, through a protest, and was pushed over from behind by some aggressive prick riot-policeman. He died from his injuries. Despite this happening in 2009, the trial is still ongoing; almost definitely it will lead to nothing but disciplinary action for the policeman. A policeman who is, by definition, a murderer. Even if the officer in question was to be punished as he should, a policeman with a police record would hardly be unique, recent reports show nearly a thousand officers still in employment despite having criminal records ranging from traffic violations to burglary, dishonesty and fraud.

  Ian Tomlinson is not the only person to have been killed by agents of the state. The most famous is probably Blair Peach, for whom no one was ever charged with the murder. More recently, the execution of Jean Charles de Menezes was the result of mistaken identity following administrative errors on a surveillance. Police agents mistook him for someone they were supposed to be spying on for potential terrorist reasons (itself a worrying notion). Jean Charles de Menezes headed to work and on his way was killed by police who believed him to be someone else. His family, after appeals and complaints, were awarded £100,000. This article tells that the Metropolitan Police Commissioner said "he was a totally innocent victim and in no way to blame for his untimely death." Great work guys, I really feel safe with you protecting us.

However, the police can do great work. Unfortunately for us, this seems to occur only when there is a risk of injury to the police themselves. During a largely peaceful protest in 2010 against a raise in university fees, and cuts to education, some enraged idiots took to the top of a building and launched stuff off it, nearly injuring two police people below. While they have struggled to recover CCTV footage of Ian Tomlinson being killed (the trial relied mainly on phone footage), they were quick as a greyhound finding the guy who lobbed a fire extinguisher [source]. I'm not saying that this extinguisher thrower doesn't deserve arrest, I just wish that it didn't require injury or peril to police themselves before they broke into action.

  Increasingly, protests are met with kettling, a controversial tactic where people are kept in one place for large amounts of time where they can be monitored. While people with legitimate concerns are treated like cattle, while the police themselves are happy to stand idly by while London, and then other cities, rioted in 2011. I thought that the point of the police was to protect and serve the people, not to intimidate those with opposing views? While on the subject, although there are numerous underlying political reasons for the riots themselves, the thing which sparked it all off was the death of Mark Duggan at the hands of the police. While he was a known drug offender, forensic tests showed that he was unarmed when he was killed. The subsequent treatment of his family and community helped to encourage the rioting and opportunisitc looting which took place after this, and which has allowed the press to sidestep the issue of police brutality into a more vehement argument against the undermesh of society.

Either way, the death of Mark Duggan was largely responsible for the initial disorder in London, while the lack of policing to this disturbance allowed rioters and looters to thrive, which soon spread to other cities, this has been recognised officially. 

Further evidence, such as an admittance of institutional racism in the police throughout the Stephen Lawrence trial, and an example of police  deliberately withholding evidence which may or may not have exonerated a man who had been in prison for 17 years, merely adds to the idea that the institution itself is corrupt and rotten. Furthermore, 333 people have died in police custody since 1998, while no police have ever been convicted. While drunken or medical attrition can be assumed for some of these, footage like this suggests that it is not all down to bad luck. In case you can't see, a drunken, violent man is tasered and then beaten. Tasering should be a last resort, when you are spasming you should be handcuffed and not be beaten. Four policemen is enough to arrest anyone. The lack of any police prosecution despite evidence against them is worrying also. It is little wonder that the murderous psychopath cop-killer Raoul Moat has become something of a cult hero.

Most worrying however, is that their power and influence is increasing as budget cuts mean that more and more of their work will be done by volunteer police people; the amount of stress on genuine police will increase. State-sanctioned use of weapons against protesters and rioters is exactly what the Western World has been condemning when done in the Middle East. It is the sign of a state which has its priorities wrong. Therefore, a concession that future riots will give the police blank canvas to use deadly force, namely water cannons and guns, is extremely worrying. The discretion being left to the police is, as been shown, not a recipe for success; and the government's tacit acceptance that more riots will be forthcoming suggests a disdain for the populace. We, the people,  have spent generations, fighting wars both political and military, in an effort to make the our rights heard and make the state accountable to us, now it appears that we have to be accountable to it.

In conclusion, I'm well aware that it is the minority making things look bad, and that it is a tough job which the majority do well, but I'm also well aware that you should know your rights, and don't blindly trust the police.

p.s. I have used the term 'policeman' instead of police person.Why? not only because most violence was committed by male officers, but I think that the battle for gender equality will not be won on gendered pronouns. If you disagree, I don't care.