Ok, so usually the police get to sit back, try to do their job, avoid becoming bogged down in controversy and paperwork..
And by and large MOST of the police in the UK do... and we do our jobs very well as well.
And just when everything is looking alright with the world of policing and the public start to gain confidence in us actually getting things done again it all just turns completely to shit due to some complete ass in the MET.
Why is it that it always seems to be someone in the MET?
A PC driving a Response Vehicle who had just been trained to do so goes out and kills an innocent member of the public because he's driving like a complete lunatic!
Does the MET not check people out during the recruitment process to ascertain if they are suitable for the job they are doing? I thought this was why it took 9 - 12 months to get through the recruitment process!!! Do they not monitor new PC's or new Response Drivers? Does no one ever seem to have to be accountable in the MET until someone dies?
Sorry, I don't have the full story of this incident other than whats in the above linked article. I don't know the PC involved, or indeed anyone who works with him (unless one of my friends in the MET does know him, but I'm not aware of that), and I don't know the family of the lady who sadly had to die to bring this to the publics attention.. But what I do know is that one tosser doing something like this puts ALL OF US in a bad light and when I in the very rural Southernshire County manage to get asked if I'd killed any Grandmothers with my Response car I find it absolutely bloody astounding, shocking, and alarming.
FFS. How many people have to die because of someone who should NEVER have gotten through the recruitment process doing something absolutely bloody stupid.
/end rant for today.
PS. Sorry for the absence of posts recently. I've been a little busy at home..
BASED ON COMMENTS:
Ok, let me clarify.. I know that not every idiot police officer who does something wrong is from the MET. I know that my farce like every other one out there has it's fair share of them... But damn... it seems to be the MET at the top of the news polls every 3 or 4 weeks. It's a shame, but I know that's cos there are 35,000 officers, it's the biggest so it'll have the biggest proportion of screw ups... Its part of the territory for having the largest force in the country - or the equivalent of say 7 - 10 larger County forces all in one small space...
NO, I'm not bagging the MET itself or trying to generalise but is it possible that because they recruit so many people they aren't checking them all out properly, or perhaps not watching what they do properly??? I dunno, it might be that it's impossible to do that in such a large organisation so occasionally some unstable idiot slips through (point in case - that undercover reporter..)
I just felt that I had to vent because in my backwards neck of the woods I got asked by a MoP if I had killed any grannies lately whilst blue lighting to the nick to have a cup of tea.. and that annoyed me because as someone in the MET had done it every other Police Officer in the country got tarred with that big wide brush by the public...
I am also adult enough to realise that 99% of Police in the UK are all damned fine officers who go out every day and who do their level best to carry out the office of Constable putting their lives on the line in order to carry out their duties... but because I get generalised I thought I'd see how it worked the other way, and I get some great reactions by doing that..............
By the way, I do value the comments that are given back because it's nice to hear what others think.
No, I am not anti-MET.. I may just end up there some day soon.. and I know some very, very fine MET officers who love what they do and they do it very well... but that force just seem to be the ones in the media constantly.... when will WE the POLICE do something Positive in the media instead of letting the media slaughter us??? I think it's about time that we had some positive media coverage for once... the media coverage that shows us doing something GOOD, something BRILLIANT, saving lives, stopping criminals, putting bad people in prison, foiling big, nasty crimes... but no, that's just not going to happen is it? It's only when something exceptional happens that it hits the media.. and no one remembers the good things we do, only the bad.
THE DEADLY CONSEQUENCES OF 'GAMING' AND FAILED REGULATION
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My thanks go to Dr Rodger Patrick, renowned expert on crime statistics, and
the noble The Earl of Lytton for his recent speech to the Committee on
Stand...
9 years ago
Aren't you rather tarring the 30,000 officers of the Met with the same brush? It is a shame that there are some cocks still floating about in the police, but I bet they aren't unique to the Met. I share you anger and anguish, but I don't think you can blame the organisation for the fact that this idiot was stupid enough to think it was OK to run errands at 100 mph.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant generalisation there Southern, it just makes you look like every idiot I meet on the street who thinks 'all feds is racist innit' Not every failure of the police service is down to the Met and Ii'd bet if you fancied volunteering your force I could find a proportionate amount of fould ups. Dedicating a whole post essentially to slagging off another force is essentially a cunts trick, thanks very much for putting this out onto the internet.
ReplyDeleteGuys, I've added more to the post based on your very valid comments.
ReplyDeleteI don't mean to tar the entire establishment however my rant is based ((and it was pointed out clearly in the original post in the last paragraph)) on the fact that even in my backwards rural area I got tarred based on something that happened in the MET.. it's all in the subtle nuances.. I've spelled it out a little plainer in the additional bit at the bottom.
What I was essentially saying is "Why is it that when something happens in the MET it ends up as National Media and then suddenly the public start barking up the tree of tarring us all..."
THAT is what I'm getting at... all because of ONE idiot we get tarred with that big wide brush.
NOT because the MET are a bad organisation because I know they are not, they are definitely one of the finest police forces on the planet, I know that logistically it is probably IMPOSSIBLE to stop every idiot, but sadly they get in and we all get it when they do something like this.
Sorry, perhaps my original post was badly structured, I was a bit pissed at the comment made to me while I was at work and came back and made the post so I probably wasn't in a good frame of mind...
I apologise if anyone took my post in the wrong way......
Stats. There's always a small percentage of police officers who have beaten the system and probably shouldn't have been recruited, for any number of reasons. This is probably a very small percentage. But a very small percentage of 30,000 officers is always a bigger number than a very small percentage of a force of 800 (Dyfed-Powys for example). QED, there will always, statistically, be more problem officers in the Met. The other thing I learnt is that, to most unthinking people, a copper in London is a copper in Biggleswade/Plucksgutter/Melton Mowbray/wherever. Live with it and file it or expect a life full of bitterness.
ReplyDeleteActually that's brilliant advice Hogday, sometimes I let this stuff get to me too much, probably because I care about what I do. I need to be like the duck with the water running off it's back I think.
ReplyDeletePCBaL: Bin there, but by the grace of whatever managed to retain my optimism by always looking for the best in people (always amazed and delighted when I occasionally found it!) One of the few benefits of being a dinosaur plod is having less things to learn about the hard way.
ReplyDelete1: Media could not survive without bad news.
ReplyDelete2: 1000 ATA boys always get squashed by one Oh shite.
3: getting positive bio feed back is necessary requirement to remain healthy.
4: One bad apple in a bushel of apples always turns the rest bad unless immediately fished out and dumped to be recycled as fodder for the future apples.
You will survive this mess of living by knowing that there is always a better tomorrow and as you are one of the good guys you will survive.
I know police officers (Met ones at that) whose daily duties have included actually saving lives. The media will not cover these success stories as they and some other groups would say it is part of the job for police, which to some extent is true as the Met's slogan of 'working for a safer London' suggests lives do need to be saved. However, I strongly believe that a lot of actions taken by police officers do go way beyond their duty and are heroic.
ReplyDeleteEvery job has it's idiots who make mistakes, accidentally and deliberately. Unfortunately, being in a dangerous job means the mistakes made can be on a much more serious scale. I agree that if someone is in a high risk job they should be more considerate of their actions but that goes to show the extent of Searles careless stupidity.
Now I completely agree that Searles is nothing short of irresponsible, who abused his duty as an officer to the Queen. He was rightly sacked and should face imprisonment. But unfortunately as a media rule, the employer as a whole will be scrutinised. To be fair, it is the same with pretty much all 'employee done wrong' stories in the media.
What you also have to deal with is the people whose opinions are based solely through the text of a cleverly criticising news reporter. The lady's death is an extremely, terribly tragic consequence of Searles' actions, but if memory serves me well this event is the first of it's kind. My sympathies are with the family of course, but what I know of the work done by other police officers means it will be a very long time before I start questioning their motives and the choices made by the recruitment department in the Met.
To be fair if trainee Searles admitted he would happily drive a friend around at 100mph to deliver a birthday card I'm sure the recruitment officers would not need to think twice about not selecting him. If we had the ability of seeing what future fuck-ups someone is capable of, we would be able to stop criminals all together.
So I understand your anger at those who are able to be easily manipulated into thinking all police officers are crazy, speed freaks without a care in the world. But maybe you should consider changing your post completely if you don't mean to complain about the Met because at the moment it clearly displays resentment towards the force and I think that is unfair. This is how the media wants you to respond.
You may work from a different force but you are a police officer at the end of the day, the same as all other police officers across the country. You should not strike at a particular organisation as a whole, it is the individual who deserves your malcontentment.