Last updated on October 31st, 2023 at 09:55 pm
Last updated on October 31st, 2023 at 09:55 pm
Reading Time: 2 minutesI have had enough. As many of you will know, I retired from the Met just a few days over 21 years ago. For the last 21 years I have defended the institution that is the Met, and the majority of the people in it, but times have changed.
I couldn’t really tell you how long ago it started, but in recent years we have seen a Police Service (should be Force) kneeling, dancing, singing and apologising to all and sundry.
For me, four recent events, 2 in this week alone, have tipped me over the edge, and I really don’t know how the lads and lasses of Policing find the energy and enthusiasm to go to work every day.
Feel free to add your own, but the 4 that immediately sprang to mind (in no particular order);
- The collision in South Wales where the car ended up in some trees, not found for many hours, and the Police were demonised for not finding it quickly enough, diverting attention away from the driver and onto the Police.
- The 2 lads killed on an e-bike or scooter, also in South Wales and the highly edited footage that appears to have gone unchallenged, and now the IOPC have announced that they are investigating the Police Van Driver for Dangerous Driving. All I can say about that is that I didn’t see any Dangerous Driving in any of the clips publicly shown, and yet again diverting the attention away from the unfortunate youths, and onto the Police Officers doing their job.
- The Met paying demonstrator/crisis actor Patsy Stevenson, and another, compensation for their treatment at the ‘vigil’ for Sarah Everard, who had tragically lost her life at the hands of a serving Police Officer. Looking back to similar Public Order events in the past, anybody behaving in a similar fashion would have been arrested, charged, convicted if the Courts agreed there was sufficient evidence and probably fined, no compensation payments there.
- Finally was the recent decision, after more than 3 years of investigation the 5 officers involved in the ‘Stop and Search’ of Bianca Williams will face a Disciplinary Hearing later this month for Gross Misconduct, again, just doing their job.
There are numerous other examples, please feel free to add your own in the Comments section.
I have total admiration for the boys and girls in blue who pluck up the stamina to go into work every day knowing that everything they do will be judged as wrong by somebody, and meanwhile the Senior Management (NOT Leadership) remain silent except for while they’re apologising. I most certainly don’t recognise the modern Police Service, I have had enough.
I feel your frustration Alan. Social media has acted like an accelerant on to the fire of hatered towards the police and the single biggest problem is that senior cops just won’t step forward and give their own cops their full backing.
Spineless ‘leadership’ and an ignorant inept government have replaced the paddles as the Police canoe heads for shit creek.