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‘I have a lot of respect for my former Met Police colleagues. I spent just under 15 years (on-and-off) on a 999 Response Team in one of the busiest inner-London Boroughs (Hackney).
People carrying knives because, in part, they want to demand respect (instead of earning it) is nothing new. These individuals do not care about the harm they are doing. They do not care what the Met Police boss or London Mayor says.
They do not care what anyone thinks or says about their carrying (and using) a knife. All they care about, is getting cash and being their local neighbourhoods ‘scar face’ character.
I genuinely cannot remember the number of stabbings that my colleagues and I attended during my time in the Met Police. Teenagers would see fit to stab each other because they happened to live in a different postcode. Or because to stab someone meant that you gained access to a gang of two-bit street drug dealers.
When I was in the Force though, we had a Commissioner that was not happy to be used as a political pawn.
We would ALWAYS carry out stop-and-searches based on intelligence. When you hear certain individuals telling you that the Police ‘stop and search’ people because of the colour of their skin, then the individual trying to convince you of this is either:
- someone who has never carried out a stop and search
- someone who was in the Met Police, but has now left and is now bitter-and-twisted and wants to push their own agenda (I left due to an injury)
- a civilian reporter hoping for a bit of sensationalism
- someone who has been the subject of a stop and search, and has made their mind up as to why you may have stopped them (mind reading is rife nowadays)
- someone who saw a stop and search being carried out, and just ‘knows’ that the Police only stopped the individual because of the colour of their skin.
The fact is, that if during a pre-shift briefing we get information that on the previous night, individuals wearing red hooded tops (as an example) were responsible for a spike in reported violence in a particular area then, guess what; if you are wearing a red hooded top in the same area, then there is a chance that you might be stopped and then searched (depending on your demeanour when stopped and loads of other factors which only Police Officers who have served on the FRONT LINE will truly understand).
EVERYONE who has pursued a public agenda of trying to convince the general public that stop and search is racially motivated must now take some responsibility for the current state of the crime epidemic in London.
These individuals have created a climate where the Police are not able to do their job, because EVERY time they stop and search someone, not only do they have to worry about being turned into an unwilling YouTube ‘star’ by someone who thinks that their ‘viral’ video will earn them thousands of pounds (even though most videos on YouTube earn their publishers around 0.0002p PER VIEW), but they also have to worry about some self-serving paralegal hoping to sue the Met Police so that their “client” can buy £15,000 worth of trainers.
Yesterday, I saw Cressida Dick tell the world that she, as the Met Police Commissioner, has enough resources………. Having heard her say this, I just felt disappointed. Disappointed that the leader of the Met has been wooed by her Political point-scoring Masters.
The Met Police is at breaking point.
I have four members of my family who are still in the Met Police. They remind me during our family meals, that morale is at rock bottom. That Police Officers permanently face the prospect of a 3-year IOPC investigation for looking at someone in the wrong way.
There are not ‘extra’ officers on the streets.
There are, instead, Officers on the streets who have been ordered to work on their much-needed days off. Thats not ‘extra’. That recycled.
And these Officers are working against the backdrop of a civilian media who scold them for having a break. They are working with a general public, the majority of whom unfortunately end up believing the self-serving self-styled ‘public figures’ who have the ear of some ‘sections’ of the press.
And yet, these same people are now wondering why young lives are being taken from their families. The hypocrisy of these people is shameful.
Politics MUST be taken out of the Police.
The only people who understand the problems being faced by the Police in the execution of their duty, are the Police Officers who are on the ThinBlueLine – the front line.
The ‘yes’ men and women in some parts of senior management seem to care more about appeasing their Political point-scoring masters rather than doing the job they signed up to do.
To my former colleagues still manning the Thin Blue Line:
YOU have my utmost respect. Ignore the small sections of they in the public eye who are trying to gain self-serving publicity.
Ignore the jumped up ‘news’ stories about how scandalous it is that you DARED to take a break after telling an entire family that their loved one has been murdered on the streets of London owing, in part, to the fact that the Police have been treated like a political football’.
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I remember t May cut the force when she took over and some years later started to re employ existing redundant officers that would return
The above is all true but aggravated by cuts to the very unit set up to tackle this problem ,Trident and Trident central gangs . These units were bespoke street gang crime fighting units, but budget cuts within the Met have meant cuts in numbers whole teams being lost .This along with cuts to vehicle and equipment budgets have all but neutralised their effect . The Met has failed to fund operations against these gangs with dramatic cuts and reorganisations of SCO 10 and 11 again dramatically reducing budgets and staffing levels .The managing of budgets by rank hungry senior teams who to often have nothing but self interest in mind , mixed in with attacks from the Home Secretary IPCC local politicians clamering for votes and a lack of back bone at the very top of the Met mean things will not improve soon . And all this for a wage most now laugh at ,and a pension lengthed until your in your 60s . Good luck to all that remain your still the best in the world , but I don’t think this will be solved overnight . I predict a new commissioner before the end of the year and much more death and violence I’m afraid .
Thanks for the Police Force.
Thanks for the Police Force.
Very well said/written. I just wish that a Chief Officer would publicly repeat and endorse what you have said. Until that happens, they challenge May and her government and they stop thinking about their own careers, possibly a post Police political career, then not much is going to change.
I am a proud former ‘Life on Mars joined in 73’ officer who recalls regularly stopping and searching the local youth of Toxteth and Wavertree in Liverpool. Both whites and blacks and even then we would search more white youths than black youths. In those days it was more stop,and search for car keys or screwdrivers – thevtools to steal cars before they became keyless as in many cases these days. We never had complaints – racial or otherwise. We had a grudging respect from the ‘scallies’ that they knew they were not going to be left alone so made sure that they didn’t do it again.
I noticed the rot setting in as a direct result of the riots in Brixton and Toxteth and othe Afro Caribbean areas of large cities when there was a major swing to supporting those ethnic groups who had caused rioting, and less support for policing. Of course things need to be constantly changed and modernised and to have continuous professional development – but this was done without seeing the bigger picture. There was no balanced reasoning. In Liverpool the local labour council even exerted pressure on the Merseyside police, as did other liberal groups, to take the Police land rovers off the streets and put bobbies in little panda cars to remove what was perceived as aggressive policing. Well guess what? It did actually work! Whenever a gang gathered on the street corner and they saw the LanRover coming – full,of bobbies, they would scatter. ASBO type behaviour disappeared in an instant.
The landrovers served a great purpose prior to and during the riots but were classed as too hostile policing (complaints by the drug dealer barons of Toxteth who seemed to get the ear of certain councillors and actually objected to being stopped and searched generally policed)
and so little Minis with big 6′ plus bobbies were seen driving around like Noddy and Big Ears.
We became a total joke and the respect began to fritter away over the ensuing years when politicians continued to meddle as a result of ‘community demands’ and also their own hidden agendas, and put more pressure on traditional policing methods to the extent we now have the proverbial Mickey Mouse ‘service’ not ‘force’ which is another example of trying to placate the snowflake society who might be offended by the word ‘force’.
To make officers continuously work longer hours without overtime or other compensation is an absolute disgrace. The PCSO plan brought in by the Blair regime was another smack in the eye for professional police officers who saw their status being eroded down to what is now no more than the level of a litter wardens level of standing in the community.
To the police force I loved and enjoyed the best days of my life in may you RIP.
I’m afraid that this article will not help. The article does not talk about working with the community to resolve problems. As I posted elsewhere, it was the regular wanderings of a community support officer which ended in the arrest of drug dealer in our street. When she left, no-one has replaced her. Prevention at an early stage is far more effective than arrest when things have gone too far- this is not to support stop and search but to promote better relationships. If the writer represents the views of the majority of the police, then I think that is part of the problem. There is absolutely no doubt that some years ago, stop and search was unfairly used to target black youths (is he suggesting that all black youths look the same?) It is also the case that if you are white and middle class you get lighter sentencing if, when, you do go to court.