Two videos caught my attention this week and they are both about policing. The first one is said to be of a massive operational failure by the Metropolitan Police. In this video (obtained from here) you can see what happens when officers who do not have sufficient physical presence turn up to deal with a situation that is or is likely to become violent. The backstory of this video is I believe one of an alleged thief who stole sweets from a shop. The Met send out two officers one male and one female. The female officer ended up being spun around by the alleged thief by her hair and the male officer just didn’t seem to be capable of either subduing the suspect or even defending his colleague. The alleged thief, who was only wearing one shoe, escaped.
Such officers are not sufficiently physically intimidating enough to carry out this sort of street policing work and although I concede that some female officers are built like brick shithouses, this one was not. I’m the very last person who would say that all police forces need are officers who are aggressive ‘meatlumps’ as I can quite understand that there are a lot of policing situations where brains not brawn are needed. But front line street policing probably needs people a bit more physically impressive than the two officers who turned out to arrest an alleged thief in the video below.
The second video is a short clip from an interview with the author and commentator Melanie Phillips. In this video she tries to explain why Britain’s policing systems and forces have utterly failed to carry out the sort of policing that the public requires them to do. She puts much of the failure down to the fact that the police have become politicised and no longer take their guidance from the public but from the politicians and the political classes. She also lays into the claim that police forces like the Met are ‘institutionally racist’ and instead claims that what ails the Met and other forces is institutional incompetence.
Watching this video made me cringe in shame as to the non-action of the male Police officer. I’ve been retired from a County force for almost 20 years, and found myself in similar situations several times, quite a few scary. Both Police officers are armed, with batons, and possibly a tazer, yet the male makes no attempt to use them. A snack on the wrist with the baton, which is basically a metal club, would immediately cause the offender to let go of the female (a broken wrist an acceptable possibility to prevent injury to a colleague). A smack on the thigh with that club would probably put him down on the ground. Cuffing one wrist and then using the pain from twisting the rigid bar cuffs, would provide compliance. Arrest made. The problem is that some, usually legal aided, defence brief would make accusations of Police over reaction. Not using “Home Office approved restraining holds” is the one most often used, by someone who has never experienced anything more dangerous than a paper cut. However, these two have brought shame and ridicule on their profession. Him through his ineffectiveness, and her through being vulnerable by having long, easy to grab hold of, hair. Back to training for both of them.
Made me cringe as well. Like you I believe that these two officers should go back to training but the problem isn’t just these two officers, it’s a recruiting and training system that picks the wrong people to be in uniform and trains them poorly.
Oh I agree, but let’s not forget that the perp appears to be a POC, so unless handled with kid gloves the incident will descend into allegation of Police racism, brutality etc.
So the question is, is she really worth the effort when so much more time would be taken up in defending the actions of the Police.
Not saying that that is the correct attitude, but M.Phillips is spot on as she so often is.