It doesn’t happen here, does it ?
One thing I’ve learnt from life is that while it’s commonly accepted from people with similar political views to myself that the Police are commonly perceived as the enemy, the police in Nottingham, on the whole, are pretty decent.
Watching the Police methods in London a few months back harked back to a more aggressive police approach more in common to the miners dispute & the riots of the 80’s, but in 2009 it happens down there, well away from Nottingham, by meat-head coppers publicly out for a fight. Doesn’t it ?
However, this little incident over the weekend could make me question this outlook. See the video here, and discuss further here.
Clearly the video doesn’t show the whole story, doesn’t show why the, ahem, victim is lying on the floor, doesn’t show what he’s done to get the attention of the police in the first place, but how bad does it have to be for him to get tasered, not once but then again while seemingly incapacitated on the ground ? Let’s not forget that the use of a taser, a potentially deadly weapon, is the last resort before getting the hand guns out. Then after his second shocking, what seems to be one policeman punching the prone victim several times. Is he trying to free his hands for the addition of handcuffs or simply harking back to a time when it was acceptable to give innocent people a bit of a slap. Yet this is clearly so far beyond the fabled days of yore when it was acceptable to ‘give ‘em a clip round the ear’ and ‘send the scamps on their way’. What next, “Shall I shoot him again, Sarge, he’s still twitching ?”
The police reaction supports this angle, “Nottinghamshire Police's Professional Standards Department have obtained footage of the end sequence of an incident”, note the use of the word ‘end’, they clearly want you to know that they know more about this than the general public, and further “Police attended and an officer was assaulted, requiring hospital treatment”. This is clearly factually correct, but omits whether the arrestee needed hospital treatment as well and smacks of getting their verbal & legal retaliation in first.
I have a lot of sympathy for the police on the streets of any major city on a busy evening, some of the morons bouncing around Nottingham, as any city, on a weekend evening, p***ed up, coked up, f***ed up and looking for a fight. And we expect a small band of police to stand up to this week in week out.
However, had this bloke been with anyone in the large crowd of people at the back of the video it’s not a huge stretch of the imagination to have seen this incident spiral out of control not on the actions of a lone prone p**s-head incapacitated on the floor, but from the actions of someone who should have known, and has been trained, to perform a hell of a lot better.
Watching the Police methods in London a few months back harked back to a more aggressive police approach more in common to the miners dispute & the riots of the 80’s, but in 2009 it happens down there, well away from Nottingham, by meat-head coppers publicly out for a fight. Doesn’t it ?
However, this little incident over the weekend could make me question this outlook. See the video here, and discuss further here.
Clearly the video doesn’t show the whole story, doesn’t show why the, ahem, victim is lying on the floor, doesn’t show what he’s done to get the attention of the police in the first place, but how bad does it have to be for him to get tasered, not once but then again while seemingly incapacitated on the ground ? Let’s not forget that the use of a taser, a potentially deadly weapon, is the last resort before getting the hand guns out. Then after his second shocking, what seems to be one policeman punching the prone victim several times. Is he trying to free his hands for the addition of handcuffs or simply harking back to a time when it was acceptable to give innocent people a bit of a slap. Yet this is clearly so far beyond the fabled days of yore when it was acceptable to ‘give ‘em a clip round the ear’ and ‘send the scamps on their way’. What next, “Shall I shoot him again, Sarge, he’s still twitching ?”
The police reaction supports this angle, “Nottinghamshire Police's Professional Standards Department have obtained footage of the end sequence of an incident”, note the use of the word ‘end’, they clearly want you to know that they know more about this than the general public, and further “Police attended and an officer was assaulted, requiring hospital treatment”. This is clearly factually correct, but omits whether the arrestee needed hospital treatment as well and smacks of getting their verbal & legal retaliation in first.
I have a lot of sympathy for the police on the streets of any major city on a busy evening, some of the morons bouncing around Nottingham, as any city, on a weekend evening, p***ed up, coked up, f***ed up and looking for a fight. And we expect a small band of police to stand up to this week in week out.
However, had this bloke been with anyone in the large crowd of people at the back of the video it’s not a huge stretch of the imagination to have seen this incident spiral out of control not on the actions of a lone prone p**s-head incapacitated on the floor, but from the actions of someone who should have known, and has been trained, to perform a hell of a lot better.
posted by Lucky Col at
3:58 PM
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