Rioting

Re rubber bullets killing...yep, accidents happen but exceptions don't make the rule. Why not publish a list of all the people ever shot who didn't die? I bet it's a far longer list. As for firing bullets into crowds of rioters...that's the point. If you're not out on the street rioting and looting how would you get shot, or run the risk of being shot with a rubber bullet and killed in the first place?

I know bouncers who've punched people who've died. I know cops who've arrested people who've died from positional asphyxiation. Should we not use bouncers and cops because sometimes arseholes on the receiving end of being controlled and/or restrained die as a result? Surely you can't be serious?

As for the police action being right...apparently not. Otherwise the rioting would not have spread to other cities. It spread because people witnessed scrotes walking out of stores with their arms full without any apparent consequences and decided they'd have some of that. I listened to an interview with several of them who said exactly that...i.e. "I figured I'd have me some of that....the worst thing I'd get is a bollocking from me mum and dad and I can deal with that" was the gist of the conversations recorded. When asked weren't they afraid of the police the resounding opinion was much laughter and cries of hell no...they can't do nuffink."

Nick

Nick Hughes wrote:Re rubber bullets killing...yep, accidents happen but exceptions don't make the rule.

never said that they were designed to kill, just that they do, often. However you stated that they do not kill, this was clearly incorrect - so I corrected you:-)

Nick Hughes wrote: If you're not out on the street rioting and looting how would you get shot, or run the risk of being shot with a rubber bullet and killed in the first place?

anyone on the street/in the area would (as you say) "run the risk of being shot with a rubber bullet and killed", anyone at all, from stupid little kids to hardened thugs - they dont have to be rioting or looting, just in the vicinity. Thankfully they were not used

Nick Hughes wrote:As for the police action being right...apparently not. Otherwise the rioting would not have spread to other cities. It spread because people witnessed scrotes walking out of stores with their arms full without any apparent consequences and decided they'd have some of that. I listened to an interview with several of them who said exactly that...i.e. "I figured I'd have me some of that....the worst thing I'd get is a bollocking from me mum and dad and I can deal with that" was the gist of the conversations recorded. When asked weren't they afraid of the police the resounding opinion was much laughter and cries of hell no...they can't do nuffink."

Nick

whether the Police tactics/actions were correct or not is open for debate I suppose, but to state they were wrong for the simple reason the riots spread to other locations is naive at best. The (relative) lack of injuries/deaths was pretty amazing I think considering the scale. Of course their actions may seem a bit low key to the macho gung-ho string em up brigade, and maybe too extreme for the liberal do-gooder types. I think it was about right personally. You obviously disagree, but you know what they say about opinions:-)

If the rioting starts up again in London, I will seriously have to think about reforming my mercenary band, The Extendables.

Imagine a roided up Mr Nobody, flexing at 100%, and Cartmelpete using his patented "Monkey steals peach" and "Viper strikes prostate" combo moves. Not to mention Nick firing "plastic" ie; "real", bullets from his spitfire.

Those rioters wouldn't know what had hit 'em.

Chris would also be on hand to (literally) "read them the Riot Act."

Actually...I was correcting you because you said..

rubber bullets etc is way over the top, people dont deserve to die just

which implies that people will die if hit with rubber bullets. As is proved by the evidence the likelihood of dying if hit by one is slim indeed.

anyone on the street/in the area would (as you say) "run the risk of being shot with a rubber bullet and killed", anyone at all, from stupid little kids to hardened thugs - they dont have to be rioting or looting, just in the vicinity. Thankfully they were not used

Nobody is suggesting shooting everyone...just the ones who refuse the lawful order to disperse or are seen burning cars, buildings, smashing windows and or coming out of said broken windows with their arms full of clobber.

Well, if the riots didn't spread as a result of the softly softly approach can you please offer up a suggestion as to why they might have. All the talking heads I've been listening to have been saying that's exactly why they spread. Certainly the scrotes in Manchester and Birmingham weren't out in sympathy due to someone in Brixton being shot by the cops. I also pointed out the kids themselves interviewed on the radio said they went for it when they saw that nobody was doing anything. Not sure about you but I don't think it gets much clearer than that when perpetrators themselves state they went for it because nobody was doing nuffink.

Nick

BN wrote:If the rioting starts up again in London, I will seriously have to think about reforming my mercenary band, The Extendables.

Imagine a roided up Mr Nobody, flexing at 100%, and Cartmelpete using his patented "Monkey steals peach" and "Viper strikes prostate" combo moves. Not to mention Nick firing "plastic" ie; "real", bullets from his spitfire.

Those rioters wouldn't know what had hit 'em.

Haha! Brilliant!

Although, if I was roided up I would still be an unimpressive sight.

Nick,

We as cops in NZ have discussed the riots, as I'm sure many cops around the globe have too, and we all agree with you and the points you make.

If good people i.e. store owners and other ordinary people affected by the rioters and looters behaviour, can't rely on the Police to "kick ass" when needed, what kind of support are you going to get from these people in the future?

I don't believe they should have been left to watch their livelihoods get destroyed by a bunch of thieving scum. You have to come down hard on these pricks because that's the only thing they understand and that's speaking from experience.

dont pople see the obvious ..

The deteriation in society, in respect in parental and authoritorial 'control' (PS Child 'control is NOT child abuse)..
the lack of fear of cosnequence etc etc bloody etc is OUR Fault .. society.

Society gets the criminals and citizens it both deserves AND produces

to all the advocates of the PC world, the 'go easy' on the poor criminals let me tell you in the strongest terms...

you have had THREE (3) decades to implement your ideals and IT AINT F*****G WORKED.

Jake331 wrote:I think by and large the Police tactics were spot on, all this talk of rubber bullets etc is way over the top, people dont deserve to die just because they were nicking stuff from a shop (or because they were standing near someone who did). There will be lots of arrests over the next few weeks Im sure, many will get their punishment soon - without the police killing or seriously injuring large numbers of people. Videos like the above showing police beating the crap out of suspects are exactly what they want to avoid

Jake thinks that the Police riot tactics where spot on, I wonder if he would think that if it was his house, car, shop or business that got looted and / or burnt to the ground. Or perhaps if he had been assaulted / robbed / burgled by same looters. Or perhaps if it was his brother, sister, mother, father who had been run over and murdered or assaulted and left on a life support machine by rioters. Hhmm, let me think, no I didnt think so

It's important to have both sides of any discussion. I DO take some interesting points from Jake's comments.

I do agree that you can possibly argue that police tactics have been a success. If you take into account that actual and potential damage to PEOPLE is prioritised above damage to property. You can reasonably argue that the small incidents of injury and harm to police, public, rioters and business owners is a result for the police force. In light of the numbers of rioters, the potential for serious violence to escalate was very real and I do see some success in the way the police forces have handled the situations.

Does that mean that there are better ways of dealing with these scrotes?? Very possibly. Does that mean that a harder and more robust police presence with water cannon and plastic bullets would have had a better result, possibly. We can only look at the events as they happened and what we have seen is a shed load of property damage and very little damage to human beings.

A decision was obviously made and that decision has resulted in very little physical harm compared to the potential for physical harm that was evident.

On the other hand, do I feel that rioters should have a kick in the arse and a punishing slap. Absolutely!!! That's not policing though, that's punishment. Policing is stopping, detaining and locking them up. Hard to do when there are so many people there are no cells left and so many people there aren't enough police officers in the whole country to safely arrest them all. The strategy becomes one of break 'em up, keep them moving, isolate them and send them home. Hopefully to be caught later but arresting them all was simply not on the table.

I understand that the police unit in Manchester caught on camera are now being investigated for the tactics they employed to see if they went beyond their operational remit. Interesting to see what comes of that investigation.

Police were obviously told, protect public safety but don't engage over a pair of adidas. There is no way of knowing what the police could have done in the small number of incidents where innocents have been physically assaulted by rioters. I do believe that there was no way any police officer would have stood back and not intervened in those cases, as always they can't be everywhere.

Dave wrote:
Jake thinks that the Police riot tactics where spot on, I wonder if he would think that if it was his house, car, shop or business that got looted and / or burnt to the ground. Or perhaps if he had been assaulted / robbed / burgled by same looters. Or perhaps if it was his brother, sister, mother, father who had been run over and murdered or assaulted and left on a life support machine by rioters. Hhmm, let me think, no I didnt think so

Hmmm I never considered that at all, how could I miss that patently obvious aspect when I was thinking about this - maybe we should forget about law and policy and simply take direction from property owners who have suffered damage in riots and are understandably furious, that would work out well

David Turton wrote:dont pople see the obvious ..

The deteriation in society, in respect in parental and authoritorial 'control' (PS Child 'control is NOT child abuse)..
the lack of fear of cosnequence etc etc bloody etc is OUR Fault .. society.

Society gets the criminals and citizens it both deserves AND produces

to all the advocates of the PC world, the 'go easy' on the poor criminals let me tell you in the strongest terms...

you have had THREE (3) decades to implement your ideals and IT AINT F*****G WORKED.

This is a good point, the majority of problems in society today stem from decades of social conditioning and cannot be fixed with a kneejerk "lets break a few heads" response, however populist and tempting that may be when people are understandably afraid, angry and upset - as to how to fix things? Well its easy to see something is broken, much harder to know how to fix it.

We've talked on this forum many times about how it seems the courts are more concerned with the rights of the criminals as opposed to the victims. I'm sure I don't need to mention how often we've talked about cases where criminals have sued homeowners, how homeowners have been charged for defending themselves in their houses etc.

Here we have it again. Let's not use rubber bullets or crack heads because a rioter may inadvertently die or get hurt.

Of course it's fine that 3 guys are dead in Birmingham, an old man is murdered, others have been violently assaulted and a slew of buildings have been burned to the ground.

Phew...at least none of the poor rioters were hurt. That's a relief.

Nick

When you deny or infringe upon the rights of others you should have your own rights denied or infringed upon without it coming as too much of a suprise. And if you don't like it......

Zak

Agree completely with Nick here.

An old man was beaten to death. Three men who were trying to protect their business were mown down by a car. But thank God none of the rioters was seriously hurt. Just imagine if the police had used plastic bullets, some of them may have been injured!

I mean, Christ! Can we get a grip here. It is decades of social conditioning that has caused this clusterfuck. But, we can quite clearly see that the "liberal" approach hasn't worked. If carrot isn't working, can we please start utilising the stick?

My family live in London, and I was shit scared for them at the height of all the bullshit that was going on. I could give a good, long, flying fuck WHY these tosspots felt the need to rampage through the streets as they did. A. Good.Long. Flying. Fuck.

I just see that something has to be done about the situation on very level. Starting with changing the way society "does business" with the self entitled arseholes who don't want to contribute anything positive towards the society they live.

We can also see that economic, and racial backgrounds have NOTHING to do with this. The tossers who participated in this mayhem are from a variety of socio-economic situations , and their racial provenance is varied. It's got nothing to do with "race" or "class" (God I hate that term), and everything to do with a particular type of mentality.

BN wrote:

An old man was beaten to death. Three men who were trying to protect their business were mown down by a car. But thank God none of the rioters was seriously hurt. Just imagine if the police had used plastic bullets, some of them may have been injured!

I mean, Christ! Can we get a grip here. It is decades of social conditioning that has caused this clusterfuck. But, we can quite clearly see that the "liberal" approach hasn't worked. If carrot isn't working, can we please start utilising the stick?

There is a big difference between a touchy feely "liberal" approach teaching the rioters to knit their own muesli - and a well thought out tactic to minimise total violence and increase safety.

Nick Hughes wrote:We've talked on this forum many times about how it seems the courts are more concerned with the rights of the criminals as opposed to the victims.

Here we have it again. Let's not use rubber bullets or crack heads because a rioter may inadvertently die or get hurt.

Of course it's fine that 3 guys are dead in Birmingham, an old man is murdered, others have been violently assaulted and a slew of buildings have been burned to the ground.

Phew...at least none of the poor rioters were hurt. That's a relief.

Nick

Nobody has suggested that people dying, getting hurt or having their shops burned to the ground is "fine", certainly not me. Strange that you would even suggest that.

This article throws some light on how the riot started.As I said earlier,the main instigators were the SWP.

http://westminsterjournal.com/?p=217

Looks like the initial critcisms and claims of a "softly, softly, lefty liberal" approach by the authorities are far from the truth


http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/aug/11/uk-riots-magistrates-court-list
People facing court charged with riot-related offences are overwhelmingly young, male and unemployed. Those who are found guilty are receiving prison sentences - or being passed onto higher courts for sentencing. Out of the 1.7m cases heard in magistrates courts last year, only 3.5% were remanded to jail. These figures from this week show a rate of 50-60%.

As of Friday morning, around 1,600 people have been arrested, with a huge amount remanded into custody and lots of stiff sentencing, including a 23-year-old student with no previous convictions was jailed for the maximum permitted six months after pleading guilty to stealing bottles of water, and four months for an 18-year-old man in Manchester for swearing at the police. Its too early to tell for sure whether this hands off approach was a complete success or not, but it looks like the sensationalist claims of "courts being more concerned with the rights of the criminals as opposed to the victims" are unfounded in this case. Interestingly, so far, not a single charge of rioting (which is apparently an offence in itself) yet.

Nobody has suggested that people dying, getting hurt or having their shops burned to the ground is "fine", certainly not me. Strange that you would even suggest that.

You did state that all the he-man macho posturing and talk of rubber bullets was over the top for a group of kids who were nicking stuff. I pointed out that it was far more than just nicking stuff we were talking about and went on to mention four murders (now five I believe), a bunch of assaults, and over 100 million dollars worth of burnt buildings and property.

And apologies if you felt the post was directed at only you...Chris also was pointing out one side of the coin when he said...

I do agree that you can possibly argue that police tactics have been a success. If you take into account that actual and potential damage to PEOPLE is prioritised above damage to property. You can reasonably argue that the small incidents of injury and harm to police, public, rioters and business owners is a result for the police force.

emphasis on bold mine.

I hardly consider five murders and a slew of assaults to be relatively small and it's all the innocent that have suffered those injuries. I'm not aware of a single rioter being hurt anywhere (except hopefully the one in Manchester that was crash tackled)

Nick

I'm going to assume that those who are quick to point fingers at the Police have never actually been a victim of crime themselves......that's certainly the case from what I've experienced.

You can have all the best intention, human rights, softly softly, offender rehabilitation approaches in the world.....but it all means naught when the person you're trying to help does not understand, care to understand or simply does not give a toss about your "goodwill" and will still stab you for your shoes.

Mr Nobody wrote:I'm going to assume that those who are quick to point fingers at the Police have never actually been a victim of crime themselves......that's certainly the case from what I've experienced.

You can have all the best intention, human rights, softly softly, offender rehabilitation approaches in the world.....but it all means naught when the person you're trying to help does not understand, care to understand or simply does not give a toss about your "goodwill" and will still stab you for your shoes.

I dont think there is any real anti-police sentiments in this thread - some think the police did the right thing , some dont. But we are just talking about the tactics in a specific situation here in which the Police heirarchy had an almost impossible call to make, damned if they do, damned if the dont. I wouldnt have liked to be the person who made that call. Its not a question of softly, softly approaches either, but simply a practical matter of whether or not the Police tactics resulted in less, or more harm overall.

Jake331 wrote:

Dave wrote:
Jake thinks that the Police riot tactics where spot on, I wonder if he would think that if it was his house, car, shop or business that got looted and / or burnt to the ground. Or perhaps if he had been assaulted / robbed / burgled by same looters. Or perhaps if it was his brother, sister, mother, father who had been run over and murdered or assaulted and left on a life support machine by rioters. Hhmm, let me think, no I didnt think so

Hmmm I never considered that at all, how could I miss that patently obvious aspect when I was thinking about this - maybe we should forget about law and policy and simply take direction from property owners who have suffered damage in riots and are understandably furious, that would work out well

Thats a strange way of looking at things isnt it, I mean taking into account the 'victims' point of view when dealing with punishment for a crime. Wow, Law and Policy surely wouldnt entertain something like that would they. Oh wait a minute I think someones beaten you to the punch, I think its called 'Restorative Justice' its already in use by a number of Police Forces for lesser crimes.

Be honest Jake if you were a victim in this riot would you be happy with the Police Tactics used? After all Police policy now is very much based on 'customer focus' ie the customer being the Victim of the crime.

Jake331 wrote:
There is a big difference between a touchy feely "liberal" approach teaching the rioters to knit their own muesli - and a well thought out tactic to minimise total violence and increase safety.

Do you really think for a second that, 'containing' and watching the looting was a "well thought out tactic"? I think it was a 'oh shit we haven't got enough Police to actually deal with and stop this, so were going to try and contain this whilst we try and get more police to come from other forces" approach. To me that was what Londons did, the other Cities such as Manchester had a much smaller amount of 'rioting' and they employed the 'contain and wait till it all dies down approach'.

A well thought out tactical approach, I think not. Not having the staff to deal with the job properly, whilst being to scared of being chastised by the media for using the force required to quell the incident, I think so.

Dave wrote:

Thats a strange way of looking at things isnt it, I mean taking into account the 'victims' point of view when dealing with punishment for a crime. Wow, Law and Policy surely wouldnt entertain something like that would they. Oh wait a minute I think someones beaten you to the punch, I think its called 'Restorative Justice' its already in use by a number of Police Forces for lesser crimes.

But we are not talking about "dealing with punishment for a crime", we are talking about tactics used during a riot - cant you understand the difference? The police dont punish people for crimes.

Dave wrote:Be honest Jake if you were a victim in this riot would you be happy with the Police Tactics used? After all Police policy now is very much based on 'customer focus' ie the customer being the Victim of the crime.

To be honest I have been the victim of petty crime a number of times and had I had the opportunity at the time, I would have felt like kicking the offender into a coma, however this would probably be judged excessive for (say) nicking my car stereo. The police actually asking the victims in the riot how they should handle the riot is possibly the most ludicrous suggestion ever. People (including me) are not very rational when scared and angry.

Dave wrote:

Do you really think for a second that, 'containing' and watching the looting was a "well thought out tactic"? I think it was a 'oh shit we haven't got enough Police to actually deal with and stop this, so were going to try and contain this whilst we try and get more police to come from other forces" approach. To me that was what Londons did, the other Cities such as Manchester had a much smaller amount of 'rioting' and they employed the 'contain and wait till it all dies down approach'.

A well thought out tactical approach, I think not. Not having the staff to deal with the job properly, whilst being to scared of being chastised by the media for using the force required to quell the incident, I think so.

It may be the case it was not a well thought approach in all cases, you may be right. But for now it seems as if there was a decision at a high level to use these tactics. Over time however, you may be proved right. Obviously we can only comment on the situation at the time.

Mr Nobody wrote:I'm going to assume that those who are quick to point fingers at the Police have never actually been a victim of crime themselves......that's certainly the case from what I've experienced.

You can have all the best intention, human rights, softly softly, offender rehabilitation approaches in the world.....but it all means naught when the person you're trying to help does not understand, care to understand or simply does not give a toss about your "goodwill" and will still stab you for your shoes.

I have been a victim of crime several times,shop burgled,car smashed up by "joy riders" and also an attempted mugging. Personally I have no confidence in or time for the British police. They are a weird mix of thug meets politcal correctness and it leads to the situation we ended up in last week.They certainly hand it out but its usually to the wrong people.

tonyk wrote:

Mr Nobody wrote:I'm going to assume that those who are quick to point fingers at the Police have never actually been a victim of crime themselves......that's certainly the case from what I've experienced.

You can have all the best intention, human rights, softly softly, offender rehabilitation approaches in the world.....but it all means naught when the person you're trying to help does not understand, care to understand or simply does not give a toss about your "goodwill" and will still stab you for your shoes.

I have been a victim of crime several times,shop burgled,car smashed up by "joy riders" and also an attempted mugging. Personally I have no confidence in or time for the British police. They are a weird mix of thug meets politcal correctness and it leads to the situation we ended up in last week.They certainly hand it out but its usually to the wrong people.

Over the years I have known a number of police officers fairly well (mainly socially, occasionally as a victim of petty crime and very occasionally as an alleged perpetrator of crime!). While I have certainly encountered those who meet your criteria as "thug meets political correctness" (great description!) others have been great guys. So pretty much like any other cross section of society really, some complete tossers, some great guys, most somewhere inbetween. However an arsehole police officer can cause much more distress than an arsehole street cleaner or typist, so they make a much bigger impression upon society, which may have happened in your case?