wow…
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/salford-anti-fracking-protester-sue-greater-6676499
That is really terrible, that a police officer can lie about such things on camera. I’m going to keep my eye on this report to see how the complaint is dealt with.
Crikey - all these bad apples are turning into a f*cking orchard . . .
Colleague’s husband was pulled in years ago whilst out driving late one night. They tried to fit him (respectable guy, banker (contradiction I know)) up for drink driving, but when he was having none of it, they tried to ticket him for driving with a broken tail-light. He told them his lights were not broken and one of them went round to the back of his car and smashed a light with his truncheon. Fortunately a woman who was driving past witnessed this and drove straight to the police station to make a complaint against the officers involved. Never asked the outcome of it, but needless to say he didn’t accept any ticket for a broken tail-light 
Too many bad apples in the police these days which is a shame as the vast majority are decent officers. Shoulder mounted cameras are a good idea.
There’s way, way fewer than there used to be…
what I am really confused about is he knew he was being filmed???
Based on what Pat? Based on the police who lied through their teeth about the circumstances of De Menzes death? Or who lied to the press / Ipcc about Duggan shooting first? Or who stood and watched Thomlinson being assaulted / killed - and did nothing to intervene? Who then didn’t report or surpressed the fact that he was assaulted? Or who lied about hearing Mitchell call someone a pleb?
Police killing people, lieing about it, covering up their actions…what exactly has changed since they killed 96 fans 25 years ago?
btw - You know yesterday. the home secretary refused in Parliament to deny that the Met Police had been bugging and opening mail on members of the HFSG? Or that the HJC shop was burgled a while back…
IF (and I am not saying things are not better) - they are better - there is still an awful long way to go before we properly deal with police officers who drop below the standards expected - actually being dealt with. The IPCC are staffed by police / ex police. What do we expect?
- 1 for the mounted cameras. They will both protect the police from malicious allegations - and the public from malicious police.
(so long as the police don’t get to edit the footage before it goes in front of a jury)
when i was attacked in the bus from a bus driver, TFL said ‘sorry but the camera malfunctioned we couldnt get any footage of your incident’.
just saying.
Course it won’t solve all problems - and no doubt a dodgy copper who did something dodgy - could/would soon “lose” the footage…
But I do think think it should be welcomed.
If some policemen thought that they could stitch up someone at the top of the establishment pyramid like Mitchell - the chief whip of the Conservative government for crying out loud :w00t: - then the rest of us are clearly f*cked.
Mitchell said himself - if they would do this to me “What chance would a kid in Brixton have?” .
Mitchell case is still unresolved - about 1/2 dozen police still under investigation for their part. The copper who said he called him a pleb - is not under any investigation - though a civil case should (in theory) prove which one of them is lying.
But yeah…
Worse for me than the Mitchell case - is the Met Police spying on the family of Stephen Lawrence. Shameful - and someone requested / ordered it and someone approved it. These people remain unidentified and seemingly above the law for their unlawful actions.
Yeah - the spying on the Lawrence’s in order to discredit them was vile (by leaking any compromising info gained to their mates in the Murdoch press who would have run a smear story) - as was the deep infiltration of environmental groups.
Any democracy which does not hold it’s security forces to the highest scrutiny does so at it’s peril.
What gets me though, is we seem to have a (relatively) free investigative press - who highlight some of the worst excesses of the police / security services - yet once these are exposed - we seem totally inept / unwilling to / unable to hold individuals to account for their actions. I sometimes think I’d rather not know what these guys get up to, than know - knowing that they got away with it and are above the law.
Yeah - what usually happens is the classic Whitehall diversionary tactic - they appoint an enquiry, this satisfies everyone that they are living in a functioning democracy, the enquiry then grinds on for months or even years, they finally publish a vague set of conclusions which blame procedural or institutional short comings which conveniently let’s senior officials off the hook, by which time the public have forgotten about it anyway.
+1
It’s a classic denial strategy that reminds me of the folks at Enron. Or the banking industry that constantly blames the few bad incidences on random occurrences…
Got another story about that one from when I did bus work… A colleague got into a confrontation with 2 guys one day. A passenger backed him up and told these 2 guys to get off the bus so that everyone could get where they wanted to go. The 2 guys beat the sh1t out of him, but when the cameras were ‘examined’, they worked fine before the incident, fine after the incident, but ‘malfunctioned’ for the 15 mins around the incident. The driver reckons it was because the 2 assailants were a couple of ‘faces’ and so neither the police nor the bus company wanted any future hassle. 