Don’t be!
[Gary from Weird Science] Everything’s co-ol![/Gary…blah blah blah]
Erm, According to the news last night, he wasn’t just lighting a cigarette, he was brandishing the (quite realistic) lighter/replica gun in a threatening manner.
And where does such ‘news’ come from. A Scotsman returning home whilst slightly inebriated and carrying a table leg which he was to repair was shot dead by the police. The initial news had him identified as an Irishman with a gun. It is only after the enquiry that it emerged that he was Scots and was not acting suspiciously; the police had misinterpreted the evidence and acted rashly. Similarly with the Sussex case; for weeks after the incident the news was full of information that he was a major drug dealer and that he was wanted for murder; it turned out that he was a low level dealer (own use and friends) and had * rescued* someone from a potentially violent sitauation for which he was later commended (although initially arrested following the affray. Most of the information following such incidents ‘belongs’ to the police, and only later (if at all) do the real facts emerge. Any early reports are suspect. As I said above, in the Brixton case, it has been implied on Channel 4 news that the man may have been shot in the back; I’ll wait for the results of the enquiry.
Back to the original post. Having relatively unarmed police has worked well. With the more frequent use of armed response units and individually trained armed personnel, there has been an escalation of usage of arms in lesser situations. The net effect is that more cases are being referred to the courts (especially now that the Police Complaints Authority is now more independent) and the net effect is that the historic public perception of the police as Peace Officers is declining and they are being seen more as Enforcers. This has been a trend over the past fifty years- a gradual change of public perception caused by both Police initiated and Socially caused events. This is evidenced by the increasing number of cases resulting in payment of damages by various police forces to people who they have wronged.
The police are in a social negotiated relationship with the public. This relationship has changed over the years. Fifty years ago the word of a police officer was always trusted in court; evidence of repeated and gross police use of ‘verballing’ (fitting up) and violence towards suspects (both of which led to the introduction of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act which has more strictly regulated the Police) have led to a major decline in public respect for the police. In court now, the police complain that there is a tendency for juries (not magistrates) doubt their evidence. Similar events have happened over institutinalized racism and sexism in the force (substantiated by a series of enquires) which has led to an increasing perception of all police as racist and sexist. A similar process is happening over high speed police chases; these were initially seen as useful and exciting and accepted by the public, but as repeated enquiries have shown such responses to be disproportionate and resulting too often in the death of innocents, police have come to be seen as poor drivers with macho attitudes towards driving. All of the above have led to a major decline in public perception of the police. Te police themselves, it might be noted, have been instrumental in this by their reaction to criticism- always denying any wrongdoing until the last possible moment. I would argue that we are seeing a similar reaction over the more frequent use of firearms; if this continues, then police will increasingly be seen as users of violence rather than subduers of violence.
I am not saying whether this is right or wrong, but merely pointing out that the history of police-public relationships has been the eventual reaping of what they themselves originally sown! All of the above shows an historic failure by the government and the police to predict how the public will react towards actions by the police, leading to a gradual decline in previous respect for the force.