We also need the police to recruit from the communities that they represent and protect, so that officers look like, sound like and understand the communities they work in. In an area such as Tottenham, that must mean recruiting more black officers.Because while rioters are happy to peg a flaming bit of looted furniture at PC Dave or PCSO Susan, they will stop and think twice before doing so at PC Winston or PCSO LaShawna?
Seriously? That’s what you believe?
When the police leadership feels accountable and the rank and file feel representative then two things can happen. The public can feel assured that they will be treated with an even hand by people who know and understand their patch. And the police have more authority to act quickly and assertively when order breaks down. Formal accountability and informal legitimacy would stop small-scale protests from escalating into five-day nationwide riots, as happened last summer.I really can’t see how the ‘small-scale protest’ referred to would have been nipped in the bud if the officers that didn’t come out and speak to them – or who gunned down the suspect in the first place – were the same colour.
And the rioters, in Lammy’s own words in this article, don’t seem to be concerning themselves much with representative police forces or accountability; they just want free stuff and for no-one – black, white, polka-dotted – to be able to stop them:
I have seen the footage taken from cameras hidden in officers' helmets, and I will never forget it. This was a Grand Theft Auto culture writ large. The rioters' faces showed a mixture of extreme menace and a warped, lightheaded happiness that is difficult to understand, and even more difficult to deal with.It’s not ‘difficult to deal with’ at all.
We don’t need more black, brown, yellow; we need more blue, and for them to be given the wherewithal (authority, opportunity, equipment) to stop the rioters in their tracks.
17 comments:
Has this uber-prat Lammy been living in a parallel universe for the past 20 years ?
Why does he imagine that the height requirement for police was abandoned ?
Does he not recall the anger from existing Afro-Carribean police officers some years ago, when it was revealed that the Met Police had been coaching potential non-white recruits in how to pass the entrance exam ?
Has he failed to notice that despite the many thousands of pounds spent in trying to recruit non-whites into the police, the attempt has largely failed (the Armed Forces don't appear to have the same problem).. probably because the people targeted didn't or don't want to be police officers in the first place ?
Or is it because David Lammy MP hasn't been in the press of late & feels the need to publicise himself ?
Well, he's done that alright .. and made a complete twunt of himself in the process ..
Ok how about sending a company of Ghurkas in with fixed bayonets or reforming the Manchester Yeomanry after their sterling work at St Peter's Square. +1 about David Lammy.
Bunny
If black areas feel aggrieved at being policed by white police officers, and David Lammy thinks this is a valid attitude, then presumably he would applaud white people rejecting black police officers and demanding to be policed by white police officers ? Of course , none of this makes sense and all so-called communities should accept policing by any police officer. It is the uniform and position that counts, not the colour of an officer's skin. Lammy is an idiot.
Too depressing that people keep voting for this idiot.
If I see a black PC in Cornwall i'm going to snub him as he doesn't represent the local community.
Jaded
More ethnics. The answer to every problem. How did we ever cope without them? I see now why he came last in Mastermind. Buffoon.
He has a point but as with black NCOs in the army these ideas don't always work in practice. Look at Northern Ireland, the only Taig who would join the PSNI (RUC/B Specials) are scumbags.
It's like he's been asleep for a decade, woken up suddenly and blurted out the last thing he was saying in a debate with bernie Grant, Fatty Abbott and Ken Livingstone. Twat!
The man's a politician - a really crap one, but still, a politician - and he doesn't say what he knows to be the truth. Instead he says what his political masters have told him is the truth and, naturally, he believes them. This idiot is so far from reality - like all the political 'names' in this country that they have no idea what real life is like. Does he envisage having black, drug-dealers or white racists becoming Police officers as they are representative of the areas in which they live? Perhaps the local vice units could have a couple of paedophiles or rapists as they would be representative? In the worst case scenario, perhaps Lammy could actually become a Special for a couple of weeks, working in some of the sh*t-holes on the Capital and then see if his view changes at all. To think my taxes keep this man in employment!
if we police Tottenham with black officers, will they be allowed to twat the juvenile theiving scum as opposed to the white coppers that previously weren't?
Many Indian subcontinent and Middle Eastern people do not want to join the Police because they come from countries where the Police are held in low esteem. Their families would look down on them.
Many blacks do not want to join the Police because they come from areas where the same is true.
The Govt can remove the height limit, lower the entrance standard, lower the physical assessment and raise pay, but if blacks or any other ethnic group do not want to join, they won't and all the Govt will be doing is wasting their time, our money and ruining the what is left of what was a good Police force.
@ blueknight ..
My point exactly .. only you put it far more eloquently ..
"...so that officers look like, sound like and understand the communities they work in"
Sounds rather racist - I expect that nice Trevor Phillips will be straight on the phone to him tomorrow morning.
"The rioters' faces showed a mixture of extreme menace and a warped, lightheaded happiness that is difficult to understand, and even more difficult to deal with."
Two rounds of hollow-point .38 through the forehead makes rioters very amenable to Justice. Works wonders, no matter who has pulled the trigger.
@ sesley.steve
.38 round not that is not acceptable in this day and age, cartridge case hammered into the back of the skull, it is recycling, it is green and for the planet.
Bunny
Lammy really is as thick as creosote.
Does he not realise that nothing enrages the rampaging Zulus more than the sight of uniformed 'Uncle Toms'.
And how long would it be before the Guardianistas start blathering about 'divide and rule' or similar bullshit?
"Has this uber-prat Lammy been living in a parallel universe for the past 20 years ?"
Yes. It's called 'Westminster'.
"If black areas feel aggrieved at being policed by white police officers, and David Lammy thinks this is a valid attitude, then presumably he would applaud white people rejecting black police officers and demanding to be policed by white police officers ?"
Heh! That is rather the logical conclusion, isn't it?
" In the worst case scenario, perhaps Lammy could actually become a Special for a couple of weeks, working in some of the sh*t-holes on the Capital and then see if his view changes at all."
I rather doubt it. Politicians are impervious to reality.
"And how long would it be before the Guardianistas start blathering about 'divide and rule' or similar bullshit?"
About .02 of a nanosecond.
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