Saturday 15 December 2012

Maybe It's Time It Cost The Police Money Instead..?

The incident ended shortly before midday when the pair gave themselves up.
However, by that point, it had cost businesses in the town thousands of pounds in lost trade.
Mr Scott said: “Grantham town centre had to be shut. A lot of businesses lost revenue.
Thirty businesses in total were closed, with a loss of sales of between £25,000 and £30,000.”
And why did it 'have to be shut'?

Well...
Mr Scott said “Hanes and Neve refused to come down. The stand-off between these two and the police lasted about six hours.
“The police were forced to close down the centre of Grantham because missiles were being thrown off the roof.
“Neve was almost entirely passive throughout the stand-off. He was not seen to throw anything.
“Hanes was argumentative and aggressive shouting threats to the police. At one point he threw coins at the police and he was also throwing roof tiles at parked cars.
“In some sort of defiant gesture he pulled a number of bank notes from his pocket and tossed them in the air.”
All because, when these 'sieges' develop, the police immediately go into 'hands off', containment mode and wait for the situation to play itself out without injury to the poor little criminal darlings.

And why not? They know they aren't liable for the losses, so why should they care?

But maybe if they were to be made accountable, these sieges would be resolved a lot quicker. And that, surely  is good for everybody?

17 comments:

MTG said...

"Maybe It's Time It Cost The Police Money Instead..?"

Bit of an abstract concept.....but it's close enough to Xmas.

JonP said...

" They know they aren't liable for the losses..."

True, but they also know they'll be crucified if anything bad happened to the guys on the roof.

Bucko said...

Don't they have snipers?

Anonymous said...

Years ago a woman was threatening to jump off Debenhams roof in Manchester, the crowd was sympathetic, then the crowd found out it was transvestite. The crowd started chanting 'jump you bastard', perhaps something similar could have been tried here, a crowd could be gathered and they could shout encouragement. Such as jump you sad sacks of shit, or the police could employ marksman, as they were on a roof and it is likely that they may fall if shot with a tranqueliser perhaps ordinary rounds of amunition could be used.

John Tee said...

Since the police are paid for by us, wouldn't it come out of our pockets?

Jim said...

"Since the police are paid for by us, wouldn't it come out of our pockets?"

Yes and no. If the police knew that they would be liable for losses caused by their actions (or inactions), and there would be no more money from central government to pay it, so it would have to come out of their existing budget, then they would have a large vested interest to ensure as much of their budget ended up in their pockets (via salaries and overtime etc) than in the pockets of people compensated for the police incompetence.

So as long as police budgets were not increased to pay for such a measure, then it would in fact come out of the pockets of the police themselves, in the form of lower overtime payments/job losses. After all the taxpayer pays the police £Xm/pa anyway - it matters little to the taxpayer whether it all ends up in their pockets, or some of it went to local businesses in cases like this. In both cases the taxpayer is out of pocket the same amount.

You can also bet your bottom dollar the whole issue would be moot if such measure existed - in cases like this they would have them down as sharpish if there was money to be lost.

Anonymous said...

I do cringe when I see senior officers kissing the arses of these people,delivering KFC and cigarettes and trying to talk them down.But think of it from a different angle.
Suppose they allowed one of these scumbags to hit a passer-by with a roof-tile?Potentially life-threatening.Or what if one of the little angels fell and hurt themselves,how much would that cost the tax payers when his ambulance chaser gets hold of the case?
Either way the police can't win in these situations.But i'm sure a few commentators on here have the answer.I'm all ears.
Jaded.

Woman on a Raft said...

Waiting isn't that bad an idea but it's a pity it is regarded as unsporting to do a spot of rain making to emphasize that later tonight, when it gets cold and with wind picks up, it's going to be brass monkey weather up there.

Anonymous said...

Bunny,

Apparently a study suggested that criminals viewed going to prison a result of going to court and not as a result of crime. One solution in these two idiot's case would be to process them through the legal system very quickly, ie aprehended, then magistrates court and incarceration without actually going home on bail first. So they realise that the consequence of their actions was prison.

SadButMadLad said...

So they leave the numpties on the roof until they come down of their own accord. All so that they don't get sued if they injure the numpties in bring them down. Won't they still get sued if they leave them up their to catch their death of a cold, or if they fall off. So they get sued either way. It's only because some police force somewhere got sued for a minor injury when bring down a criminal that all police forces now hold back. When a criminal dies from falling off a roof when the police don't do anything the police will switch tactics and get them down "toot-suite".

Furor Teutonicus said...

XX And why not? They know they aren't liable for the losses, so why should they care? XX

Becauser of the shit that happened when they, justifiedly, shot some bloody Brazilian plumber, by any chance?

Furor Teutonicus said...

XX But maybe if they were to be made accountable, XX

See my last regarding suspisious Brazilian plumbers!

Or raving looneys that attack police lines and fall over, or arseholes in wheel chairs that are removed to safety.

John Pickworth said...

It wasn't so long ago that the police probably needed the say so of a Minister before shutting a motorway, town centre or whatever.

I'm sure there are times when they really do need to do these things but... well, lets be honest, it seems like its an everyday occurrence these days.

Furor Teutonicus said...

XX It wasn't so long ago that the police probably needed the say so of a Minister before shutting a motorway, town centre or whatever. XX

A senior polce officer.

Superintendent and above.

What is different is, those ranks are now so dependant on their political backers, that they are to bloody scared to FART out of tune without their permission.

And they thought that politicaly bound, "voted in "chiefs"" would solve the problem??!!??!!

Sorry, I have just spat my beer all over my key board in a fit of ironic and extremly cynical laughter.

pjt said...

I am quite sure the police also would rather do something useful and resolve this kind of situations quickly. But how should they do it? Do you have any practical proposals?

I can only think of a couple options, and they involve either much higher cost (such as a helicopter bring in a load of men who yelp hat-hat-hat) or level of violence currently not accepted (e.g. simply telling the guys that unless they come down, they will be shot, and then actually shooting them a couple of times - it wouldn't happen too often because people would learn the message).

But currently the police have procedures, which come from law and precedents set by courts of justice. We see the same crap in most parts of Western Europe, particularly the so-called welfare states.

Brian, follower of Deornoth said...

@Jaded, there is a good deal in what you say.

But half of everything I earn is abstracted by the public sector; would it be too much to expect that those who receive this largess to actually solve the problems they are paid to solve rather than whining to me about it all the time?

JuliaM said...

"True, but they also know they'll be crucified if anything bad happened to the guys on the roof."

Not necessarily. Cressida Dick got a promotion out of Jean Charles De Menezes!

"Since the police are paid for by us, wouldn't it come out of our pockets?"

Not if we implement Jim's suggestion, no.

"Either way the police can't win in these situations."

If we maintain the status quo, no-one wins. Except the criminals. Something has to change.