Look at her gormless face: "What, me? Do some police work?"
Horrified onlookers react in shock as they call out to the cops - asking why they have not taken action as they let him walk away up the street.
Sussex Police has since revealed it is hunting for the man as the incident is being investigated as a hate crime.
Well, you wouldn't need to 'hunt for him' if your officers had arrested him then and there. As the public suggested at the time...
Accosting one of the liaison officers, the clearly distressed man behind the camera says: 'He's just done a Nazi salute in front of you, you saw that! 'He just did a Nazi salute, goosestepping, a Nazi salute and you did nothing! How dare you!'
Another police liaison officer repeats that she is trying to see where the man has gone and that she is 'trying to assess where he is'.
The filmer replies: 'Why did you not stop him there and then? You let him walk past until I made a fuss. How dare you?'
Another protester, in the background, can be heard adding: 'Someone could have just grabbed hold of him, he was an old guy!'
Sussex Police will undoubtedly fall back on the 'That wasn't her role!' excuse:
Police liaison officers attend marches and protests to identify and differentiate individuals and groups who may become involved in or encourage disorder or violence or increase levels of tension. They must also provide commanders with 'fast time' updates to enable informed and proportionate decision making, according to the College of policing. Officers are also responsible for sensing the mood and intent of groups and crowd members.
Not, you'll note, actually doing anything about it when it happens right in front of them. Maybe that's the real issue here?
3 comments:
This is a person of no appearance we're talking about here?
Actually I don't think that this should even be considered a crime. Stupid obnoxious behaviour but not a crime. Pro Palestinian marches that involve incitement to mass murder are apparently acceptable, so singling out this idiot seems to be pretty unreasonable to me.
Not so long ago, lampooning the Nazis and Hitler was a staple of TV comedy. Spike Milligan, Freddy Star, John Cleese and half the cast of Allo allo, to name just a few examples.
Modern police work seems to be:
1) Let them go and do nothing
2) Ask the public for help on Twitter
3) Declare job done and get a donut
Although, having said that, I would class this as a non-event and wouldn't really expect the police to waste their time with it. It's only because of all the other things they waste their time with, when it's non-protected groups, that applying the rules to all becomes important. But wouldn't it be better if those 'rules' were not rules and the police went back to basics?
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