It’s a constant complaint on Inspector Gadget’s blog that the press are biased against police officers, never reporting the daily catalogue of abuse they suffer (and so being ‘unfair’ when causing a fuss about one officer who loses his professional detachment and abuses a detainee), and always reporting the bad things, yet never the good things that the police do.
Which is why, I guess, this story is being reported as ‘Idiot public servant can’t tell which way the wind is blowing, while his equally incompetent partner, who should never be allowed a water pistol, never mind a Taser, couldn’t hit a barn whilst standing in it.’
Except….it isn’t, is it?
There’s a lot of praise there for the officer who struggled on to do his job and arrest the man, despite everything that happened, and the quirky ‘Friday 13th’ angle.
And it’s not just because that’s a left-wing newspaper. The others have similar subtexts to their stories.
So perhaps it’s not the media that’s at fault..?
"PC Jason Mepham" - 13 Letters.
ReplyDeleteAlthough one could do all sorts of numerology no matter what his name and still come up with 13.
"Unfortunately, while one electrode hit its target, the second hit Pc Mepham, who was felled by the electric jolt."
ReplyDeleteSurely it matters not that an electrode hit him, if he's in contact with the target he'd get the shock anyway ?
According to the Gospel of St Gadget, most of us are too quick to point to police incompetence whenever an innocent person is shot. "Ordinary citizens just fail to spot the intentional comedy which often leaves us professionals choking on our doughnuts" says the blogger.
ReplyDeleteTake the case of Peter Cox, who was outside his partner's home when a police officer shot him in the groin and ankle with a 50000 volt taser. How Mr Cox was obliged to titter when officers pointed out the irony of his name AND their hidden camera. Viewers watching it on 'You've been Framed' voted it twice as funny as the unarmed Sgt Mark Andrews rendering a defenceless woman unconscious with a single throw.
Nobody's job gets reported on if they are carrying out competently. Why should the police be any different?
ReplyDeleteNobody does reports about all the successful deepwater drilling that has gone on for many years around the globe, but one oil rig blows up and they don't stop going on about it.
It's called news. I suggest that any policeman get over it, or go and have a little cry somewhere before finding something they are more suited to where if they fuck up there will be no need to pick chunks of Brazilians out of tube carriage walls.
@IanF4 - No, if you are touching a person hit with a taser, you don't get shocked. The point about the taser is that it firing the high voltage into the muscles of the target. Electricity follows the path of least resistance. The taser provides the return path for the current in the pair of wires it fires out. So you can be holding the person's hand whilst shooting them and you won't get a shock.
ReplyDeleteThe press actually shy away from reporting police incompetence. So do police forces and the IPCC.
ReplyDeleteGadget increasingly looks like a poor version of many comedies on HRM and workplace farces like The Office, and almost all Frost-like attitudes towards the brass. The point of proper reporting is to get real change. Stories in the press and IG's book and blog keep cropping up, suggesting no learning is taking place.
""PC Jason Mepham" - 13 Letters. "
ReplyDeleteYikes! :)
"Surely it matters not that an electrode hit him, if he's in contact with the target he'd get the shock anyway ?"
So I always assumed - well, from watching TV anyway! They may have been lying to me for dramatic purposes though...
"...twice as funny as the unarmed Sgt Mark Andrews rendering a defenceless woman unconscious with a single throw."
I note he's now out pending appeal...
"Nobody's job gets reported on if they are carrying out competently. Why should the police be any different?"
Good point!
"The taser provides the return path for the current in the pair of wires it fires out. "
Ah, light dawns! How about those US 'contact-type' Tasers, whe ones without the darts on wires?
"The point of proper reporting is to get real change. Stories in the press and IG's book and blog keep cropping up, suggesting no learning is taking place."
Sadly, we don't have a lot of 'proper reporting' any more. Now, it seems most of what passes for reporting is merely to titillate and amuse the masses...
"Surely it matters not that an electrode hit him, if he's in contact with the target he'd get the shock anyway ?"
ReplyDeleteNot sure about that. When you see video of cops demonstrating Tasers on other coppers you often see a pair of them holding the arms of the victi... er, demonstration subject while they're being zapped. Here's one fun example (fun because I'm not a fan of the Chief Cuntstubble that's being zapped) and here's another with a female cop in the US and another with a male teacher, both of whom showed more balls than Brunstom as both actually let them fire the bloody darts into them. But in all three cases two other people had contact when the current hit. I'd guess it has to be contact with both darts or two people with one each and contact with each other, which would explain what happened to PC Mepham.