Saturday 21 December 2013

On The Tenth Day Of Christmas, The Overbearing State Gave To Me…

...the arming of its enforcers for trivial incidents:
A teenager was shot with a Taser by police after been wrongly accused of carrying a gun.
Sean Lawless (Ed: Stop laughing at the back!), 19, of Rutherwick Rise, Coulsdon, claims officers handcuffed him and pinned him to the ground in Brighton Road, Purley, before firing the electroshock weapon into his back.
The ‘accusation’ didn’t, it seems, come from a legitimately-worried member of the public.
Mr Lawless, who suffered cuts and bruises during the arrest, suspects he was set up and still feels wary about going out. He initially decided not to lodge a complaint but is now considering doing so.
He said: "It was a set-up. Someone made a false allegation. Someone told me to meet them in Purley and when I did the police came and told me to get on the floor.
...
I was already in cuffs when they tasered me. The police officer must have had a bad day. It hurt quite a lot. I’ve still got the marks now."
This is not a new phenomenon. It’s been reported in the US press and US blogs, where it can have even more potentially-serious outcomes.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman confirmed a taser had been used on Mr Lawless, but would not comment on allegations he was handcuffed at the time. However, it is understood officers dispute the claim.
Mmmm. I bet they do.

Also pointless gestures to undermine personal responsibility, regulation of every tiny detail of our lives even when safety’s no longer an issue, rushed-through ‘feel good’ policies that fall at the first hurdle, the total inversion of previous guidelines as a result of media hysteria, expansion through scaremongering, confusion over competing rights and equality legislation, rigid application of ‘weapons policies’, prosecution via hindsight and justice system intransigence.

36 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Mmm I bet they do". You clearly have inside knowledge of this incident Julia,pray tell.
Jaded

Furor Teutonicus said...

I want to see the evidence.

IF the bastard WAS handcuffed at the time, then....

Then, you have to "know your beat."

We had people that we would handcuff before asking their name. (COURT Procedure, we KNEW the name, but....)

A bloody big Irish scaffolder for example. Two beers and you needed half the shift to "calm him down."

Just the same on NO beer, and a regular shop thief. Attitude the same.

Some peoplke are BORN to be tasered!

Anonymous said...

The bastard probably needed a few thousand volts for being a fuckwit in a public place, bleating shitbag.

MTG said...

"However it is understood officers dispute the claim."

True to form.

Anonymous said...

MTG-boring,repetitive,pompous, sneering
True to form.

Jaded

Uncle Badger said...

Having recently been confronted by a young policeman with an H&K machine gun, for no reason other than being parked (perfectly legally) in a parking place by the sea, after dark (and I am not making this up, Jaded, so don't even bother) I am even more convinced we shouldn't let Plod carry anything more lethal than a pea shooter.

There may once have been a time when British policemen were fit to be issued with firearms on a routine basis (and even then we didn't) but that was a long time ago. Today's crop are too cocky, too full of themselves and too pumped-up to be allowed anywhere near them. And that very clearly includes tasers.

Anonymous said...

Jaded?

Coppers are bent.

I (and millions of others)saw a man killed from behind, and no copper around him shopped him.

What's a tasering compared to that?

Anonymous said...

Whatever job you do Rightwinggit-you're all bent. There you go I can smear a whole group of people as well.
Uncle Badger-define confronted? Did he shoot you?
Other countries seem to manage with armed police being the norm.
Jaded

Furor Teutonicus said...

XX Uncle Badger said...

Having recently been confronted by a young policeman with an H&K machine gun, for no reason other than being parked (perfectly legally) in a parking place by the sea, after dark (and I am not making this up, Jaded, so don't even bother) I am even more convinced we shouldn't let Plod carry anything more lethal than a pea shooter. XX

Why?

Were you shot? Were you even THREATENED to be shot?

Fuck sake grow up!

And NEVER leave the U.K because we ALL carry firearms here, AND NO ONE HAS BEEN SHOT! (That did not deserve it.)

Ian Hills said...

Tasers, H&K's, skinhead crops and black uniforms. Let's hope T May's code of practice works.

Mussolini managed to rein in HIS feral blackshirts, didn't he?

MTG said...

If more evidence of a pathetically dysfunctional organisation were needed, it was the Met decision to appoint WC Jaded as full time critic heckler.

Longrider said...

Other countries seem to manage with armed police being the norm.

Usually a holstered pistol. I'm not convinced we need machine guns.

Anonymous said...

I speak for myself Melvin-I never claim to speak "for the public" like you do. By the way,who appointed you?Certainly not the voters of Huddersfield.
Jaded.
Just got to go and have lie down,a policeman WITH A GUN just spoke to me.Oh the humanity.

Uncle Badger said...

FT - What people do in other countries is their own affair. There has never been any consultation about the routine arming of the police in this country, nor is there any evidence that handing out machine guns has prevented any great number of fatal events.

Why you continentals feel it necessary to arm your police in such a way, I can't imagine (well, I can, but let's not go there). particularly given the way the US (clearly a greater target) manages arm its police without giving the impression that it is permanently at war.


Jaded - I call being 'confronted' staring at a kid holding a machine gun for no damn reason at all, other than that it is nearly midnight and I am sitting in a car which (had they checked the registration number and you can be certain they had) they would have realised was A/ local B/ taxed, insured and MOTd and C/ owned by a late middle-aged male, much like the one sat at the wheel, trying to tune-in Classic F M. There was absolutely ho reason at all for Noddy to have got his H&K out, other than that he wanted to stand there looking like a hard man.

This was a needless show of force by your out of control chums, Jaded, and if you don't understand any of the many reasons why that is wrong, then you are very much a part of the problem.

The Blocked Dwarf said...

The Germans and other foreigners get round the problem of 'attitude' among their armed police by making it almost impossible for the said armed copper to ever draw-heaven forfend fire- his sidearm.

Any copper who actually fires his gun will be drowned in paperwork and internal inquires until The End Of Daze. God help any copper who pulls out his piece in public and there is someone with an 'immigration background' around who might feel threatened by such fascist behavior.

The Brit Police may have gunned Duggan et al in cold blood and the officers concerned should rightly be tried for murder but Jaded is right that you can't generalize.

Personally I have no problem with the bobby on the beat packing heat. The old school Flics used to tote submachine guns walking the beat in the village.


Unknown said...

MTG: ...Jaded as full time critic heckler.

& Koch as well as far as I'm concerned if he used it on you.

Furor Teutonicus said...

XX The Blocked Dwarf said...

The Germans and other foreigners get round the problem of 'attitude' among their armed police by making it almost impossible for the said armed copper to ever draw-heaven forfend fire- his sidearm.XX

Bollox.

Firearms are drawn on regular occassion. And MPs are carried openly all the time.

O.K, shoot someone, and it causes a bit of paper work, but it is NOT as "difficult" as you would like to make out.

Anonymous said...

Must be a rough seaside town where the parking enforcement is done by armed police.
Out of control Jaded

The Blocked Dwarf said...

"
Bollox."-FT

Then things have changed since my day, my day when the Police Firearms Instructor For Uber Nosenbleeden showed us the fuck-knows-how-many-pages thick 'file' just one incident could generate.

And things have changed since the Chief Of Police for Unter Kolostomibaggen had to issue written instructions for his men to be allowed to unholster their guns before they knocked on my door (actually I think that law/guidance for all police officers changed around the 2K mark , same time as 'soft' nosed bullets became allowed instead of the 'kill the perp and the granny standing behind him' hardnosed ones, if i recall aright?).

The Blcoked Dwarf said...

"

Must be a rough seaside town where the parking enforcement is done by armed police."-Jaded

When people say 'come to Cromer to die' it's not an allegory for retirement.

Uncle Badger said...

Or, Jaded, a place where your colleagues are acting completely out of proportion.

Anonymous said...

They aren't my colleagues,I don't work in a seaside town.They just happen to share the same profession as me.For example if you are a plumber-suppose I to be ripped off by one-I would not smear the thousands of good plumbers out there.
You still haven't explained how it was out of proportion-did he shoot you for parking badly? Did he have a crystal ball when he approached you?
Don't ever travel to Europe as all the police carry guns there and I don't want things to get out of proportion.The whole continent is full of flying bullets as the police just open fire randomly on anyone.
Jaded

Furor Teutonicus said...

XX The Blocked Dwarf said...

"
Bollox."-FT

Then things have changed since my day, my day when the Police Firearms Instructor For Uber Nosenbleeden showed us the fuck-knows-how-many-pages thick 'file' just one incident could generate.XX

I have filled out more of them than you have had hot dinners, laddie.

Five or six pages. What the Staatsanwaltschaft get up to is none of my problem.

The Blocked Dwarf said...

"
I have filled out more of them than you have had hot dinners, laddie."

Then I bow to your superior knowledge. But the 'akte'-of the incident- we were shown was nearly 2" thick! But that was also back in the pre 'Deutschland geht T-Online' era.

Furor Teutonicus said...

As I say, What the solicitors, and internal enquiries add has nothing to do with the work load for the cop on the beat.

I do not doubt that 2" could actualy be considered THIN at the end of it all. But so many different people involved....

Uncle Badger said...

As I Said before, Jaded, if you can't grasp why having policemen wandering around with machine guns, without the slightest reason is wrong, then you are part of the problem.

The Blocked Dwarf said...

" without the slightest reason"

Badger, at the risk of FT having to correct me again, I'm pretty sure that that was the whole point of your encounter- ie there was a reason WHY the copper happened to be there in the vicinity with a HK when you decided to park there. As far as I know armed-with-submachine gun cops don't just drive around, or walk a beat aimlessly ,swinging their HK's nonchalantly from their shoulders; armed-to-that-degree coppers are sent to be somewhere for a reason - maybe armed drug smugglers were due to land on the beach (living in Norfolk I know that happens more than some might think) or maybe a visiting VIP in a hotel in the town or something.

He, the copper, was there on duty , duty assigned WITH an HK and by parking where you did you automatically became of 'interest' and he needed to check you out.

That would seem to be the logical explanation to my mind.

Furor Teutonicus said...

No, B.D, not this time. You are pefectly correct.

Maybe Badger would have been happier if the cop had given his MP to the local lolipop lady to look after whilst he was having a word about parking?

The Blocked Dwarf said...

"
Maybe Badger would have been happier if the cop had given his MP to the local lolipop lady to look after whilst he was having a word about parking?"

Oh I can understand why Ol'Badger was a bit peeved. It's a "Brit thang", even among brits who have had to carry firearms themselves.

When confronted by armed police brits tend to see the gun and not the peeler.

I'm as guilty as the next. When I fly into the UK and see police armed with HK's it bugs me and yet when I fly into Hahn I am not phased by the similarly armed Grenzschutz (German Border Police).

The Blocked Dwarf said...

"HK's"

Shoot that damned grocer, someone please!

Furor Teutonicus said...

:-D They have not been Bundesgrenzschutz since 2007. "Bundespolizei" they are called now.

The Blocked Dwarf said...

":-D They have not been Bundesgrenzschutz since 2007. "Bundespolizei" they are called now."

Aahhh I smell the dark, fetid hand of Bleeding Heart liberalism...can't even insinuate we have to 'protect' borders anymore, can we? I mean, 'Border Proctection Force' just screams Xenophobia, Racism and not being 'wilkommen'-ing to immigrants...

Furor Teutonicus said...

Moment! I smell a rat!

When was this bloody E.U treaty thing signed that Incapability Brown barely managed to turn up for?

Was that 2007?

What was the damn thing called again? If I could remember I could google it, but if it was 2007, then the name change is not half so innocent as it was sold to us as.

Furor Teutonicus said...

BASTARDS!! GOT THEM!

XX The Lisbon Treaty was signed by the EU member states on 13 December 2007 XX!!!!

JuliaM said...

"You clearly have inside knowledge of this incident Julia,pray tell."

None needed, Jaded. None needed...

"Some peoplke are BORN to be tasered!"

True!

"Other countries seem to manage with armed police being the norm."

We aren't 'other countries'. Why should we copy them?

"There was absolutely ho reason at all for Noddy to have got his H&K out, other than that he wanted to stand there looking like a hard man."

Plus, we're constantly told that AEVs are in short supply & more are needed, so why was one doing routine traffic work?

JuliaM said...

"When people say 'come to Cromer to die' it's not an allegory for retirement."

I always fancied retiring to Cromer... :0

"You still haven't explained how it was out of proportion..."

Yes. They have.

"...or maybe a visiting VIP in a hotel in the town or something."

In Cromer?!?