Thursday 28 September 2017

Did You Really Think You'd Heard The Most Ridiculous Whinge About Grenfell Tower?

Reader, you have now:
A man who lost six family members in the Grenfell Tower disaster has made a formal complaint about the use of a police helicopter during the fire.
In a witness statement, seen by Channel 4 News, he claimed the helicopter offered a "'cruel and tortuous" hope to his family trapped on the 22nd floor that they would be rescued.
*blinks* Really? Really?!? 
He wants to know why the helicopter was deployed and whether the police considered what impact its presence could have on those trapped, Channel 4 News reported.
Hell, I can answer that:

a) to survey the scene & relay vital information to the fire service and police, and

b) no, because their role is to deal with a life-threatening incident, not pander to the wild imaginings of Third Worlders who've never watched 'The Towering Inferno'...
Mr Choucair told the programme: "It made a big impact because they were living in hope that the helicopter was a rescue helicopter going to rescue them. So on the day, on the night, people were going up and down.
"And simply the reason they were going up was when they heard the helicopter and when they saw it - they thought, great, it's a rescue helicopter and they're coming to rescue us, rather than going down when they should have been."
How many people in Grenfell Tower? How big is the police helicopter? How many trips (assuming it could land amid the smoke, which it self-evidently couldn't) would it take?

These people think like children. You might as well wish for Superman to rescue you.
Channel 4 News said the IPCC has referred the complaint to the Metropolitan Police.
They should have had the courage to reject it there and then, and impart to Mr Coucair some hard-nosed reality.

10 comments:

Thud said...

The third world and technology is never a good mix, white mans magic is a very potent totem though.

jack ketch said...

It really is just common sense and one can only hope the Met will show some and sack the helo-crew, sell the helo off for scrap (it would be offensive to victims-might even retraumatise them- if it were found to be flying elsewhere), and whichever senior officer approved, callously approved, it's use during the GENOCIDE of Grenfall should face criminal charges.

Yes I was being sarcastic, roll on the fucking Zombie Apocalypse I say! Let us greet our cockroach overlords.

Oldrightie said...

Identical mentality to the Beatification of Corbyn.

Ed P said...

The moronic complaint resembles primitive cargo cult "thinking"!

Anonymous said...

And you sometimes wonder why police officers have a bit of the DILLIGAF about them? I sometimes think that the commentariat believe that Thunderbird 2 is sitting ready and waiting to go. 'Break out the skyscraper firefighting pod Brains'. The LFB use the television downlink from the police helicopter for its heatseeking capabilities and to provide a 360 overwatch. LFB did experiment well over 20 years ago with a helicopter response as a trial but binned it sharpish as it could do nothing that land based appliances could provide. The downlink is used on a regular basis by them and I've seen it used at an office block fire where you could see hot spots that are not visible to the naked eye.
With my cynical head on I wonder who is doing the string pulling?
Retired

Andy said...

Years ago I descended an old wooden escalator at King's Cross while heading to towards the Northern Line. I smelled smoke, not cigarette smoke, this was acrid and nasty. People were engaging staff about it, with no apparent response. So I quickly went down. Down, deeper and down, to the deepest part of the station. The Northern Line platforms. It turned out that I was lucky enough to get aboard the last train permitted to stop there. Some poor buggers did the same but trains were stopped to prevent pumping air through the fire. What to do in an unprecedented situation? Act instinctively, minimise risk, help others, look for trained personnel? My point? I don't think I have one which could be printed, therefore I won't make it.

Anonymous said...

I should add that further to my comment at 18.51 yesterday I have nothing but sympathy for the man and his loss. I have nothing but contempt for those who are manipulating him. Grief deranges us all in various ways and to use the understandable grief of a bereaved father in this way is unfathomable to me (but then I do try to retain some basic humanity).
Retired

selsey.steve said...

"And ... and... I heard from the brother of a friend of mine that he's heard from his sister that a friend of hers who works at Dover heard that the racisss Immigration whiteys STOPPED the Unicorns who were coming to save everyone in the Tower"
Victimhood is being over-played.
The rising heat from a burning tower block makes the use of helicopters totally impossible. The up-draughts would make flying anything closer than about 1000 feet above the tower impossible.

JuliaM said...

"It really is just common sense...."

Which should now be named 'rare sense' as we see so little of it.

"The moronic complaint resembles primitive cargo cult "thinking"!"

Import Third Worlders, get Third World problem-solving.

"And you sometimes wonder why police officers have a bit of the DILLIGAF about them?"

I'm starting to feel that way myself!

"With my cynical head on I wonder who is doing the string pulling?"

The usual suspects, Retired. It's always them...

JuliaM said...

"What to do in an unprecedented situation? Act instinctively, minimise risk, help others, look for trained personnel?"

Yes. All of the above.

"The rising heat from a burning tower block makes the use of helicopters totally impossible. "

Not to mention the thick pall of smoke that'd prevent the pilot from seeing.