I See This...

...and immediately think of this:

Chief Insp Neil Pudney, District Commander for Southend, said:“In terms of officer numbers, over the next two to three months Southend will be welcoming 17 new officers who will join our Local Policing Teams.

“And in 2019 the borough will benefit from another extra 12 new officers as a direct result of the precept increase.

“All of these officers will hit the ground running and will enable us to continue all of our good work to fight and prevent crime, lock up criminals and keep our community here safe.”

If they prove as ineffective, corrupt and lazy as most of the Essex Farce, what use will they be?

“Southend has seen a rise in violent crime which is in line with national trends.”

Are other places around the UK seeing the same rise? If not....

“Violent crimes where weapons are carried or used tend to involve individuals who are known to each other and occur as part of an internal dispute.”

Hmmm. That sounds a bit like gang warfare to me.

“Whilst we do have gang and drug-related crime on our streets, as we do across the whole of Essex, it is a stretch too far to say there is ‘gang warfare’. Every day our specialist Operation Raptor team are out on our streets, proactively hunting down those involved in this type of crime, arresting them and putting them before the courts.

“Between January and December 2017, the South Operation Raptor team – which cover Basildon, Castle Point, Southend and Rochford – locked up drug dealers for a total of 109 years.”

Is that how long they'll serve? Or how long they were sentenced to? Because we all know there's a difference.

“That year they also seized drugs with a street value of £220,000, arrested 232 people suspected of drug and gang crime, seized £130,590 in criminal cash and took 40 weapons off the street.”

Is that all?

“We will continue to work with our partners to tackle these issues but the use and carrying of weapons, and gang and drug-related crime can only be tackled if we work together as a community to educate and prevent people entering into this type of lifestyle and ensure that people are telling us about who and where these crimes are happening so we can arrest those involved.”

Just the usual boilerplate guff they now teach senior police officers to spout when challenged..