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Is the Metropolitan Police institutionally corrupt?

vacuum_tubes said:
How is withholding unpaid voluntary work industrial action?

They are not refusing to perform their contracted duties as a police officer, they are simply saying they no longer wish to perform the voluntary work.
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Yet when train drivers do the same thing, there are some that call it industrial action.
 
vacuum_tubes said:
What unpaid voluntary work have train drivers withheld?
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They run an overtime ban. Not sure that qualifying as a firearms officer and maintaining that certification is quite the same thing at all. Whilst firearms training doesn't automatically qualify you for more money, if you're in SO14 and hand your firearm in, you'll probably have to find a less prestigious post.
 
foxwelljsly said:
if you're in SO14 and hand your firearm in, you'll probably have to find a less prestigious post.
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So volunteering for firearms duties is nothing more than ego trip or hunt for prestige?

So far we have - police with guns = psycopaths killing people at will but police hand in guns = lazy, skiving work shy layabouts.

or

Police stop performing voluntary duties = industrial action but train drivers being paid an average of £50-60K get overtime ban = comrades standing up to cruel and oppressive employers
 
gavreid said:
Remember where you heard it first...

Nick Aldworth, a former national counterterrorism co-ordinator, told the PA news agency that by acting en masse, the officers who had stepped back from their duties were in effect staging an industrial protest - despite rules that stop them going on strike.

"What is happening now is not people who are experiencing a sudden questioning of morally whether they want to carry a gun, or do they really feel that the law doesn't support them, they are engaged in industrial protest," he argued.

"For good reason, the Police Act does not allow police officers to strike or undertake industrial action. But that is what this is, quasi-industrial action."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66909729
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He is wrong, as I have explained upthread - where you heard it first...
 
Deborah Coles, Director of INQUEST, said:

“Police cannot be judge, jury and executioner and must not be above the law. Already we know that accountability for officers involved in wrongdoing and deaths is exceedingly rare.

Mark Rowley’s asks to the Home Secretary, including overturning two recent Supreme Court judgements, would make accountability for police use of force virtually impossible. Effectively giving firearms officers a licence to kill. That cannot be in the public interest.

INQUEST and the bereaved families we work with know that the current lack of accountability exists despite clear evidence of disproportionate, dangerous and unnecessary use of force in many cases.

In calling for a review, the Home Secretary seems to have forgotten the Casey Review published in March, which laid bare the uniquely toxic culture within the firearms unit in the Met. ["Some of the worst cultures, behaviours and practices identified by the Review have been found in specialist firearms units, where standards should be at their absolute highest."] Addressing this should be the priority for the Home Secretary and the Commissioner.”

https://www.inquest.org.uk/police-accountability-response
 
gavreid said:
By throwing doubt on the CPS’s decision to charge an officer, ministers and Sir Mark Rowley risk weakening their own reforms
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I did think the same thing, Gav.

Justice needs to run its course. If the CPS have decided there is sufficient evidence to move it to trial, then so be it.

On a linked issue - Individual officers can decide at any time to relinquish their firearms ticket. They do so for many reasons. It’s been like that for many years.

There will be conscientious, professional officers who have decided to do so due to what they are seeing happen now.

PS there isn’t a need to repeat ‘they are all in the same pot’ etc. It does no argument any credibility IMO.

PPS at no time have I said that the institutional issues in the MET do not need addressing.
 
For terrorism firearms are justified but have the police overacted? Judge, jury and executioner. I am not familiar with all the circumstances but I am opposed to armed Police, perhaps a controlled shot into the engine would have achieved the result.

Any death by anyone should be investigated, including action by the police and they should not have automatic immunity from their actions.
 
The point is, surely, that the court trying the murder case will examine the conduct of the officer who took the shot. If he is found to have acted in the sincere belief that what he did was the only option to prevent him and colleagues from being hit and possibly killed or seriously hurt, then they will acquit. If they find that he panicked, that’s unprofessional but not murder either, and unlikely to result in any criminal action against him, I’d say. It’s only if the court finds that he was gung-ho and careless, or malicious in his actions that there’s any real threat of a conviction, whether that’s for murder or manslaughter.

In arguing that marginal cases such as these should not be examined in a court of law as they would be for any other citizen, they are arguing for impunity for themselves.

If we could have complete confidence in any internal police disciplinary, and independent IOPC investigation, that might have legs, but we know that the Met’s own internal processes are found wanting, and the IOPC isn’t unimpeachable either, though it does at least try to achieve balance and fairness.
 
It'll be difficult to find a Jury now after the last couple of days. However, the family and community will be expecting a conviction now the CPS has decided on the charges, that's for certain.
 
If using the US as an example everyone here should be ranting about the rest of Europe before calling UK police trigger happy.

The UK ranks 57 out of 62 for the number of people killed by law enforcement.

Compare the US which is 33 per 10 million people to the UK which is 0.5, or Germany is 1.5 or France is 5.5
 
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