"Let's kill all the lawyers, kill 'em tonight"
Grampian Police has apologised for "humiliating" a woman handcuffed while violently resisting arrest. The woman made five complaints to the Police Complaints Commissioner for Scotland (PCCS). They were mainly rejected, but the force has now apologised after a female officer ignored a request for a doctor. The officer patted her own pockets and said she did not keep one on her. The commissioner's report claimed the woman "felt humiliated by the response".
So this shy & retiring little petal felt humiliated by the policewoman’s response – I wonder how she would have felt if she had been on the end of a proper old fashioned “fell down the stairs on her way to the cells”.
Now in all fairness the real blame in this story rests with the Grampian Police. If this Doris really was “violently resisting arrest”, when her mealy mouthed lawyers (& I bet you a penny to a pound that civil rights lawyers are involved here somewhere) turned up at the police station to make unfounded allegations, he or even she should have got the living daylights beaten out of them.
At the moment, of the several hundred songs that I have on my MP3 player, I find myself listening to Get Over It by The Eagles the most, because of the lyrics at the start of the second verse…
You say you haven't been the same since you had your little crash
But you might feel better if I gave you some cash
The more I think about it, old Billy was right
Let's kill all the lawyers, kill 'em tonight
Comments
I work in policing in Australia. We have a large influx of ex-U.K. coppers working here in order to get away from this sort of over-lawyered nonsense.
Mind you, our lawyers are little better. Not long ago, I was taken aside by a senior officer who warned me that a local prominent lawyer was considering lodging a series of serious complaints against me on behalf of his client. I responded I would be happy to contest them, and that I could produce an mp3 recording from my pocket recording device that showed what was actually said during the entire arrest process.
Lawyer dropped his client. Client requested an early appearance, and quietly plead guilty. "Formal" complaint never got made. And this was without even producing the recording yet! I guess the lawyer really trusted his client all along then? Sheesh.
Good website by the way.
Posted by: Wilbur | August 2, 2008 5:03 PM
Interesting. What are the laws about a suspect being recorded? Are they allowed to know that? Is it a national law or does it vary from area to another?
Just curious.
Posted by: Cricket | August 4, 2008 7:25 PM
I suspect it may vary from one Aussie state to another... in mine it's legally o.k., actually, for us to record any conversation in a public place (similar to the rules governing CCTV) without warning. In a private place a conversation can only be recorded where there are multiple people present, e.g. several witnesses, and the conversation is deemed to be 'of public interest'. Legally this applies to most policing situations if you're on the verge of making an arrest.
A truly private conversation... a couple of people chatting innocently in a home, for instance... requires notification to record it.
It's a double edged thing- I know one career criminal who uses an mp3 device in his mobile phone to record conversations with police in order to build intel for him and his associates. And legally, there is nothing I can do about it! Well I guess I'd be a hypocrite if I did....
Posted by: Wilbur | August 6, 2008 10:06 AM