Inspector Plod
Oh dear – they messed that up.
Banaz Mahmod made no secret of her belief that her father wanted to kill her. She was in hospital, nursing wounds incurred in an escape from him, when her boyfriend recorded a video of her…Ms Mahmod also told police, four times, that she feared for her life and produced a list of three men she believed would murder her – but all to no avail…It emerged during the trial that a female police officer concluded Ms Mahmod had made up her story to get her boyfriend’s attention.
Oh well, we all make mistakes.
The campaign of intimidation against Ms Mahmod began when she met the man who was to become her boyfriend, Rahmat Sulemani, after fleeing an abusive, two-year arranged marriage, which had been punctuated by beatings and sexual violence…When word of the affair started getting back to Mahmod’s “controlling, powerful” brother Ari that the couple had been seen out together, a family “council of war” was held. But the decision about what to do had apparently already been taken. A day before, Ari telephoned Amir Abbas Ibrahim, an associate in Birmingham, to arrange for the burial of Banaz’s body.
Quick off the mark, aren’t they. ‘Hey look, there’s Banaz with a man – right, we’ll have to kill her; phone Amir to fix the burial.’
Mahmod tried to kill his daughter first on New Year’s Eve 2005, when he lured her to her grandmother’s house and forced her to drink brandy, but she ran away. Afterwards she collapsed and was taken to hospital. She refused to leave the ambulance at first, insisting her father was trying to kill her and, once in hospital, recorded the message. When asked to investigate, PC Cornes was more concerned with a window broken as Ms Mahmod escaped from the house, and wanted to charge her with criminal damage.
Well hey, what’s more important, a woman’s life, or a window?
Ms Mahmod thought she would be safe at home because her mother was there. The next day, when her parents went out, the men were able to come to the family home and murder her…The campaign group the Southall Black Sisters has demanded an investigation by the IPCC…One Metropolitan Police officer said last night the initial handling of the case had set back by 25 years the Met’s efforts to encourage victims of crime to come forward.
Especially if they have the bad luck to break a window when escaping.
“Banaz Mahmod made no secret of her belief that her father wanted to kill her”…[M]s Mahmod also told police, four times, that she feared for her life and produced a list of three men she believed would murder her – but all to no avail…
Yes, I read this cheerless, heartbreaking story in B&W news bulletin section. It is to me inexplicable that it should have occured in Handsworth. As I indivdually knew people who resided in the vicinity. This particular area was some twenty years ago [and more] very Irish. However, when they ‘moved up’, -the Asians moved in. It is fear-provoking and worrisome to think of ‘honour killings’ happening in British Cities. but when one can identify with the place it is even more spookier. This type of deadly crime is so alien to the British/Irish culture. Will it in the future become a phenomenon? I lived for years in Birmingham and knew nothing about Asian culture. Ignorance is bliss. Will the British establishment continue to keep its citizens in the dark about these heinous monstrous familial crimes that are being perpetrated on defenceless, frail powerless vulnerable young girls? How many more will have to die before they wake up to the fact that “honour killings” are creepily occurring on its own doorstep. Thankfully, though in this case though it may have got its act together. May Banaz, like Hansa, who never got a chance to experience longevity – rest in perfect peace. I hope the Brummies gave her a good departure.
Terrible. Thoroughly heartbreaking.
Just yesterday a pregnant woman was shot and killed by her boyfriend in a parking lot. In the US, there are plenty of legal protections for abused women, but they never seem to be enough against the most hateful man. Everytime something like this happens, a new law is passed to restrict gun ownership (of the abuser) or strengthen restraining orders. We think abuse is bad and the abused should be protected.
(Whether we are doing enough or not is another conversation altogether.)
I cannot imagine what we’d be dealing with if culturally accepted torture and abuse were a mitigating factor. A wife-beater gets no sympathy now, but if the media made it a religious issue, the disgusting (but effective) “she asked for it” defence will gain some sick credence.
Maybe I’m being cynical.
Should have added: <> “Thankfully, though in this case it may have got its act together”…With respect of justice being seen to be done! <>
‘… if culturally accepted torture and abuse were a mitigating factor.’
Unfortunately, it is so considered in some instances, even here in Europe. As this site has documented more than once.
Exactly how this case was mishandled, and which no doubt well-meaning officer must live with that, should be left to a hopefully searching enquiry.
But it must surely be clear by now that an effective help system must be set up. The models are there, and some regions have tackled the issue, maybe this will give the government some sense of the urgency of the issue.
A couple of months ago, I was shocked to read that, in the US at least, the most common cause of death of pregnant women is murder, usually by the man who impregnated her.
Perhaps there is scope for voluntary action – human shields, underground railroad?
I blame Tony Blair for all these honour killings! his invasion of Iraq has made moslem men feel humiliated and that makes them take it out on their women,also poverty and racism play a large role.
Richard, is that satire? Give us more, man!
On a side-note, the banaz case set a kind of precedent in the amount of publicity it received once the verdict was in.It was on prime-time news here in s’pore which was quite a surprise to me. I believe that the grainy video Banaz and her boyfriend made prior to her publicity touched a raw nerve and humanised her plight.
Crisper G. has finaly convinced me to change my veiw of the world!
‘prior to her publicity’ should read ‘prior to her murder’.
Sorry, I was in a hurry to get my caffeine shot!
It would be interesting to know what kind of support Banaz’s older sister, the one who escaped, lives under death threats and moves around in a niqab to avoid detection – gets from the state and police. Witness protection programme?
Richard, you are an absolute ass. I have NEVER done anything remotely comparable to blaming a politician for a murder (except when that politician is directly responsible for the murder, such as the slaughter of Iraqi civilians). The men who murdered this poor women are responsible – as are, to a much lesser extent, the law enforcement officials who ignored the extremely plausible and familiar story of sexist violence and oppression she told.
Do policies that make it easier for sexist, oppressive cultures to retain their religious and cultural identity (and enforce it on their children) rather than assimilating to an Enlightenment European identity make this sort of thing more likely? More specifically, does state funding of Muslim faith schools make violence against girls and women more likely? Incredibly fucking obviously, YES it does!
Does that mean Tony Blair, who encourages such things, is personally responsible for every violent act against a women based on religious/cultural sexist oppression? Perhaps a little bit, although violence against women is clearly not his actual intent – it is only a consequence of his willful ignorance.
But even if policy makers encourage such violence with bad policies, does that in any way mitigate the moral culpability of those who actually commit violence? FUCK NO! And I have never said anything that hinted, implied, or indicated otherwise – to someone who is capable of careful reading.
BTW: I’m pretty sure what ChrisPer was saying is that your comment was ridiculous beyond the possibility of his believing it was anything but satire, even from you. Your response demonstrates otherwise. Your views are so ill-informed and ill-considered that your honest expression of them seems like satire even to those who might be inclined to agree with you on some issues. Think about that.
Sorry G. I didnt mean to ofend I was just being facicious.
Chris, I don’t think so, the police have never taken ‘domestic incidents’ seriously.
Take a look at Ann Cryer’s web to see a realist at work – daily – with Asian victims of domestic abuse.
“Chris, I don’t think so, the police have never taken ‘domestic incidents’ seriously.”
There’s domestic and domestic. Noisy rows with a black eye or two, maybe they haven’t. Actual murders, yes they have.
This murder for family honour – makes you nostalgic for shot-gun weddings (still around when I was a kid in New Zealand tho’ no actual shot-gun was brandished) and even for Magdelene laundries. And if you went out with someone your dad seriously didn’t like it meant shouting and sulking and refusal to lend the errant daughter the car.
Yeah, cos those guys that bash their wives and give them black eyes, we can ignore those, it’s only when he kills her we should get involved. Nice.
So had they killed her at the time the police were being crap? No. So same reasoning applies.
KB Player: You’re kind of missing the point. If the police took the noisy rows and black eyes more seriously, that would lead to fewer murders. Every time violence against a woman is ignored, dismissed, or simply accepted as an inevitable sort of event, the escalation of that violence against that woman (and other women) is not-so-subtly encouraged by the very clear message that SHE DOES NOT MATTER. Not taking domestic violence seriously is a very important way in which women are devalued, indeed outright dehumanized, on an everyday basis.
I know the mostly-male police force here in the U.S. ignores violence against women routinely. In fact, if one looks at the employment statistics of men who abuse there spouses, police officers are much more likely to be abusers than men in most other professions. They’re also more likely to abuse alcohol and other drugs, and more likely to commit suicide (which is always highly correlated with substance abuse). While the stress of the job is certainly a factor, it is not an excuse in any way. The more likely reason for this correlation is that the sort of man who wants to wear a uniform and a gun is, to be blunt, the last sort of person one should want to have the job. Of course not every cop is a sexist, violent asshole – but the percentage of such people in law enforcement is vastly greater than average.
Actually, this raises a very common problem in human affairs: There are some roles which are absolutely essential in any society for which the people who want the role most are the least well-suited to have the role. Bullies are drawn to law enforcement, and make the worst sort of cops. The power-hungry are drawn to politics, and make the worst sort of political leaders. I’ve been thinking about this for years and haven’t come up with any plausible solutions except various sorts of checks and balances, which seem inadequate given the depth of the problem. But that does wander more than a bit off-topic…
Great topic though, G; I think about it a fair bit too. Write a guest N&C about it if it’s off-topic – or write an article about it. Or feel free to expand your comment even if it is off-topic – anyway, it isn’t, really, it’s part of it. Part of the larger picture, and part of the smaller picture of what’s wrong with law-enforcement and the problem with bullies.
“I lived for years in Birmingham and knew nothing about Asian culture,”
I should have added:
With respect of it’s repugnant, ferocious pitiless heartless ruthless and macabre religious practices. Honour killings being only one of scores of more. I recurrently log on to B&W‘s ‘International Campaign against Honour Killings’ and am persistently astounded and flabbergasted. The brutal crimes against women just go on and on and on – And it will for eternity go – on and on… Religious Homo sapiens of every conceivable denomination and creed are downright worse than animals.
Guns are not yet a part of the Irish Garda Siochana culture [with the exception of specially trained Garda crime units of the force. Plus criminal illegal usage! The farming/ gun clubs [for clay pigeon shooting/pheasant hunting etc] are the only ones legally allowed. It is for us scary and incomprehensible to think that in America any Tom Dick or Harry can walk into un /pistol shops off the street and legally purchase same. Even the mere mention of guns to the average Irish person is enough to send one into a spin Americans talk about them so casually in conversations and it is to us – overwhelmingly frightening…
G – I didn’t mean to imply that I thought it was a good thing that the police have not taken domestic assault seriously or that domestic assault can ultimately lead to murder. I merely meant that while British police may not have taken domestic assault seriously (though I think that has changed in later years thanks partly to pressure from the women’s movement) murder has been taken seriously, domestic or otherwise. And honour killings are something that are new and alien to British society.
“In some cases, women in Britain had been forced to commit suicide by relatives. Others had taken their own lives because they had virtually been slaves in their own homes. The cases were usually handled only by coroners’ courts, and criminal charges were rarely brought”.
Honour killings imploded. Very shrewd. Social workers, Old Bill, British society, judicial system, wake up, wake up the alarm bell is ringing. The big bad wolf is doing its round and will devour all round if ye do not get a move on.
KBPlayer, yes it IS anecdotal though; how widespread that sort of activity I’m in no position to guess, and I sure don’t want to furnish any BNP idiots with any potential racist sticks. But it goes on, more than one social worker has told me of occurences of leaked confidential information about vulnerable clients – drugs, pregnancies, depression, in these circumstances, where the client has then been harrassed, bullied by brothers etc. It would of course be in total breach of client confidentiality rules which should get them sacked etc, but then: Soc Services have no resource to manage client caseloads nor people properly anymore. And most Trusts now prefer to recruit agency when the replace stressed out, burnt out but experienced staff – another great New labour accompishment is to destroy the standing and reach of social work in this country.
I like the Northanger analogy, but I don’t want to scaremonger, just tell it how I’ve heard it.
“It is for us scary and incomprehensible to think that in America any Tom Dick or Harry can walk into pistol shops off the street and legally purchase same. Even the mere mention of guns to the average Irish person is enough to send one into a spin Americans talk about them so casually in conversations and it is to us – overwhelmingly frightening…”
Hey, to me too, and to everyone I know, and we don’t talk about them casually. The gun culture is completely alien to me (and not just to me). It’s not universal here – far from it.
Nick S: Thanks for all the facts and insights about UK law enforcement. Just so it’s clear, the focus of my comments on how the character of law enforcers effects actual law enforcement was primarily based on my knowledge of the U.S. I don’t know whether law enforcement in the UK has the same problems with substance abuse and violence amongst officers. Seems to me that the long history of “bobbies” not even carrying firearms might give the social role of law enforcement in the UK a very different profile in terms of the personalities it attracts… (Just speculating, mind you.)
On the other hand, sexism is universal – and UK law enforcement’s failures to take violence against women as seriously as it should, while probably less egregious than in the U.S., is almost certainly NOT primarily due to politics and funding and such. The UK, like much of northern Europe, seems to be less sexist in general than the U.S. – but “less” isn’t “not at all,” and that should always be the goal.
One of the confounding factors specific to honour killings and other manifestations of specifically Muslim violence against women is that racism and sexism might both be involved in how law enforcement handles cases: Are these crimes against taken less seriously or pursued less vigorously because the victims are women, or because the victim’s skin tone is on the brown side? I suspect the former is most important, but the subtle racism of radical moral relativism encouraged by the UK’s approach to “multiculturalism” might also play a significant role – you know, the whole “You can’t expect them not to bully and beat their wives and daughters because it’s their culture” nonsense. *shudder*
OT – apologies for picking this up in a thread where a CRITICALLY important issue, violence against women, is being discussed.
M-T O’L:”It is for us scary and incomprehensible to think that in America any Tom Dick or Harry can walk into pistol shops off the street and legally purchase same. Even the mere mention of guns to the average Irish person is enough to send one into a spin Americans talk about them so casually in conversations and it is to us – overwhelmingly frightening…”
OB:”Hey, to me too, and to everyone I know, and we don’t talk about them casually. The gun culture is completely alien to me (and not just to me). It’s not universal here – far from it.”
I suggest that what people ‘know’ about the gun culture is more a strawman picture of the gun culture created by its being a moral status issue in the ‘culture war’. Americans CANNOT just walk in and buy handguns no questions asked, there is a large and complex set of laws to comply with.
Like the use of deadly cars on roads, its a good example of a sphere where ordinary people’s good will and lack of intention to harm others mostly results in no such harm occurring despite variation in the strength of laws. The ‘root causes’ of high levels of gun violence are in the formation of intention, which operates somewhat independently of law. NOTE: I believe that gun laws are helpful in deflecting their acquisition by idiots and criminals.
The sentiment of your statement is obviously correct – guns are available to violent people, even though illegally, and there is too much violence with them which could be prevented.
Apologies again – I will not follow up again in your thread, its just this is my area of activist research.
And while the comments about police and attitudes to enforcing domestic violence laws have good examples available in support, I believe it underestimates the general willingness of cops to actually do good – if they can.
I don’t need to explain the reasons that the situations are difficult for police to ever act to the satisfaction of parties, including parties with a mere political interest in domestic violence. There is no way they could be perceived as successful and effective no matter the outcome, because the issue is examined by public anecdote and only non-successful interventions generate anecdotes.
You all know already the forces that make it difficult – but they do actually try these days, or they would not even turn up for DV calls. They do turn up, though they know they will likely lose by it.
O.B. If the U.K. had a second amendment maybe this poor girl could have bought a pistol and saved her life when the barbarians came for her!the cops just drew the chalk line round her body after the murder!
G. Are we not insane to be letting imigrants into the U.K. who beat their wives as part of their culture!The cops are walking on eggshells with policing in these sort of areas, they find it dificult to get imformation because they find a wall of silence,they also get called racist if they police these areas pro activly or negligent,racist and sexist if they dont!
Actually many of these murders are not by ‘migrants’ but second or third generation British citizens. And I believe this family was of Kurdish extraction- hmm – I wonder why they moved country?
And what good would it do to keep all these Muslims out the country so they can murder their relatives with impunity somewhere else?
If the UK had a second amendment maybe we’d have murder rates like the US – gosh, then it’d be so much better. Remember, guns don’t kill people, it’s the high velocity slug smashing your bones and ripping through your flesh that does that.
It’s true, I believe, that the police have always shied away from domestic shit.
I’m not so sure this is primarily due to institutionalized sexism in the police force, though – I think it’s more a general cultural assumption that you Don’t Get Involved In Other People’s Family Problems. It goes beyond the police force and beyond wifebeating: you can frequently see parents slapping their children in the streets, for example, but on one ever intervenes.
Honour killings are not peculiarly Islamic. I think they existed in some Mediterranean cultures as well till fairly recently – wives rather than daughters though. (I’m just going by some stories I read set in Spain in the 1930’s).
But ChrisPer, Marie-Therese didn’t say ‘no questions asked’ – she said ‘legally purchase’ – and she’s quite right. Do please try to reply to what is said, not to what isn’t.
(Which is not to say that one can’t interpret, detect implications or subtexts – but one does have to note that that is what one is doing, not just take it for granted that a translation is self-evident. That’s a general point, not one specific to this.)
It’s true that there is some paperwork involved, but it is also true that it doesn’t amount to much and that pretty much anyone without a criminal record can buy an arsenal of assault weapons.
“If the U.K. had a second amendment maybe this poor girl could have bought a pistol and saved her life when the barbarians came for her!”
Yes indeed! Or maybe her brother would have found it as soon as she bought it and blown her head off with it and claimed self-defence – who knows! Furthermore, if the UK had a second amemndment, maybe other poor girls would be getting their heads blown off in quarrels and disagreements with testosterone-addled boyfriends. Such a good plan.
“you can frequently see parents slapping their children in the streets, for example, but on one ever intervenes.”
I see that situation just a little differently. I think people do react when other adults are slapping children – they may not directly intervene but there is a lot of staring, a lot of obvious shocked disapproval, along with a kind of surveillance. I don’t think child-slappers feel at all comfortable doing much public slapping these days. (Though I suppose that depends on location. I live in hippy-dippy Seattle, so my observation is doubtless skewed.)
I know it’s halfway off-topic, but things just keep getting better & better for the ladies, courtesy of our supernaturalist amigos:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6750887.stm
“Vatican urges end to Amnesty aid
The Vatican has urged all Catholics to stop donating money to Amnesty International, accusing the human rights group of promoting abortion.
“Americans talk about them so casually in conversations and it is to us – overwhelmingly frightening…”
OB,
To give just one B&W classic example -from my standpoint.
“When I hear the words “free trade,” I reach for my pistol”. | Pyotr | 2007-05-18 – 23:08:57 |
I nearly jumped out of my skin on first reading above comment. The mere mention of the word “pistol” scared the living daylights out of me. I concocted in the mind all sorts of negative images about the commenter. Did he keep a “pistol” under his pillow at night time for safety? Did his wife also carry one for safety – in her handbag? Yeay, I then thought -is that scary [to me] comment not typical of the same kind of casual talk that one hears “all the time” [a lot] on American television?!!
I know it was metaphorical, or whatever but that still did not diminish within me the fear factor.
American television profoundly shapes the minds of people like us in the Emerald Isle. I guess, all this gun – toting/owning image/perception began with the Cowboys/Indians.
Snap, Andy – I must have been posting the link to a different article on that Vatican story at the same time you were posting.
Marie-Therese,
To be fair to Pyotr, that comment is an adaptation of a notorious comment by Göring – ‘whenever I hear the word “culture” I reach for my pistol.’ People adapt that quotation a lot – it’s a kind of conversational trope – I do it myself. So it doesn’t have quite the overtones you might think – people in the UK adapt the quotation at least as freely as people in the US do. In other words it’s not a product of US gun culture, it’s a product of awareness of Nazi rhetoric and attitudes to culture and other appropriations of the phrase – it’s ‘intertextual,’ as it were. In other words Pyotr would expect people to recognize the reference and understand it accordingly – it has layers of irony, etc. It was the opposite of an implied threat, it’s a complicated mock of people who make threats of that kind.
Oh, my God, ironically, I think I will be entering the fray where Richard left off. I will definitely have to duck for cover when ever I see the word Pyotr!!
Thank you, OB, for the learned explanation it is good to know.
Ignorance in this case was not blissful!
My favourite adaptation – and the most simple – being ‘When I hear the word ‘pistol’ I reach for my culture.’
Heh heh, that’s a good one.
No need to duck, M-T! Stuff like that is always patchy – we all recognize different references.
(Just for one thing, I always thought it was Göbbels. Someone here corrected me just recently, yet I still thought it was Göbbels just now – typed it and then paused and thought ‘wait, is that right?’ – had to look it up, and found it wasn’t. I’ll never get it through my head that it was the Air Marshall, not the propaganda guy. It should be the propaganda guy! It fits!)
My now not so favourite adaption and the most shameful – being ‘When I hear the word ‘pistol’ I reach for my burqa of the finest silk and hide under it’.
When I hear the words “honour killings”…I automatically point at fundamentalist Moslems.
Who’s Göring? No, I really do reach for my pistol when I hear talk of “free trade.” What a bogus phrase!
Seriously, OB, you’re the best. Thanks for the assist. (I thought it was Göbbels.)
Just to be clear, I’ve never even seen a real pistol except for on the hips of police at a distance. I live in the US, but I sure wasn’t born here, and I know nothing about US “gun culture.” A colleague did tell me that he has a pistol at home, but I doubt if he’s ever even fired it. And years ago, I was acquainted with a woman who said she was going to get a permit to carry a pistol. I don’t know if she ever did.
‘When I hear the word ‘pistol’ I reach for my culture.’
Don, that is excellent.
P.M. A nation having an armed population(the ultimate expresion of freedom)does not necesarily have a high murder rate,for insance Irael and Sweeden have low murder rates and high gun ownership! I would also point out that neither guns nor bullets are capable of killing anyone,they require a person to operate them therfore you could make the same argument with a cricket bat! O.B.under your senario she still ends up dead but at least the gun could have helped give her at least a chance.
And before everyone beats up on me for saying gun ownership is the ultimate expresion of freedom,I am talking about the right of the citizen to take up arms in the event of tyrany!
MMMF, MMMM, MMMF.
(Must… not… spit… gag…)
Chrisper.?
If you note above, I promised OB not to hijack the thread for RKBA discussion, which would just get out of hand for no benefit.
So what do you think we could do to reduce violence against women?
To reduce violence against women we must start with truly empathising and circumspectly listening to its victims/perpetrators. This means inhaling the excruciating, throbbing, painful, unbearable, piercing, and acute reality of both sides – until it hurts so much – that we exhale its labyrinthine, circuitous, twisted complicated tangled problematical difficult challenging contents? Then we can fix it. Those of who are its recipients will only then begin to feel safe. Slowly eking out the badness by the roots – should start with looking seriously at how we treat children. “Give me a child till he is seven and I will make a man of him”.
I say: “Give me a beaten child of seven and I will make a violent man of him”.
I have no experience, but I would say too much poetry, Marie-Therese.
My grandfather once beat up a perpetrator and promised another serving if he hit his wife again. My foster brother, who doesn’t hang with the fashionistas if you get my drift, recently made me proud by standing up for assault charges, after defending a neighbour’s wife who was being assaulted by a druggie acquaintance. He was acquitted, as is right.
I don’t fight – won my last one by a hundred yards – but I hope when someone else needs me I will take my lumps trying.
I believe that ‘just snapped’ and ‘out of control’ and ‘cycle of violence’ are excuses offered to perpetrators. Drunk or sober, they should learn that the cost is high and certain if they commit violence against women, and the police are unable to do that without a lot of support from the victim and witnesses, which is where neighbours become useful.
My pleasure, Pyotr.
I think I’ve only once seen a pistol – and it wasn’t a very tranquil experience, but it was also a kind of sign that they’re not taken lightly even here. I was working as a laborer for the Parks department; a colleague and I found a gun under a shrub in a rather tough park in a very tough neighborhood; my colleague was a pretty tough person herself, but she was freaked out (calm, functional, etc, but not happy or placid); we left it alone but jumped in the truck and went looking for a phone or a cop; found a cop car first; signaled to the cop and told him about the gun; within minutes there were several cop cars on the scene. NO one took it lightly.
“So what do you think we could do to reduce violence against women?”
Primarily, educate, raise consciousness, change attitudes. In the meantime of course enforce laws etc, but for the long term, attitudes simply have to change. And don’t say it’s hopeless – attitudes have changed, radically, in many places; it’s not hopeless. It’s difficult and probably slow, but it’s not hopeless.
“My grandfather once beat up a perpetrator and promised another serving if he hit his wife again. My foster brother, who doesn’t hang with the fashionistas if you get my drift, recently made me proud by standing up for assault charges, after defending a neighbour’s wife who was being assaulted by a druggie acquaintance. He was acquitted, as is right”
Brilliant, ChrisPer.
Like Grandfather/like, foster son…eh? It must be the “jeans”. Erm…I mean the muscle of SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS and immense fervour to come to the aid of a susceptible, defenceless woman. Well, what a fashionable attitude to have indeed. Your brother does not need to mirror the fashionista’s behaviour to give him a sense of his own constructive worth. He already has bucket-loads. He displayed empathy in all its copious glory. This fight or flight syndrome is indubitably innate within us all. When perpetrators to the test put us – one or the other will positively come to the fore. One only has to study the animal’s mannerisms to know that their reactions are similar to our own. We are all so unreservedly competent of the precariously perilous unknown when we feel endangered. None of us are immune from reacting violently. It is instinctive. We needed aggression in the past in order to survive. We still need aggression to survive, and to get up on the top of the ladder of life. But unfortunately people use it as though they are still climbing the trees in the jungle. They have not evolved. It has to be channelled appropriately by the book to live in today’s society. And that is god darn difficult at the best of times. That can come about by degrees by enrolling in anger management education and education classes in general I BELIEVE THE KEY TO A VIOLENT FREE SOCIETY IS IN HEALTHY STIMULATION FROM THE CRADLE TO THE GRAVE. WE SOAK THAT UP FIRST FROM THE MOTHER THEN OUR FROM OUR SURROUNDINGS. THEN FROM THERE-ON-IN – SOCIETY. It is said,…life is what you make it.
I say;…life “is”…what was first meted out to one.
Jeepers, am being very philosophical. Wish to God/Betsy I could put it to good use.
I obviously do not condone violence, but if it occurs, it should be between two equals, – of size, mind and strength.
“A colleague and I found a gun under a shrub in a rather tough park in a very tough neighborhood; my colleague was a pretty tough person herself, but she was freaked out”
OB:
That is a very nerve-jangling, terrifying story. Mercifully for you that you were not alone in finding the lethal deadly weapon. Did it ever cross your mind as to whether it had been engaged in criminal commotion?
I used to frequently watch Forensic Detectives on Discovery Channel. The eyes would spin around in the head with the scrutinising goings-on that Detectives had to investigate. They like your colleague/you found numberless guns secreted/sandwiched between bushes etc. It is astounding the quantity of knowledge that can be gained from finds of this nature. You both could have solved an inscrutable mystery without your realisation. I would gather that the American cops were more than chuffed with your unearthing. I lay a wager that you did not in your bed that night sleep inaudibly?!
I, for one – would not!
Hells bells <> displeasurable <>. I will never learn!
I know something about US “gun culture.”
~ 1940: My father had his right arm shot off in a hunting accident. (shotgun)
~ 1970: My cousin was killed in a hunting accident.
I was raised with shotguns, rifles and pistols, going on hunting trips once or twice a year. I was taught never to point a weapon at a human being, even if you were “sure” it was unloaded. Guns always had to be pointed at the sky or the ground.
1973: Someone fired a shot at me, probably from a rifle, while I was walking in a field near Marina del Rey, LA, CA. The bullet passed so close to one of my ears that I heard the whistle.
1980: Some guy, enraged because he found out that his girlfriend was with another man, in the same motel as I was staying in, in San Francisco, CA, emptied his pistol indiscriminately. Bullets flew everywhere, including into the guy’s own windshield.
1981: I bought a .38 revolver, which has been loaded and accessible, with the safety on ever since. I’ve only ever fired it at a firing range a few times.
1985: I was robbed at gunpoint in Berkeley, CA. I handed over $580 in cash. (That was bad luck. I normally don’t carry more than ~ $100.)
1986: I was threatened with a pistol in Greenfield, CA because some old redneck thought I had insulted him.
1987: I was shot at in Berkeley by a pistol-wielding maniac whom I had actually insulted. I’m pretty sure that he intended to miss.
That’s all I can think of. I guess I should feel fortunate that I haven’t been faced with gun violence in 20 years (but I spend much less time on the streets these days).
Just thought I’d give one USer’s gun story. I’ve never pointed a gun at anyone, and I’ve never been shot. In fact, no one close to me has ever been shot. (My father’s injury was before my birth, and I wasn’t close to my cousin.) I was, though, chased by a crazed man with a knife once, who subsequently used it to commit suicide. I watched him bleed and die before my own eyes while I heard the police sirens scream.
G, sorry for late reply, I’ve been away. Sure, I think there may well be cultural differences between policing and personality types in the UK to US. I would be speculating to counter what you imply about the level of sexism in the UK force, and naive to do so; however there is a mindset of: ‘Why bother trying to penetrate the cultural barriers – of language, and enforced isolation – that many possible/potential (rather than actually suspected) victims will exist within, when to hit our targets of combatting violent crime against women we merely need to sweep the urban streets of drunken hooligans at midnight every Friday and Saturday night – some of whom, because of their sheer number, will have taken a loutish pop at their comely, but (soon to be ex ) chattles. If it wasn’t so target-led that underlying cynicism may not be so well nurtured.
But yeah I’m sure there are sexist and racist cops – still – everywhere in Europe, but disciplinary processes mean they can no longer set the agenda.