When the cops are criminalish themselves:
Metropolitan [London] police officers suspected of serious criminal offences including sexual assault and domestic abuse have been allowed to escape justice, a damning review has found, with the force’s leader admitting that hundreds of racist, women-hating and corrupt officers have been left in the ranks.
Not really what you want in a police force. Cops who hate women aren’t the ideal people to call if you’re a woman reporting a rape.
Massive failings in how Britain’s biggest force roots out wrongdoing were exposed in a report by Louise Casey, which found “systemic” racism in the Met, and misogyny.
One officer faced 11 claims including sexual assault, harassment and domestic abuse, but remains in the force, the report found.
It’s interesting that the Guardian keeps naming racism first, as if it’s automatically and obviously more important than misogyny, even while citing a cop accused of sexual assault, harassment and domestic abuse. It’s as if misogyny is kind of a mild, lifestyle thing, while racism is the real deal.
Lady Casey was commissioned by the Met in the wake of the kidnap, rape and murder of Sarah Everard by a serving officer. This was her interim report purely focusing on the Met discipline system, and complaints from officers and staff about their colleagues.
It reveals Met officers and staff trying to fight toxic colleagues were betrayed by the force’s discipline system, and fear an “anything goes” culture.
The findings are among the worst faced by any police force and Rowley said he felt shame and anger reading the report, and conversations with female and ethnic minority staff about their experiences had left him in tears. He added the report showed the Met had been “too weak” facing down wrongdoing in the ranks.
Oh well, it’s not as if it’s a big important city.
Comments
5 responses to “A damning review”
I know someone who worked in the Met Police finance department and just the shenanigans that went on there would make anyone’s hair curl. Unreasonably large amounts of money dished out on “expenses” to install home offices. 50 grand Range Rovers bought for police officers because “they need a vehicle to get to work”, with the money to be taken out of the officer’s wages but guess what? Six months later he quits and doesn’t return the car he hasn’t paid for. If only there were some kind of organisation with the skills and resources to track down people who take valuable things that are not theirs to take.
Yikes!
Hey, we have to back the blue! Without them risking their lives and facing down crackheads every day, who would save us from…
white collar crime like that? From spousal and domestic violence?
Don’t answer.
Whoever came up with the term “defund” for a plan to restructure police departments and make them more accountable really needs to have their messaging license revoked. Police departments have way too much power, too little accountability, and when crime inches up go to the city council and demand more money.
I’m listening to a podcast now by Maddow, and she’s exposing the story of the Nazis in the United States, A man in LA tried ot warn the cops of Nazis meeting openly to plot an government overthrow in Southern California, and the Chief of Police said that German-Americans supporting Hitler was not a threat to America, that it was the Commies and Jews. The LA County Sheriff told him the same thing.
Cops don’t have much of a problem with fascim, it gives them an excuse to be assholes.
Not to sidetrack (actually, I guess I am) but a man who was awarded a Good Samaritan in St. Paul had this to say while receiving the award:
We Keep Us Safe
Listen, I don’t hate cops. “Some of my best friends are cops.” I just think that we need to have the power over them, rather than the reverse, in keeping them accountable. If we give someone a badge and a gun, they need to know that they are answerable to the citizens they are supposed to protect and serve.
The word “defund” gets used often for efforts to end government funding for various things that people don’t like, when they can’t advocate shutting something down, or they don’t have the power to do that. I think “defund the police” is an echo of those efforts. “Defund the IRS”, “defund the EPA”, and “defund Planned Parenthood” are some examples I remember. It was a silly choice to imitate those slogans, but I do think it was imitation rather than a deliberate choice of the word “defund”.