Don’t bus drivers have enough to do without policing the police?
Police: who knows how many more are like Wayne Couzens? But don’t worry! Bus drivers will keep us safe from them! … Does anybody else think there might be a problem with that logic?
Let’s get this straight:
The Metropolitan Police is telling us it won’t take steps to ensure that the people we employ to prevent and detect crime won’t actually commit crimes and/or hide the evidence.
Instead it wants women who don’t trust a male officer to “wave down a bus” and get help from the driver.
What if there aren’t any buses nearby?
What if the driver is also female?
What if the driver is arrested? Pepper-sprayed? Tasered? Who would see any passengers to their destinations?
Other advice urges women to run into a house. Full of strangers? That could lead to misunderstandings, at the very least. And if pursued by the police officer, events could get very messy, very quickly.
Alternatively, it is suggested that women could phone 999. But would a misbehaving police officer really let them?
What if the police officer is carrying out his duty? Then, the bus driver or householder, or whoever, would be open to prosecution for resisting arrest, or obstructing a police officer in the course of his duty, through no fault of their own.
Meanwhile the Met has announced absolutely no plans to change its own recruitment/vetting procedures in order to avoid employing individuals who represent a danger to others.
This is while the same police service is investigating 16 other serving officers who may have committed offences.
And that’s under the leadership of a woman whose own tenure at the top has been extended for two years by the woman in charge of the Home Office.
And what about officers in other forces?
I remember an incident many years ago, when I had a migraine late at night. Unable to sleep, I went out for a walk, thinking some fresh air might help me out. Inevitably, a police car passed by and two men got out.
“Excuse me! May we ask what you’re doing out at this time of night?”
“I’m trying to walk off a migraine.”
“May we ask who you are?”
“I’m the editor of the Brecon and Radnor Express.”
“Right you are. We’ll let you get on your way.”
What if I had been a woman – and not a senior employee of the local newspaper?
Well, I wonder. And I know that’s probably doing a disservice to the officers concerned.
The Couzens case has harmed perception of more than just Metropolitan police officers.
And it isn’t about to go away. Consider these responses to the latest idiocy from Cressida Dick’s office:
How have the police managed to get themselves into a situation where their line is: if a police officer tries to arrest you, run away?
— Tom Hamilton (@thhamilton) October 1, 2021
So if you are stopped by a policeman you are advised to run off – that worked out well for Jean Claude de Menezes didn’t it 😢😢😢😢😢😢
— SUSAN SIMPSON #ItWasAScam #NeverTrustaTory (@smartysue) October 1, 2021
https://twitter.com/RD_HaIe/status/1444025989579874310
That women are STILL being told to make 'appropriate' decisions in order to protect themselves from male violence rather than the focus being on said violence & the perpetrators of it hurts & angers me in equal measures, so, so much it's hard to express #EnoughIsEnough
— Prof Gayle Letherby 💙 #PeaceAndJustice (@gletherby) October 1, 2021
Absolutely appalling. For far too long women have been told to change their behaviour. It needs to stop. Male violence is the issue. That's what must be tackled. https://t.co/xmJqrAlm0Z
— Richard Burgon MP (@RichardBurgon) October 1, 2021
We are told from being girls, just as our mothers were before us, don’t walk home if it’s dark, don’t wear headphones, carry an attack alarm, question a police officer if they want to arrest you, flag down a bus driver to police the police… when can we end this madness?
— Cat Smith MP (@CatSmithMP) October 1, 2021
There’s also this:
Having been punched repeatedly by a female police officer at a protest after being wrongly told that what I was doing was an arrestable offence (it wasn't), may I suggest that "ladies learn the law!" and "more women cops!" aren't themselves solutions to police violence?
— Ash Sarkar (@AyoCaesar) October 1, 2021
And look at this:
The suffragettes knew about the police.
On ‘Black Friday’ 1910 peaceful women protestors were brutally & sexually assaulted for hours by officers.
‘ they clutched hold of my breasts …pulled up my skirt …threw me into the crowd & incited the men to treat me as they wished’ pic.twitter.com/1Wg2PCnN2y
— Dr Louise Raw (@LouiseRawAuthor) October 2, 2021
At last two women subsequently died as a result.
Home Secretary Winston Churchill was believed by many, including Emmeline Pankhurst, to have officially authorised and encouraged the assaults.#SarahEverard pic.twitter.com/SBW8LiDU9R
— Dr Louise Raw (@LouiseRawAuthor) October 2, 2021
It is more than 100 years since those events and even now – with a woman at the top of the Met and a woman running the Home Office, are we really being told that nobody can be bothered to put a stop to this?
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Wave down a bus? What the? That’s unbelievable. If this was the USA I would advise women to carry a loaded gun and if approached or accosted ask questions later. As a 60yr old man I don’t feel safe walking home late at night, something I avoid as I tend not to leave the house after dark, and I certainly wouldn’t walk through a park on my own at night.
Run off from a police officer? We all know what happens to people who try to “resist arrest”. Further violence that’s what. And nobody cares, least of all the press and the government.