Menezes health and safety hearing

[Spiderman]

Dude some of the best legal minds money can buy cant get the Met to admit their mistakes in court. Do you really think litte old me with a strong opinion is gonna make a difference?

Trust me, JC's family are making more noise about this than i am as its obviously far more important to them yet do you see the Met even facing up to them or appoligising.

i think the best appology they came out with is an A la Blair type appology like "we're sorry that he was shot but we are not sorry for doing what we did as it was based on the best intel blah blah poop falling out my mouth everytime i open it"

The only reason i'm posting in this thread is to put a stop to the misinformation that has already permeated the "general publics" mind about this case whent he facts are simple and should not be clouded by other issues.

The killed an innocent man due to a series of blunders and miscommunications and it cannot be allowed to go unpunished lest we give the Met license to get it wrong. Again. And again.

I believe anyone tasked with protecting this countries security should be able to do so without fear of reprisal should a mistake be made.

They have to live with what they do day to day - what is the biggest mistake you or I will make in our daily jobs? Spilling a brew over a keyboard?

It's very easy to sit in Surrey with your 2020 hindsight and berate the officers for making these mistakes - i'd like to see how you react in the same situation given the same information.

It was one mistake, one man died - numerous successful operations occur every day saving hundreds if not thousands of lives.

Get some perspective.

Originally Posted by Dante

I believe anyone tasked with protecting this countries security should be able to do so without fear of reprisal should a mistake be made.

They have to live with what they do day to day - what is the biggest mistake you or I will make in our daily jobs? Spilling a brew over a keyboard?

It's very easy to sit in Surrey with your 2020 hindsight and berate the officers for making these mistakes - i'd like to see how you react in the same situation given the same information.

It was one mistake, one man died - numerous successful operations occur every day saving hundreds if not thousands of lives.

Get some perspective.

Sorry, but that's rubbish.

I have a job in which I'm paid to make decisions. If I make a mistake that goes unchecked then the company will in all likelyhood accept it and just concerntrate on how to put it right. If I'm completely incompetant, make successions of utterly stupid choices and cause serious financial loss I expect to get sacked.

An innocent mans dead and no-ones even been held acountable, let alone sacked.

This isn't about finding someone to blame for an unfortunate mistake, it's about the Met facing up to a series of catastrophic failures, and addressing them. Their refusal to accept any responsibility is worrying indeed.

I walked in to a butcher the other day where all the beef was on the ceiling.
I said wow! the steaks are high!











*groan*

[northwind]

Originally Posted by Dante

I believe anyone tasked with protecting this countries security should be able to do so without fear of reprisal should a mistake be made.

Or to put it another way, "This job is so essential that they should be free to mess it up" It's logic, jim, but not as we know it.

But I think you're possibly missing the point, it doesn't have to be about punishment. We've got this huge chain of ****-ups, deceit and incompetence, even if you don't want to put a head on a stick that's got to be fixed.

You can't say it too often, if Menezes had been a suicide bomber, he would have succeeded. He was killed after having several perfect opportunities to blow up lots of people, so the failure here isn't just that an innocent man was killed for really no reason whatsoever, but also that a police supervision effort on a potential bomber completely failed to stop a man that might have been a bomber. You think that's a situation that should be allowed to continue, either way?

You've got to get people who'll hide the facts from their chain of command, or who'll lead a completely flawed operation so dangerously, out of the system before they do it again, and it doesn't have to be about revenge, it's just how you get the job done.

[Ruffy]

Just catching up - this is a good, strong debate

Originally Posted by northwind

You've got to get people who'll hide the facts from their chain of command, or who'll lead a completely flawed operation so dangerously, out of the system before they do it again, and it doesn't have to be about revenge, it's just how you get the job done.

I agree, but at work are you totally honest in all your opinions with your boss, or your boss's boss, or your directors?

Originally Posted by Spiderman

Do you really think litte old me with a strong opinion is gonna make a difference?

You've always got to believe you can - that's democracy!

Originally Posted by Spiderman

The killed an innocent man due to a series of blunders and miscommunications and it cannot be allowed to go unpunished lest we give the Met license to get it wrong. Again. And again.

(At the risk of a major derail) I am interested in the contrast that the same force of argument was not pushed against a certain ex-PM over a certain war that continues to cause loss of innocent life again and again. It has similarities - poor intel, poor decisions, no accountability, no honesty, apology etc.

Originally Posted by Spiderman

You arrest someone by mistake , it can be undone.... you just let them go.
You pump a bunch of bullets into an innocent mans head....errrm no way to reverse that is there?

As I said, unpleasant fact - mistakes happen. I would have the same stance, in terms of retribution required, had someone made the mistake of not pumping a bunch of bullets into a guilty suicide bomber.

But I'm not advocating letting them just get away with it. I'm still optomistic and trusting (accepting that some would say foolish) enough to believe that the seriousness of this incident will lead to improvement, in private, throughout the police. It doesn't necessarily need a public "washing of dirty laundry".

[northwind]

No I'm not, but then, it's some time since I shot a customer in the face

Originally Posted by northwind

No I'm not, but then, it's some time since I shot a customer in the face

I have been tempted though

[Spiderman]

Originally Posted by Ruffy

You've always got to believe you can - that's democracy!

Pfff, dont make me laugh with that nonsense word "democracy". Did you vote to allow the Govt to routinely record and transcribe all you landlne/mobile calls and emails and text messages and make the available to hundreds of Govt agencies? Well did you? Of course not. You vote for a bunch of liars and hypocrites who say what they need to to get your vote and do what the hell they please when they are in.

Originally Posted by Ruffy

It doesn't necessarily need a public "washing of dirty laundry".

Its the only way the family can get some closure on this isnt it? The cops say the f'd up and make a public appology. Simple. We teach children to admit when they do something wrong as the right thing to do. So whay does that not apply to cops?

Originally Posted by Dante

I believe anyone tasked with protecting this countries security should be able to do so without fear of reprisal should a mistake be made.

They have to live with what they do day to day - what is the biggest mistake you or I will make in our daily jobs? Spilling a brew over a keyboard?

It's very easy to sit in Surrey with your 2020 hindsight and berate the officers for making these mistakes - i'd like to see how you react in the same situation given the same information.

It was one mistake, one man died - numerous successful operations occur every day saving hundreds if not thousands of lives.

Get some perspective.

Basically FS said all i need to in response to this but as for "Get some perspective" well i'm sure if that had been your brother/cousin/nephew/uncle you'd be sitting there saying "yeh well he died, so what, get on with it family. The cops do succesfull operations too you know!"
And your family would smile and congratulate you for being so big to take such a view would they?

There is no defending this behaviour, from the top down.

I make no apology for bumping this thread so that it is brought to your attention once again.

I have pasted in what I see as a key section of the summing up of the Judge Justice Henriques. His summing up of course is meant to guide the jury as to which way they should lean with their verdict. It is completely obvious to me how is worship thinks this case should go.


Summing up, he told jurors: "To suggest that it is wrong to prosecute the police for an alleged offence under the Health and Safety at Work Act is to submit that the police are above the law."