Saturday, November 03, 2007

The same end no matter the events?

The Metropolitan Police Commissioner seems to be under quite a bit of pressure doesn't he? But I can't help wondering that no matter what had happened the same would be true as well as the widespread criticism of the Police in general, especially if you think of the possible scenarios and what would have happened after that.

Scenario 1: Jean Charles de Menezes a valid subject and taken down.

Police follow de Menezes and take him down in the same place and way as before. Inevitable inquiry finds that there were health and safety failures putting the public and police at risk as they allowed a suicide bomber to get all the way on to a train before dealing with it. Systemic operational failures cited, people call for the Commissioner to reign.

Scenario 2: Jean Charles de Menezes a valid subject who successfully detonates himself on the Tube.

Inevitable inquiry finds systemic operational failure. Total failure by the Police to reduce risk to the public under Health and Safety laws and apprehend a terrorist before he successfully carried out an operation, phrases like "they had him in their sights but failed to act" would appear in print. Calls for the head of the Met to resign.

Scenario 3: Jean Charles de Menezes a valid subject and arrested on Tube by armed officers.

Inquiry finds that the officers failed to consider the risk to health and safety of the public by allowing a valid target to get on a train, as well as causing panic on the tube with plain-clothed officers waving guns. Systematic communication failures cited as cause going up the chain of command. Calls for the Commissioner to resign appear in the press.

Scenario 4: Jean Charles de Menezes not a valid subject but arrested on the Tube and later released.

Public outrage at an innocent man being apprehended on Tube and arrested at gunpoint causing unnecessary panic at a time of heightened awareness. De Menezes takes Police to court for unlawful arrest. Evidence reveals systemic failures in the police operation. Questions are raised about the unnecessary risk posed to the public by the police for waving guns around and also the question of where the "right man" might be. At some point the Met commissioner's head on a plate would be called for.

Having said all this I could just be a little too cynical about the way these sort of things usually pan out.

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wonder what you would have said if it was your son that was killed?

dizzy said...

I wonder what the relevance of your comment has to the point being made in my post?

Anonymous said...

Because if it was your son you would not have been so cynical about an event that is of the utmost seriousness.

Perhaps you think the UK should mirror the Burma junta!

dizzy said...

Actually you'd be wrong on that because the point being made above is that if you think about it for just one second, in every scenario that could have happened, the Police would more than likely have been found to have failed in some way.

Now I'm not supporting the Police either way, but instead pointing out that the current climate, political, media and legal, is such that more often than not no matter what the Police may do they find themselves on the end of very similar criticism.

Perhaps you think the UK should mirror the Burma junta!

Perhaps this is the most disingenuous idiotic false comparison known to man? Although it's worth noting that you are amongst friends within Hizb-u Tahir if you actually believe that. Personally I'm not a big a fan of making nonsensical moral equivalences between a state that carries arbitrary mass shootings of it's populace and one that simply made a tragic fuck-up.

Anonymous said...

Of course the police failed in someway. An incident man was killed, and this is the key point, for NO reason whatsoever.

Was it a fuck up or did several police officers take the law into their own hands? What was it, five or seven bullets to the head.

Next you will be applauding Livingstone for backing the police yesterday when he has spent the best part of his life promoting the IRA.

ChrisC said...

I don't think the calls would come after 3 and 4.
And we've already had 2, haven't we?
Were there such calls?

dizzy said...

Of course the police failed in someway. An incident man was killed, and this is the key point, for NO reason whatsoever.

Howard, I find myself in a quandary because it seems to me that you have not actually read my post. I was not talking about what happened, I was posing counter-factuals to make the point that in the other scenarios the same outcome in terms of the Police being slated for failure would have likely occurred.

Was it a fuck up or did several police officers take the law into their own hands?

To be perfectly honest I don't know. I guess the answer depends entirely upon one's pre-existing prejudices. Although either way, its still a "fuck up" in the wider definition of the term which is what I meant when I said it.

Next you will be applauding Livingstone for backing the police yesterday when he has spent the best part of his life promoting the IRA.

What an absurd thing to say, esepcially given I was pretty clear above that I was not supporting the Police either way. It merely reinforces my instinct that instead of actually reading and comprehending the point of my post you've just glanced over it and said "he's not calling for a resignation and isn't slating the Police so he must therefore support them". It's pretty weak reasoning to be perfectly frank, but then you've done it before on my blog. I'm glad to see you've dropped the silly moral equivalence game playing with Burma though.

ChrisC : YOu may or may not be right. I was careful though not to say who would be calling for it. I imagine that in certain parts of the press there would be calls though.

I;m not sure we have had 2 though because my point there was to say that all things happened the same as did happen accept for the moment where the Police leapt on the train and shot him. The Police were not actively following the four bomber from a few weeks earlier, so of course there were not calls. However there have been calls for a public inquiry and many believe that that information that shows failure has been withheld.

I am going out for the day now, so Howard, don't expect any comments to be published until much later. Suggest you re-read the post though.

Anonymous said...

In this specific case, I think you're right Dizzy, though my logic would be more be crude - there are plenty of people out there who think Blair is a tw*t and would use any excuse to try to get him out. From conversations I've had that appears to include most of his own force.

Steve_Roberts said...

Had JCDM been stopped and questioned after leaving the flats, as the night shift instructed, he would still be alive. This is the fundamental failure which rightly attracts criticism.

Further failures include lack of armed police when called for, and multiple failures in communications between the officers on the ground and the control room.

As to your counter-factuals, I don't think 3 or 4 would have even become public, let alone attract criticism. Scenario 2 is a bit more tricky. To detonate a bomb, the subject would have had to have either one concealed in a rucksack or a bulky jacket. In this case the correct action would be a stop above ground, and the lack of armed police support would probably attract criticism, but I really don't think we should ever countenance shooting people just because they are carrying a rucksack.

Anonymous said...

I did read your post and it was the cynical thoughts behind it that got to me. I have strong views about the wider subject about how human rights have slowly be eroded recently, and how the police react when they say they are under pressure.

All this gets missed and moreover in this case nobody is prepared to take the can.

If your post had dealt with this, rather than some cynical thoughts that happen when you leap out of bed in the morning, I would have been more impressed.

Anyway at least debate goes on in your blogs, which more than can be said for some. That is to your credit.

Anonymous said...

From what I have seen in the press, the criticism and pressure would have been entirely justified in any of the scenarios you outline. At a time when the Met should have been at the top of its game it was running surveilance on known terrorists in a manner more worthy of the keystone cops.

That would not be acceptable in the police force of any city which had just suffered 4 actual and 4 attempted suicide bombers.

And when the worst did happen, instead of stepping up and dealing with the issue, Blair moved smartly to the rear and (from what I can see) let others take the flack.

Leaving aside the attempts to cover up the mistakes and the smearing of deMenezes' character which continued from almost the minute after the error became public through to the recent trial - those points alone would justify the pressure on Blair to resign.

You almost get the impression that Blair does not really believe that the Met did anything wrong that day.

Mostly Ordinary said...

I think most peoples objections to the whole affair stem not so much from the killing of the man, because we can almost understand why it happened, but the appalling spin job The Met. attempted after the incident.

Anonymous said...

Having just read Jenkins in The Sunday Times and Rawnsley in the Observer, I know feel more than justified by saying what I said yesterday about your blog. You should reflect on these articles and the cynical approach you adopted.

dizzy said...

I'm not quite sure why you would feel more justified. All your comments were about what happened to de Menezes, whilst this post was wondering what might have happened. I do like the fact though that this is now the second time where you've told me that I should be writing about something else.

As I said to you before, this is not a public service and you get my thoughts on things as is. I don;t need to reflect on my cynical approach because I don't actually have one. If you read my blog regularly you'd be well aware that when I say "perhaps I'm just being cynical" all the time. It's a throwaway comment at the end of post.

This post was not a cynical post in reality, it was a genuine list of "what ifs" and wondering if the Police would ever have found themselves not slated, which I don't think they would have.

Incidentally you mentioned human rights, it's those that have eroded your liberty not the police.

Anonymous said...

Your 2nd sentence proves my point. Nothing should have happened to de Menezes. If the police had done their job none of your scenario's would have happened.

Obviously I do not know if you followed the trial, but if you had, than what you have postulated would not apply.

de Menezes never was and never could have been a suspect.

dizzy said...

What a load of nonsense, it doesn't prove your point because you still don't seem to get what this post was about and I insisting on getting hung up on the factual rather than use of counterfactuals to note the way in which the climate we currently exist within, especially in relation to terrorism, more often than not results in the Police being blamed no matter what it is does, right or wrong.

The counterfactuals were based on the rather clear assumption that de Menezes was seen and mistakenly identified as the subject. THey were about the "what if" that could have followed after that point and asks "what would be the end game for each?"

"If the police had done their job none of your scenario's would have happened."

That's totally irrelevant to my point.

de Menezes never was and never could have been a suspect.

Again completely irrelevant to the point being made in the counterfactuals which assumes the mistaken identity happened and the possible paths that could have occurred from that point on. At the end of the day a misidentification occurred, and there followed cock-ups in communication and other assorted mistakes (or as you bizarrely suggested, crazy policemen rampaged the streets intent of capping someone because they thought they were the law), crucially though, those things have nothing to do with the argument I was making in my post.

Basically this discussion is becoming pointless because you are arguing about something completely different to the point I was making. You want to argue about how the Police were wrong to do what they did. I never posted about that, and I don't want to discuss that, it has nothing to do with my argument. Period.

This is now your cue to tell me how I am wrong, how I don't understand what my own post was about and how you actually know what it was about. You should then extrapolate that my omission of arguing X must mean that I believe the opposite.

Anonymous said...

Anybody who starts off by saying "What a lot of nonsense" clearly is on weak ground.

There is no point continuing the dialogue if you wish to throw insults around. Moreover you are clearly not interested in anybody else's views otherwise you reply in a more constructive manor.

dizzy said...

This is becoming rather standard practice for you now Howard isn't it. Completely ignore the point of the post, argue about something completely different, then accuse me of insulting you and being on weak ground for saying that you're point is nonsense. If I had said it, and nothing more then you might have a point, but I said it and then proceeded to explain why.

At the end of the day you made an assertion that I proved your point, but you neither offered to explain what that point was, nor seem to be able to grasp the fact that you're arguing about something completely different to the point made in the original post.

I'm more than happy to hear others views on my posts, but you were not offering views on the argument that I presented. Take a look at the other commments, they've all managed to grasps the argument I was making and have either criticised it or simply discussed it. You haven't, you've gone off on a tangent making assumption about what I think based upon omission. You did this last week as well when you started telling me what I should be writing about.

Actually, I'm more than willing to hear even your views, but don't expect me to simply concede to them when you're arguing past the point rather than with it.

Chris Paul said...

There are many many other variants of course. Here are a couple:

- While pursuing dM the real target slips through the net past a couple of coppers taking leaks and with others kills 200 Londoners, visitors and tourists. dM is still killed in exactly the same circumstances but it is hardly noticed given the overall carnage. There are numerous examples of extraordinary bravery from the public, transport workers, emergency services etc.

- The very wound up police - who have more than the merest traces of class As and are also drunk - also shoot their own colleague who wrestled dM, and they shoot the fleeing Tube Driver, and a couple of others die or are maimed in ricochets.

- Add to any of them: Ian Blair had just taken up the NI job and it was the new Commissioner Paddicks first day in the office.

Still haven't blogged about this at mine. But I am very interested indeed.

1. I spent the aftermath for 10 weeks up to LP conference making the case for S2K with the Labour Left. A few held out but some were persuaded I think.

2. My mum's cousin Hugh was shot dead in Derry in mysterious circumstances, about the time of Bobby Sands et al. There was no inquiry AFAIK.

3. On my way back through London tubing it I saw some strange behaviour and (eventually) reported it to the hotline. When I was back in Manchester. Never found out whether the info was useful or not.

My main reason for delaying was the dM question. Could someone I reported who was innocent end up getting gunned down by mistake?

But of course if the behaviour reported had been leading to an actual incident and was not a recce, dry run or simply an overactive imagination on my part then how would I have felt?

I agree with your underlying premise Dizzy. But also with comments that some of your outcomes would have been scarcely reported.

Dr Rupa Huq made a possibly useful observation on QTextra. Basically that BBC high ups had gone over Blue Peter pussy gate. But Blair I. was still in post. However as I thought the BBC firing was stupid this didn't really amount to an argument for offing Blair.

It is stating the obvious that mistakes happen in life and death situations and that they are more costly than say in solving a problem with a phone-in collapsing technically. Offing people who have experience aka have made mistakes is not the answer.

One last thing. On the question of the bulky jacket the Met shooters had been told shortly before the incident - by the IDF - that bombs could be hidden in light clothing.

This probably contributed to the result.

Anonymous said...

I don't think that your Scenario 2 is right. British people, I think, tend to blame the terrorists. Only if something epically stupid took place, resulting in an explosion, would the police take a big heap of flak.

There are a lot of pressures at play, but I don't think that the Chief of the Met getting strung up over a successful terrorist attack is really one of them, to be honest.