A Complete Arse
Daniel Finkelstein wrote a thoughtful article on policing - for The Times this week - the first section of which is reproduced below.
"It is the summer of 1975 and it is hot in Irish South Boston. Hot and angry. And down the street, past the bus garage and the Doughboy Donut shop, comes a 6ft 2in black man in a red leisure suit.
At the best of times, a black man in a hostile white South Boston could attarct a menacing crowd. But this man is carrying a paper bag full of money and is dragging a woman along the sidewalk. He has robbed a bank and taken a customer hostage.
A mob gathers in a circle around him, a posse kept back only by the wild waving of the robbber's gun. The tension rises. And then a into the circle steps a lone young police seargeant. He takes command of the crowd and steadily holds hiow own gun, pointed at the hostage taker. He asks the man to surrender.
It doesn't work. The robber is staring riight at the cop's gun. He cannot see his way out. He thinks he is going to die. He prepares to fire. And then the policeman does a remarkable thing. He stops pointing his gun at the robber, dropping his firing arm and his weapon to his side. He faces the robber, effectively unarmed and asks him to surrender. And extraodinarily, the perpetrator, able to see he can now live, no longer fixated by the cop's gun, gives himself up.
The actions of Sergeant Bill Bratton that day not only made him a hero. They also set the pattern for his career which culminated in him becoming America's most celebrated officer - Police Commissioner for Boston, New York and Los Angeles. He is a tough policeman, but more importantly he is subtle and imaginative. The idea that Sir Hugh Orde, of the Association of Chief Police Officers, believes that there is nothing we can learn from him is profoundly depressing."
People's in this country are too often shot down - because of who they are - or where they come from - or because they're too 'left' or too 'right'.
Which conveniently ignores having to think about - of course - what the person actually has to say.
So I'd just like to put on record my support for the view that - on this issue - Sir Hugh Orde is a complete arse.
"It is the summer of 1975 and it is hot in Irish South Boston. Hot and angry. And down the street, past the bus garage and the Doughboy Donut shop, comes a 6ft 2in black man in a red leisure suit.
At the best of times, a black man in a hostile white South Boston could attarct a menacing crowd. But this man is carrying a paper bag full of money and is dragging a woman along the sidewalk. He has robbed a bank and taken a customer hostage.
A mob gathers in a circle around him, a posse kept back only by the wild waving of the robbber's gun. The tension rises. And then a into the circle steps a lone young police seargeant. He takes command of the crowd and steadily holds hiow own gun, pointed at the hostage taker. He asks the man to surrender.
It doesn't work. The robber is staring riight at the cop's gun. He cannot see his way out. He thinks he is going to die. He prepares to fire. And then the policeman does a remarkable thing. He stops pointing his gun at the robber, dropping his firing arm and his weapon to his side. He faces the robber, effectively unarmed and asks him to surrender. And extraodinarily, the perpetrator, able to see he can now live, no longer fixated by the cop's gun, gives himself up.
The actions of Sergeant Bill Bratton that day not only made him a hero. They also set the pattern for his career which culminated in him becoming America's most celebrated officer - Police Commissioner for Boston, New York and Los Angeles. He is a tough policeman, but more importantly he is subtle and imaginative. The idea that Sir Hugh Orde, of the Association of Chief Police Officers, believes that there is nothing we can learn from him is profoundly depressing."
People's in this country are too often shot down - because of who they are - or where they come from - or because they're too 'left' or too 'right'.
Which conveniently ignores having to think about - of course - what the person actually has to say.
So I'd just like to put on record my support for the view that - on this issue - Sir Hugh Orde is a complete arse.
