Manchester Police Own Goal
viral | 09.06.2008 19:37 | Anti-militarism | Health | Terror War
It appears Manchester Constabulary fired and scored an own goal today with the death of one of their officers during routine firearms training in a Manchester warehouse.
At this point they couldn't comment on whether the fatal bullet was discharged from another officer's gun or his own (which is slightly worrying).... As sad as it must be for his family, at least that's one less marksman on the streets with a licence to use deadly weapons against the people living in Manchester. Guns don't beat crime.
He shoots, he scores....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/jun/09/4
He shoots, he scores....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/jun/09/4
viral
Comments
Hide the following 15 comments
......
09.06.2008 23:47
Human compassion is obviously just a word to you, a human has died doing something he believes in.
Whats the point in typing more, this comment will get pulled and not yours because it's a copper, and his life is not worth worrying about, so we all slide towards the pit a bit quicker.
Harry Purvis
Harry Purvis?
10.06.2008 01:33
Another old j18
Harry Purvis vs. Another old j18
10.06.2008 03:53
Well, "a human has died doing something he believes in" says Harry Purvis...but everyone has a line somewhere (otherwise you're morally abject) - should we have compassion for someone who imposes genocide? Perhaps on some level. Should we give them credit because they're a human being who died doing something they believe in? No way!
.
Harry Purvis - tin foil hat wearer
10.06.2008 06:38
The Home Secretary told MPs: ""This demonstrates the dangers that police officers face on our behalf."
Yup - indeed - being shot by their colleagues who won't be held responsible for their actions - although members of the public are far more likely to be executed at the hand of a police marksman who won't be held responsible for their actions.
Harry Purvis appears to be a pro-copper believer in fairy stories. In an earlier comment he had this to say:
"Why would the police be on the side of "big business"?
There is nothing to gain for them in any way, please explain why a not for
profit organization with no political power would want to do that?
That is the sort of thing that make people think that you wear silver foil on
your head to keep the signals out."
Now either he is a cop, a wannabe cop or he is the one wearing some kind of tin foil hat, which stops him understanding that 'policing by consent' is as much a fairy story as the idea that MPs represent us in parliament.
.
Harry Roberts
Not good news
10.06.2008 12:38
The police's function as a force to repress the working class and to keep system agitators from combating inequality (thereby achieving social justice) is a complex and intellectual argument that can only be won by slow and frustrating patience. Needless to say, police officers (and army recruits) come from a section of the working class where a strict rule system and a simplistic eye-for-an-eye regime is the expected norm, so persuading such individuals that their whole subconscious world-view is harmful is not going to happen overnight.
I think it ought to be possible to persuade some officers of the rightness of (for example) protesting outside EDO, and where we can get some sympathy for our cause our path is made easier (perhaps in less arrests or less aggressive treatment). This is not about "social justice by police permission" - it is about trying to win the argument and gaining as much support as we can.
Yes, the police are violent, and yes, many of them (I know one personally) don't have the intellectual capacity to see the damage caused by the status quo. But we are less likely to win authoritarian converts to our causes as a whole if we have previously cheered the deaths of people close to them.
Jon
War or death
10.06.2008 15:10
We Didnt start the fire
There's definitely a difference!
10.06.2008 17:25
I think that you are not prepared to see the difference between a German WWII soldier (conducting war crimes) and a British police officer today (helping repress the working class and protecting war criminals) is a serious problem. No matter how right-wing the soldier was - and many soldiers still today are only political in a lazy nationalist/selfish sense - there can be no overlooking his direct contribution to the genocide of the time. The police officer in the modern era is still arguably contributing to a massively unfair system that includes genocide, but the causal links are not nearly as strong or direct. (I do agree with you that they exist, and I too believe that police officers in Britain today *ought* to carry a heavy burden of guilt for their function that they do not see or understand.)
Accordingly, radical and direct-action politics needs to demonstrate these causal links to get the populace on board. Anything less than that will be dismissed by the MSM as 'riots' and 'violent thugs' (etc) which serves to keep ordinary people in the dark about the important struggles of our time. If you read your history (and I admit history is not my strong point) you'll find I think that revolution is impossible without widespread grassroots understanding of the issues at stake.
Jon
A Mans a Man & Auld Lang Syne
10.06.2008 18:11
If your chosen enemy is capitalism then attack the capitalists, not their employees. The police, and soldiers for that matter, are mostly working class people employed to act as a buffer between you and power, employed to protect the elite. Kick them or kick the walls that they hide behind, it makes no difference to the elite. If you celebrate death then you should maybe join the capitalists. If you think the police are your enemy in a class war, then you should still show them the same respect that all true warriors show their enemies. I would like to state for the record if I was a US citizen then I'd already be serving a 10-20 stretch by now for my posts here.
On a self-indulgent note, this is my last post on Indymedia for reasons I'm not allowed to mention. My first post here was to quash a rumour that the police had broken somebodies arm at Menwith Hill. If that had been true I would have broken two of their ams so I asked an activist to correct that mistake and was told to post it here myself. I'd read this site for a couple of years but was too respectful to post on a 'real activist' newswire. Ironic. I can't find that post but this was my second, and the first time my photo made the internet :
I am the porn-star in the stripey jacket, just out of jail for the heinous crime of 'conspiracy to commit criminal damage'. Someone I'd pissed off from the Medialens site made the final comment, accusing me of being the ML editors attack dog. I was appalled at the time that someone would vandalise IM with pettines as that wasn't what the site was like back then. I have nothing to do with the ML editors or Noam Chomsky but I loved the insinuation that I did, that was the best smear I've been subjected to.
Be nice or be careful.
Danny
Working Class?
10.06.2008 18:20
That seems to leave good old middle england and who gives a fuck about educating them? As a group they are already pro the incumbent system and hold deeply entrenched views. Their views are sustained by the mass media, from whom they take their money, and their 'rights' protected by the filth e.g. reporting a stolen bicycle versus a car.
Celebration of this event is in itself an education, as the number of comments show it is raising awareness of issues surrounding the beasts. Stockwell tube, Chelsea barrister - it's shhot for the hell of time folks. As the Dead Kennedys said "I fought the law/and i won/cos/I am/ the law"
Slaughter of pigs is legal, as the non-arrest shows. Lets have more abbatoirs.
PRoS II
A man's a man
11.06.2008 00:53
Is there for honest poverty
That hings his head, an' a' that;
The coward slave - we pass him by,
We dare be poor for a' that!
For a' that, an' a' that.
Our toils obscure an' a' that,
The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The man's the gowd for a' that.
What though on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hoddin grey, an' a that;
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine;
A man's a man for a' that:
For a' that, and a' that,
Their tinsel show, an' a' that;
The honest man, tho' e'er sae poor,
Is king o' men for a' that.
Ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord,
Wha struts, an' stares, an' a' that;
Tho' hundreds worship at his word,
He's but a coof for a' that:
For a' that, an' a' that,
His ribband, star, an' a' that:
The man o' independent mind
He looks an' laughs at a' that.
A prince can mak a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, an' a' that;
But an honest man's abon his might,
Gude faith, he maunna fa' that!
For a' that, an' a' that,
Their dignities an' a' that;
The pith o' sense, an' pride o' worth,
Are higher rank than a' that.
Then let us pray that come it may,
(As come it will for a' that,)
That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth,
Shall bear the gree, an' a' that.
For a' that, an' a' that,
It's coming yet for a' that,
That man to man, the world o'er,
Shall brothers be for a' that.
R.B.
Death in context.
11.06.2008 09:47
We are faced with the neo-cons, Bilderberg group and global capitalism, the population of the earth has never been presented with these threats to its existence before.
Police are corrupt and happily side with the neo cons to oppress us. Most of them are Freemasons and use that for corrupt purposes. "Brothers" in the Police help their fellow "Brothers" whether criminals, bosses, or politicians (Jack Straw is a Freemason as was Blair).
Police are our enemy and the death of anyone in the Police must be viewed in that context.
While on this subject, the powers that exist will kill Police when it suits their purpose to eliminate them. Look at the very strange death of Michael Todd, former Chief Constable of Manchester. After doing a report on CIA rendition flights landing on UK soil, he is found dead on Snowdon. The circumstances are mysterious and it appears that he was "suicided". There are similarities with the death of Dr David Kelly, also "suicided" by government agents, though which government is debatable. Do CIA death squads operate in the UK?
As the whole is today, run by neo cons in USA and elsewhere, we are all expendable. Any organisation which colloborates with these is an enemy of the people. This death should be viewed in that context.
Jolly Roger
A man's a man
11.06.2008 10:24
A21
Good news / Bad news
12.06.2008 09:29
Jon
There is a middle ground between sending flowers and throwing a street party though. You may win less authoritarian converts by cheering, but you may drive away some supporters if you look like your principled moral opposition to the police goes all silent every time the mainstream media wants to honour one of Our Brave Boys(TM).
Basically a bunch of guys were running around playing with guns and one of them died. I don't see why that should command any more respect than a guy who dies while hand-gliding even if he believes that his hand-gliding is making society a better place.
Remember, ignorance is no defense in the eyes of the law. You can't join a repressive security force and then cry when the people you repress fail to show significant respect. Maybe that lack of sympathy might make people less eager to sign up and serve as they realise that their service is not required.
MonkeyBot 5000
from the art of war
12.06.2008 11:40
and are not favoured by the wise,
who use them only when there is no choice,
for peace and stillness are dear to their hearts,
and victory causes them no rejoicing.
To rejoice in victory is to delight in killing;
to delight in killing is to have no self-being.
The conduct of war is that of a funeral;
when people are killed, it is a time of mourning.
This is why even victorious battle
should be observed without rejoicing.
the way
the way
12.06.2008 14:06
Wrong Turn