No wonder the police have a bad press

I live in Devon. Devon police aren’t like the Met. They’re nice down here.

Take Sarah Giles.

Terribly nice. Exactly the sort of community policing you’d want. But obviously a bit much for the Seniors.

Nevermind. According to the Guardian, “the assistant chief constable of the force, Chris Boarland, said the officer was now undergoing training,” and that it is “entirely possible in the relatively near future” that she would be allowed to tweet about her work again.

Muzzled staff? Undergoing training? I seem to recall that being a favourite phrase of other regimes. When did we start re-educating people who don’t say what we want? The spirit of Stalin lives on in Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary.

And anyway, could some kind PR agency explain what a gem Topsham has, and is likely to lose, in Sarah Giles?

UPDATE

…and she’s back.

Coooeeee!!!! I’m back!!!! *does weird little celebratory dance*

A welcome breath of fresh – and human – air in a profession that struggles to be relevant to ordinary people.

 

If you go down to the Games today, you’d better not go in disguise

AnonCentral has issued a warning to Anons:

WARNING! All Anons be aware that there is a UK wide Section 60 in place for the duration of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Section 60 (of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994), is the police stop-and-search-without-suspicion power. That is, if they don’t like the look of you, that’s all that is needed to stop and search you.

A person in that area can be searched to see if they are in possession of weapons or dangerous instruments (being anything that has a blade or sharp point). Arrests have already been made using these powers in the last 24hrs in London and Glasgow.

So, says AnonCentral,

…be EXTREMELY CAREFUL with what you are carrying on your person. DO NOT wear your Mask, if heading to a protest action Avoid taking Mobile Phones and anything that may Identify you.

This follows the wider, more general, post from Liberty. Liberty is concerned about all of the liberty-invading precautions being put in place for the Games – such as the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act (2006), which

…allows for the banning of advertising of a “non-commercial nature, and […] announcements of notices of any kind”. Section 22 of the Act allows a “constable or enforcement officer” to “enter land or premises” where they believe a prohibited advert is being shown or produced and destroy the materials.

And then there’s the potential use of LRADs (Long Range Acoustic Devices) as offensive weapons against crowds (which, in the context of dispersal powers available to the police, could be considered “children and adults in groups of two or more”).

The big concern is that these Games-specific restrictions and powers do an income tax – a law that was specifically brought in to fight Napoleon and has stayed ever since.

Kudos to the first person managing to film an unmanned spy drone flying over the capital…

Tokyo police go for the cuddly image

I guess the Japanese police have decided that their public image is too harsh. They seem to have adopted Yogi Bear for their future logo.

Here’s the real Yogi Bear.

I wonder how long it will be before Hanna-Barbera Productions issues a takedown notice on the Tokyo Metropolitan Police?

Or me for that matter.