Sing a sad song for the boys in blue: they truly don’t have a bloody clue…
Last week the Sun reported, with its usual restraint, how
two Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) “just stood there” while a ten-year-old-boy drowned trying to save his step-sister.
The story was a little bit more complicated than that but still, it was not a good day for the boys in blue – or whatever colour these wannabe cops are wearing on the job.
What’s more, even though these two unfortunate limpets weren’t regular policemen, the public at large held the police as a whole responsible for the drowning.
And so, the big police guns came together, to try and do a bit of damage control. A P.R. job, if you like – but one with a decidedly weird take on the whole ‘Reassuring the public’ thing.
Not only that, but right after the drowning of these two kids, this one was, as police announcements go, as deliciously well-timed & well-calculated as the time that one L.A. cop said to his colleagues, ‘Right, let’s beat the shit out of that lowlife Rodney King.’
Anyway, the following has now become standard police policy:
Police officers in one of Britian’s biggest forces have been warned not to hold out a hand to drowning swimmers - in case they are pulled into the water themselves.
The guidance is contained in a health and safety policy document which says officers should also think twice before throwing a lifebelt.
The document, Health And Safety - Water Safety - states:
“Devon and Cornwall Constabulary does not expect or require any member of staff to enter water in a rescue attempt of any person or animal under any circumstances.”
Brilliant.
This probably also means policemen can no longer help old grannies cross the road, in case the old dears panic and push the helpful copper under an oncoming lorry.
Or help a kiddie tie his shoes, in case the little brat kicks the assisting officer in the face.
Or help a lost tourist find his way, in case it’s Osama Bin Laden in disguise, who’s on his merry way to blow up the Houses of Parliament.
So, what are cops allowed to do these days - apart from watching kids drown, that is? Harass or even arrest the occasional nodding junkie?
Think again:
When bus driver Paul Gibbs was told two passengers were smoking crack cocaine, he thought he would do the community a favour.
As he drove the number 47 bus past a police station, he pulled up outside while passengers ran in to alert officers.
But, to their astonishment, police said they were too busy to investigate the crime and suggested they call 999 for assistance.
Mr Gibbs, 48, waited for five minutes outside the station before reluctantly driving off when he realised no one would help.
But bizarrely, ten minutes later, police sent two officers on horseback to chase the suspects.
Unsurprisingly, they had little luck catching the bus on busy London streets and the two men later got off the vehicle scot-free, unaware that they could have been caught.
Nice one.
Still, this same, burning question remains, What do those dumb cops do – in between not saving the tax payers’ children, and not arresting the odd coke head? There must be more to the job than saying ‘Now then…, now then…; move along!’ a few times a day, and drinking tea, and taking the occasional bribe…
Well, bring out your time-worn trumpets, your hand-painted Hosannas and your house-trained confetti guns, for here it is. This is what your average policeman does – and faces, in the line of hazardous duty:
Detectives from a ‘hate crime unit’ have asked an art gallery to turn around a sculpture of Buddha with comical genitalia, on the grounds that it upset passers-by.
Police said they received a number of complaints from members of the public who saw the bronze statue - which shows a penis and testicles in the shape of a banana and eggs - on display in the window of the Saint Giles Street Gallery in Norwich.
Maybe it’s time just to forget about this whole policing business. Let’s dismantle the entire service and help those idiots find more sensible employment somewhere else.
Like selling Mecca Cola at the British National Party convention.
Or maybe, and to end where we more or less started, simply give them hammer & chisel, a lead-weighted coat and a one-way ticket to the nearest, bottomless ocean, to start a new – and hopefully brief – career as undersea sculptors.
P.S.: I know that the caption photo doesn’t exactly show boys in blue - unless you want to be uncommonly sexist, that is. Still, what are you going to do about it…? Shoot me? Sue me? Call the cops…?
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