The inquiry comes up with a number of suggestions such as this one:
The report, published today, called for a softening of the approach and urged a return to the "British model" of policing, first defined by 19th-century Conservative prime minister Sir Robert Peel. O'Connor advocated an "approachable, impartial, accountable style of policing based on minimal force and anchored in public consent".
All well and good, but if the individual police officers continue to act as they did at the G-20 protests, i.e. pushing over a man walking along with his hands in his pockets, there will be no change. The assault of Ian Tomlinson was not done as part of a policing stratagy of brutality, it was done because police officers felt that in the middle of a crowd, protected by removing their ID they could do what they like. Until the average police officer is made accountable to the public this sort of thing will keep happening.
Public order training should be overhauled, with a new emphasis on schooling the 22,500 officers trained for protests in communication and diplomacy rather than riot scenarios. "Time spent on suppressing mass urban disorder should be reduced and time spent on planning and keeping the peace should be increased," O'Connor said.
This and any other measure brought in will have no effect until the police are taken to account and remeber that they (like politicians) are public servants.
And since the Met seem not to like the proposals anyway
Although the Met is expected to endorse today's report, O'Connor's findings will be seen as a damning indictment of a style of policing protest pioneered by Scotland Yard in the last decade. Senior Met officers are known to have lobbied hard against some of O'Connor's proposals, at one stage even hiring lawyers in an unsuccessful attempt to oppose one of his key recommendations.
What chance is there of any change? Only time - and another big protest - will tell. I'm not confident.
No comments:
Post a Comment