Posts Tagged ‘police’

The Norden is a documentary series where they take someone from the United States to visit Finland, Norway and Sweden and compare the way they do things. With predictable results.

Prisons

Police

Guns are a terrible idea; go Norway.

Religion

I think the paster here does really well. He is down with the Heavy Metal Mass, and it feels like with the room 666 they are just teasing him. Plus the Bible does hate gays. I do not agree with that, but it is in there.

This video has been doing the rounds on the social network.

Of course it is difficult to know the full story. Maybe the guy had been drinking. But Manchester Evening News have the full story. He had not – it was a stitch up by the police.

After I had finished explaining all this, he looked at me and said “that may be the case sir. But that’s still no excuse for doing 37 in a 30 zone.”

Worth a try, anyway.

As you may have noticed, we recently experienced some riots in the UK.

Everything was fine here in Leeds. Someone got shot in Chapeltown, but that is just a normal evening in Chapeltown. In fact, rather than a riot, we had a march of peace while other cities were kicking off. Good old Yorkshire values present such destruction, as we just stick kettle on instead (and it’s important to note I didn’t say stick the kettle on.

Two things I found interesting though.

Firstly, the amount of people who turn out to be rather right wing when it affects their lives. We should lock them up, evict them, beat school children with a cane and possibly bring back the death penalty should Facebook comments and tweets be believed.

Obviously we shouldn’t do this, we want to live in a fear-free progressive society, not a police state.

The second is that, the remaining people, though relatively few in number, seemed to think that those who were behind the riots, shouldn’t take much responsibility at all. It’s due to underlying social issues and the forgotten generation, so it isn’t their fault.

Of course this is equally nonsense. Even if there are underlying social causes, which there are, but rather contributing factors than absolute causes, people need to take some responsibility for their actions and nothing that took place in the past week is justified – stealing a loaf of bread for your starving family is justified, looting a shop isn’t.

So basically, if you expressed an opinion on the riots, you were probably wrong about it ;). But I look forward to blog posts from other people explaining to me why my middle of the road approach is nonsense as well… :D.

Last Saturday the EDL held a protest in Dewsbury. Although, the first I knew about it, was when a bunch of their supporters came running past my window in the centre of Leeds. Luckily, as I explained last week, Twitter soon had be clued up what was going on.

I spent a bit of time watching the Twitter updates, with both sides tweeting live, and had to giggle a bit when a guy named Ged Robinson kept asking them what was the point in doing protest events when a much better way to engage would be to talk to the moderate Muslims.

This may be a good point, but there is a certain level if irony with someone spending a large amount of their time engaging in the futile activity of trying to put a rational argument to people who will never accept such points, telling them their efforts are futile.

The police were soon hot on the trail however and within a few minutes, there were half a dozen police vans parked outside my house.

On returning from the beach, we headed down to takeaway road opposite the university to grab some dinner. However, upon arriving there, we found an emergency in progress.

Police had apparently been called out to Luckys takeaway. Indeed, the incident was such an emergency that the police hadn’t even had time to turn their lights on to indicate they were attending an emergency.

After about five minutes they eventually emerged carrying what must have been evidence. However, due to time pressures they had been unable to get any evidence bags and were forced to use Luckys takeaway bags.

We’re still not sure what exactly the emergency incident was, but clearly, it required them to be in a huge rush. After all, what other reason could there be for them parking on double yellow lines, in a bus lane?

I went down to the English Defence League protest and counter-protest on Saturday to see what was going on. There were an amazing amount of police everywhere including loads of mounted police, riot police and an endless series of vans. The Manchester operation cost approximately £200,000 of tax payers money, I expect the Leeds operation cost a similar amount.

The EDL lot were based on city square where the police had them penned off with barriers across the entrances where they were letting people in and out. They had also blocked a number of roads round the area off though they didn’t seem to stop traffic going into the traps – so the most amusing point of the day was when a BMW X5 complete with a very middle class looking family found itself with nowhere to go on the one way system. As such the husband got out of the car, politely moved the cones blocking off the turned off onto Park Row, drove through them and put them back.

It was a bit dead down on the EDL side of things so I headed up to the counter demo outside the art gallery. There was far more of an atmosphere up here though I’m not convinced that drums are generally considered the sound of peace. It was a strange mix of leftist politics as you would expect, for example I’m not sure what the Stop the War Coalition has to do with any of this other than trying to hijack the event for some cheap publicity.

Not longer after I got there Revolution led a march away from the event as they tried to move towards EDL. The police soon had lines across the roads they didn’t want them to go down and they ended up down the financial district.

Having eventually nowhere else to go that would get them closer to EDL things inevitably turned ugly as Revolution charged the police line. They managed to get some people through though there was a second line of mounted officers and several police vans in support so the police eventually forced them back and they eventually gave up and marched back to the art gallery.

Wondering back down to the EDL protest it had really picked up with far more people there and a bit more atmosphere, especially when several coaches turned up bringing EDL reinforcements many of which were carrying banners. Doesn’t speak too highly for the Leeds movement if they have to bus in reinforcements but there you go.

The most enjoyable part of the day was chatting to the other amateur photographers which had turned to cover the event. Many of them had been covering such events for as long as a decade. There were some interesting lessons to be learned too. “I always follow the leftist side at these events,” one of the pro-left photographers explained. “It’s always the left that start the violence.”

Luckily on Saturday there was very little in the way of trouble – the day passed with only five arrests and no major injuries though of the clashes there were with the police I found the attitudes of those involved very disconcerting. “We could have broken through the police lines” one of the leftist supporters said. I replied “Well, I mean surely you shouldn’t do that?” “No, it would have worked, we had the number just not enough people went for it.” “No, I mean, from a moral point of view you shouldn’t be charging the police,” I tried to explain but the concept seemed lost on him.

EDL got approximately 900 people down there while the counter protest managed to get 1,500. Therefore we can conclude that only 38% of the population are in favour of fascism while the other 62% opposite it. Democracy works.

Of course, that isn’t a serious comment. Both sides are actually a bunch of fascists so the real conclusion we can draw from Saturday is that the 95.5% of the population of Leeds that didn’t attend think they are all wankers and wish they would stop wasting our tax money on huge policing operations.

Despite that though I’m glad the event happened. It is a true testament to the free and democractic society we live in when nut job organisations such as EDL, Revolution and UAF are able to speak their mind like this. It is ultimately this type of libertarianism which is so desirable that will ultimately defeat Sharia law, the object of both sides’ protests.

English Defence League crowd on city square.

The police attempt to block Revolution from marching on EDL.

Revolution charge the police line.

More EDL supporters arrive by coach.

Got home last night to my apartment, casually wandered into the kitchen and took a look outside the window – to find the street below absolutely swarming with police.

Not just a few but dozens of them, half of them carrying machine guns!

There was a line of police cars and vans and the whole top of the street was blocked off as officers moved round a suspicious looking black SUV. Eventually some guys were brought over and the police got them to slowly open up the boot of the vehicle before inspecting it and then escourting it away. Crazy times.

I went round Oakwood drive-thru on the way home to grab some food last night and noticed this notice in the window.

If you can’t read the notice it says…

For the Safety & Security of both our customers and staff this restaurant is remotely monitored with a direct contact to the Police.

This means that they have a security office somewhere monitoring the cameras to make sure there isn’t someone up to no good. My question is though, what is a “direct contact to the Police”? I mean, that implies to me they can contact the police directly.

But, I can do that. The Police gave me their phone number too. I would imagine most people have it actually, it’s quite easy to remember, it’s only three digits.