What a Sad State of Affairs

The worst state of affairs is from the do gooders IMHO

Liberty, Amnesty and Inquest are among the Human rights groups to speak out against them, saying they belong in "horror stories".

"A spit hood is a primitive, cruel and degrading tool that inspires fear and anguish," Martha Spurrier, director of Liberty, said.


Really FFS

leftbehind said:

The worst state of affairs is from the do gooders IMHO

Liberty, Amnesty and Inquest are among the Human rights groups to speak out against them, saying they belong in "horror stories".

"A spit hood is a primitive, cruel and degrading tool that inspires fear and anguish," Martha Spurrier, director of Liberty, said.


Really FFS

Wonder if she felt the same if some low life gobbed in her face every night

Anyone else see 999 what's your emergency last night? It's a joke what the police have to put up with. Spat at, headbutted, kicked and one low life saying he's gonna rape the copper's wife and kids. Can't understand why more funding isn't given, things will only get worse.

they should just fight fire with fire, if someone is spitting at the police just cuff them up to some railings and get a couple of meat wagons down and spit all over the c#nt

SDAddick said:

leftbehind said:

The worst state of affairs is from the do gooders IMHO

Liberty, Amnesty and Inquest are among the Human rights groups to speak out against them, saying they belong in "horror stories".

"A spit hood is a primitive, cruel and degrading tool that inspires fear and anguish," Martha Spurrier, director of Liberty, said.


Really FFS

But as inevitably happens when you give police a new tool..

Lord Adebowale, former chair of the commission on the Met Police's response to mental health, said: "There is an awful trend of these devices being misused and being used in a way which tends to impact minority ethnic groups, those with mental health challenges, those with learning difficulties."

That hood looks terrifying. Yeah it sucks that police are being spat on and bitten, but I don't see how sticking a hood on someone is going to deescalate problems.

As an outsider looking in, it seems that the answer to most things is to just give police more weapons*. You had billy clubs which were being misused or no longer met the need, so you gave them tasers. Now handcuffs and tasers don't work so you give them hoods. Instead of giving them tools why not spend that money on giving them training on how to deescalate problems?

*We have that here in the States too, except we just give our police fucking tanks and shit (I'm not kidding, a lot of police forces have gotten left over armaments that were intended for battlefields).

The problem is, being spat at requires hospital treatment with anti-virals that can have some pretty nasty effects and the quality of life for the officer involved is also going to be reduced until they know they've got the all clear. There was a young policewoman who died in Ukraine recently after contracting infectious diseases from spit - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3716788/Policewoman-dies-contracting-fatal-contagious-disease-thug-spat-face-arrest.html

One of the best things about living in the UK is - in my opinion - the fact that our police force is very keen to de-escalate verbally; a large chunk of a new police officers training at the moment is about verbal de-escalation. When someone is kicking off and spitting at you though, it may be a bit late for that.

I don't doubt for one second that they will be used more on minority groups - but I'll qualify that with a chat I had with a mate recently; we were discussing stop+search and I asked him whether he reckoned he stopped more people from minority backgrounds on a daily basis. His answer was "Yeah, I do... but I work in a predominantly black area where it would be quite difficult to stop the same amount of people who were White British.". Contrast that to a pre-dominantly White area, and the answer would be similar: most people are white, most people who get stopped+searched are white. So the real question is, why do certain areas (which often possess a larger amount of minorities) require more intervention?

The real tragedy is not that more minority groups get stopped, searched or will have a spit-hood applied to them. The real tragedy is actually the fact that many of the areas which require more intervention have a larger make-up of minority groups. Rather than questioning bias in the police force, it may be worth looking at other potential issues that facilitate these areas stagnating and/or becoming unsafe. Until people at-risk of falling in to crime have other genuine alternatives within their reach, then any options are purely reactive.

However, on the topic of spit hoods - I think they're great. If you're going to try and spit at someone then you can't really complain when your face is covered over IMO.

There's been some awful stories of these being used on young people with Autism by police in the full knowledge of their background so like any tool aimed at restraining their needs to be a lot of training and thought put into their appropriate use.

Simple. Change the law to say that spitting at someone is serious assault with a minimum 18 months sentence. Spitting at a police officer, Firecrew, health worker or public official carries a mandatory 24 months.

Disgusting bastards.

Taken from a satirical twitter account, but rather hits the spot...


Don't want to wear a hood? Don't spit.

RugbyAddick said:

Would rather be punched in the face than spat at.

If you don't spit at police, then you have nothing to worry about. Simple as that really.

You really believe they only use it if someone spits?

Sadiq Khan has blocked the trial scheme.. Absolutely farcical.

iainment said:

The police have existed in one form or other for as long as society has existed. And now they need spit masks.
Hmm.

The only problem with modern police is that whatever is given to them to use is used by a significant minority of them inappropriately. And they end up killing people. And I think they should actually try and police effectively with minimal resort to gadgets.

Perhaps society hasn't ever been so scummy and lacking in respect.