Last night was a much hyped documentary on BBC1 that involved a reporter going undercover and joining the police. The astonishing discovery made by the reporter was that apparently the force is packed tight with racists. Well bugger me, who’d have thought it ?
Despite the apparent obviousness of this revelation, I’m glad the BBC showed it because I firmly believe that some people don’t have a clue about what goes on.
Michele was pretty shocked by it, and I don’t think it’s because her dad’s a cop either. It really does appear that things are different in the Philadelphia police. As far as I can discern, the British police is composed almost entirely of nasty bastards. Of course there is a proportion of people who join for the “right” reasons, but it is a very small proportion – I would say negligable. Nearly all of the racist comments and actions were directed at “pakis”. As the white recruits became more comfortable in each others company the comments became less vague and more shocking with one particulary odious shitbag (and proud BNP member) talking about wanting to “bury pakis if he could get away with it.” Once he had graduated and been given a beat in North Wales he bragged about the pakis he’d thrown the book at for offences that he usually let white people off for. He even laughed that he made one old asian man cry. Here are some of the enlightened comments expressed by the brilliant new recruits:

• A dog born in a barn is still a dog. A paki born in England is still a paki
• Pakis cause racism
• I’d stop him, because he’s a paki. Because he’s not english.
• I’d go as far as I could get away with, if I could call him a “paki bastard” and that was as far as I could get away with that’s where it stops. If I could get away with burying the fucker under a train track, he’s fucking going under the train track [laughs]

The last comment was in reference to a fellow trainee officer. The only asian recruit in the whole of the intake. He ended up leaving and getting put back five weeks. He was the target of a spectacular amount of, what I can only describe as, bullying.
Yes the force is trying to combat racism, but in a really hopeless clumsy way – all they do is push it underground and so it’s only spoken about in “safe” enviroments. On the streets they’re still the same racist thugs and you can still get a beating.

And predictably this lead me into thinking about the whole nature of police. These people have been ordained with the power to interfere with other peoples’ freedom in the name of what is right. When it clearly isn’t.
This programme made me realise that I had long ago completed the journey from being unsure and confused about the issue to being firmly, firmly anti-police. hear me out.
Even if the force was totally composed of righteous, selfless people, it would still be wrong. The police are not there to protect people, they are there to defend the state against change and shield the privileged from the unprivileged. The Metropolitan Police have even gone as far as to say that they no longer investigate burlgaries and minor thefts.
So what do they do exactly ? Rest assued that if a private, profit making company needs assistance, for example Connex with its with “revenue protection officers” there’ll be fucking millions of coppers mobilised to protect the shareholders. There’ll be hundreds of coppers patrolling the red-routes today making sure the economy can function properly with nice clear roads. At the recent international arms fair in East London there were literally tens of thousands of them protecting the arms dealers, dictators and terrorists from the peaceful demonstrators.
So, next time you get mugged, burgled, raped or harrased in the street you will understand why the only help you get is a crime reference number from a civilian desk worker and the offer of a letter from the victim support charity. The real coppers are out doing important police business. You see.