Overkill’s flipside
We all had a good laugh, me included, at all those riot coppers piling into Blackstock Road in north London the other day. The Daily Mail - The Daily bloody Mail - of all people called it ‘Operation Overkill‘.
Well, here’s the punchline.
Late last summer I had to slap away the marrauding hands that grabbed at my thighs and my bag whilst voices hissed at me that I was a XXXX-sucking XXXX English dirty whore who needed to be taught a XXXX-ing lesson.
…
My tolerance for bullies, criminals, racists and liars is at an all-time low these days. I want my neighbourhood back. This is a very good start.
Overkill? Nowhere near. I hope they were shitting themselves.
Posted on March 29th, 2008 at 8:41 am
| See also • Daniel Davies: The lessons learned • Three wheels on my wagon • Plane speaking |
Permalink • Trackback • Subscribe By Email • Print This Post • • • |
|
Filed under Miscellaneous misanthropy |
Of course the reason for all the riot cops was because they feared that the Algerian ‘community’ might take exception to being raided and, erm, riot!
It was a graphic example of just how convinced the Met are about ’social cohesion’.
But it’s all about sending a message, surely? ‘Do not fuck with us’ is a colour-blind creed most of the time, I’d say. I’ve seen British riot police slap pimply white student anti-war protesters about as well.
I’ve seen (from the inside) riot police storm into the Gunners pub in Blackstock Road because some friendly Spurs fans had set a car on fire outside. It’s an interesting area, that’s for sure.
As an aside, isn’t this rather what we want the police to do, use intelligence-led policing to go after actual criminals and genuine anti-social behaviour? Better than ACPOs authoritarian posturing or Sir Ian Blair’s institutional incompetence.
They knew exactly who they were after. And they were shitting themselves.
If they’d tip-toed in, it would not have had the effect it did which is that a bunch of nasty little arrogant crims who thought Blackstock Road was their own personal fiefdom for the last 4 years - and their rules were the only rules that counted have just found out very dramatically that they are not untouchable after all.
And today, the sense of relief is palpable. People are actually walking up to the cops and thanking them. This is unheard of in Hackney.
I am glad the people of this area feel the problem has been removed, but should it take 4 years for the police to act?
Thanks for the link.
Even so, 600 officers is a lot of officers to raid 19 premises. Where would they put them? It’s be like that Monty Python routine where and endless stream of people piles into the same building. (Can’t remember which sketch…)
ejh’s last blog post..Spain
600 officers into 100 yards is a bit of a squash. They nicked 70 people and raided about 20 premises, some of which contained 3 or 4 rooms.
It was all over very quickly. For the last 3 days there have been no gangs of youths, and no problems, and women with pushchairs can walk on the pavement instead of having to walk in the road to get past crowds of men outside cafes who block the pavement. This is also something worth hoorah-ing about.
I’m still ridiculously gleeful about it. It’s not very becoming, but there you go. Suck it up, bullying crims. Mwah ha ha.
Rachel’s last blog post..42 days: NO
I’ve left a comment on Rachel’s site, but I thought I’d leave one here as well - I lived there [even nearer to the raids than Rachel, ISTR] until 10 months ago, and the picture of a district ruled by out-of-control Arab boys bullying every passer-by with impunity is very far from not just my own personal experience, but also those of my female flatmate, my girlfriend at the time and all my other female friends who came to visit…
I don’t know whether the district has got much worse over the last year, or what, but certainly my first thought on seeing the raids was “that’s a bit OTT for a few nicked mobiles”, not “woo yay, Robocop is cleansing the evil neighbourhood scum”.
john b’s last blog post..Point of order