Sauerkraut
25-12-2021, 06:51 PM
Clearing out my Drive, I found the following sent to Police Scotland on 20 Dec 2016, exactly 7 months after 21/05. :flag:
Just wondered if anyone has any comment before its binned. Needless to say, no reply, but I must say, the waste of resource did seem to slow up after this...coincidence I'm sure.
The Scottish Cup Final Pitch Investigation
Today I read via online Press that Police are continuing to release images of people they wish to talk to in respect of misbehaviour at the match on May 21st. ‘Detectives are investigating’ and quite rightly so, acts of violence, disorder and vandalism. I pay my national and local taxes precisely to have the Police carry out such activity. Take it from me, I am ‘on your side’.
Except not exactly so. I also have a reasonable expectation that Police Scotland might conduct their enquiries in a prompt and appropriate manner. Drip-feeding grainy mugshots to a lazy Press over a period of 7 months only serves to elongate the process and delay justice. It perpetuates further suspicion and mistrust between (that day’s) opposing factions, and reinforces to a wider audience the media-inspired notion that we were witnessing a full-blown riot, which is absolute tosh. It may even, I have no evidence, give scope for mischief-making via false identification by those with a grievance.
I stayed in my seat, but I was perfectly positioned to witness 5,000 Hibs supporters of both sexes and all ages take to the pitch, nearly all via opened security gates. They were deliriously happy, carried no weapons, and clearly just felt the need to celebrate being ‘there’.
A bad element from both clubs then went too far, and the violent ones should have been identified and dealt with by now. Full stop. A further (Hibs) element were responsible for wrecking the goals and digging up the playing surface. Lamentable, wrong, stupid, thoughtless, but not the Poll Tax Riots or anything like it, so their actions should be viewed and dealt with in some different context.
Police Scotland’s determination to keep this in the public eye smacks of petty defensiveness. We have all heard rumours (yes, very persistent ones) of large-scale Police re-deployments towards south-west Glasgow long before the match had ended. Whether the rumours are true or not, the absence of Policing at the final whistle was extremely obvious. Leaving poorly paid and trained security staff to deal with the potential for invasion was, at best, a huge misjudgement. The suspicion has to be that the score (at 75 or 80 minutes) was the deciding factor for the decision-maker. That may beg another question but I won’t go there.
People, including Police Commanders, make mistakes. One way of maintaining public trust is to confront those mistakes head-on and NOT to make diversionary responses or to over-react. I will mention Hillsborough and Orgreave, but will contrast those with Trafalgar Square or Tottenham. The nature, scale and malevolence of the disturbances in the latter cases were clear to the wider public, and the Police response during and after was robustly supported. Hampden Park on 21st May was not such an occasion. The investigation into the worst offenders should have happened swiftly and (by now) have been a thing of the past.
Perhaps, rather than looking at still more mugshots (and a number may be innocent of any wrongdoing) you should be taking a step back and having a look at yourself. This Policing by a series of context-less media-shots does not make for a particularly pretty image.
I do hope that you have a safe and thriving New Year.
Yours faithfully
(Sauerkraut)
Just wondered if anyone has any comment before its binned. Needless to say, no reply, but I must say, the waste of resource did seem to slow up after this...coincidence I'm sure.
The Scottish Cup Final Pitch Investigation
Today I read via online Press that Police are continuing to release images of people they wish to talk to in respect of misbehaviour at the match on May 21st. ‘Detectives are investigating’ and quite rightly so, acts of violence, disorder and vandalism. I pay my national and local taxes precisely to have the Police carry out such activity. Take it from me, I am ‘on your side’.
Except not exactly so. I also have a reasonable expectation that Police Scotland might conduct their enquiries in a prompt and appropriate manner. Drip-feeding grainy mugshots to a lazy Press over a period of 7 months only serves to elongate the process and delay justice. It perpetuates further suspicion and mistrust between (that day’s) opposing factions, and reinforces to a wider audience the media-inspired notion that we were witnessing a full-blown riot, which is absolute tosh. It may even, I have no evidence, give scope for mischief-making via false identification by those with a grievance.
I stayed in my seat, but I was perfectly positioned to witness 5,000 Hibs supporters of both sexes and all ages take to the pitch, nearly all via opened security gates. They were deliriously happy, carried no weapons, and clearly just felt the need to celebrate being ‘there’.
A bad element from both clubs then went too far, and the violent ones should have been identified and dealt with by now. Full stop. A further (Hibs) element were responsible for wrecking the goals and digging up the playing surface. Lamentable, wrong, stupid, thoughtless, but not the Poll Tax Riots or anything like it, so their actions should be viewed and dealt with in some different context.
Police Scotland’s determination to keep this in the public eye smacks of petty defensiveness. We have all heard rumours (yes, very persistent ones) of large-scale Police re-deployments towards south-west Glasgow long before the match had ended. Whether the rumours are true or not, the absence of Policing at the final whistle was extremely obvious. Leaving poorly paid and trained security staff to deal with the potential for invasion was, at best, a huge misjudgement. The suspicion has to be that the score (at 75 or 80 minutes) was the deciding factor for the decision-maker. That may beg another question but I won’t go there.
People, including Police Commanders, make mistakes. One way of maintaining public trust is to confront those mistakes head-on and NOT to make diversionary responses or to over-react. I will mention Hillsborough and Orgreave, but will contrast those with Trafalgar Square or Tottenham. The nature, scale and malevolence of the disturbances in the latter cases were clear to the wider public, and the Police response during and after was robustly supported. Hampden Park on 21st May was not such an occasion. The investigation into the worst offenders should have happened swiftly and (by now) have been a thing of the past.
Perhaps, rather than looking at still more mugshots (and a number may be innocent of any wrongdoing) you should be taking a step back and having a look at yourself. This Policing by a series of context-less media-shots does not make for a particularly pretty image.
I do hope that you have a safe and thriving New Year.
Yours faithfully
(Sauerkraut)